Monthly Archives: October 2023

Cyber Security Newsletter 2023-10-12 (i-voting / RK2023)

Other events (not related to RK2023):

Research articles:

  • [2023-08-23] A research article by Tobias Hilt, Kati Sein (Cybernetica), Tanel Mallo (Cybernetica), Melanie Volkamer and Jan Willemson (Cybernetica): “Voter Perception of Cast-as-Intended Verifiability in the Estonian i-vote protocol”. The researchers performed semi-structured interviews with 13 voters to investigate the perception of individual verifiability in online elections in the aftermath of the 2013 parliamentary election in Estonia. The study finds that the voters clearly lack comprehension of the real purpose of the verifiability step (i.e., to detect a malware attack).
    https://research.cyber.ee/~janwil/publ/voterperception.pdf
    https://twitter.com/EVoteID/status/1709556280216412465/photo/1
    https://twitter.com/trtram/status/1653773719960006657
  • [2023-09-22] A research article by Jan Willemson (Cybernetica) and Kristjan Krips (Cybernetica/UT): “Estimating carbon footprint of paper and Internet voting”. The paper compares the carbon footprint of paper voting in polling stations with the emissions of i-voting in KOV2023. The results show that paper voting has about a 180 times higher carbon footprint, owing largely to the need to transport the voters to the polling stations and back.
    https://research.cyber.ee/~janwil/publ/VotingCO2.pdf
    https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-43756-4_9
  • [2022-10-01] A research article by Piret Ehin (UT), Mihkel Solvak (UT), Jan Willemson (Cybernetica) and Priit Vinkel (Cybernetica): “Internet voting in Estonia 2005–2019: Evidence from eleven elections”. The article examines Internet voting in Estonia over 15 years and 11 nation-wide elections.
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740624X2200051X
  • [2022-09-24] A research article by Cornelia Sindermann, Dmitri Rozgonjuk (UT), Mihkel Solvak (UT), Anu Realo (UT) and Kristjan Vassil (UT): “Internet voting: the role of personality traits and trust across three parliamentary elections in Estonia”. The researchers investigated what affects the decision to use or not use internet voting. The work indicates that, out of the Big Five personality traits, it is only Agreeableness that seems to be related to trust in internet voting and the use of internet voting.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-022-03644-4
  • [2022-07-19] A research article by Jan Willemson (Cybernetica): “Towards Identifying Social Factors behind (In)Efficiency of Voting Security Measures”. In this article, the author analyzes various social factors that could explain why different countries implement different security measures in their voting systems. E.g., why in Switzerland coercion and vote buying is not part of the threat model, while voting systems in other countries try to implement measures against these attacks.
    https://www.jedem.org/index.php/jedem/article/view/673
  • [2022-06-08] Kristjan Krips (Cybernetica/UT) defended his PhD thesis “Privacy and coercion resistance in voting”. Among other things, the work contains a great amount of information about the Estonian i-voting system. The work indicates that the attack resistance of paper voting tends to be overestimated, while the Estonian internet voting system could also be improved.
    https://ut.ee/en/node/138599
    https://kuku.pleier.ee/podcast/kuue-samba-taga/132123
    https://novaator.err.ee/1608635968/doktoritoo-e-haaletamise-kontrollitavusele-seab-piirid-haalteostmise-risk
  • [2022-06-06] A research article by Maris Vutt (UT): “Electronic Voting in Adopting Resolutions of Limited Companies: The Example of Estonian Law”. The article provides an overview of how Estonian companies implement electronic voting in shareholders’ meetings. The author finds that although the law contains no precise requirements, it should be taken into account that the procedure laid down for electronic voting must ensure the identification of shareholders as well as the security and reliability of electronic voting.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.13165/j.icj.2022.06.007