E-voting is (too) secure
Anto Veldre writes about yet another attack against Estonian e-elections that started this week: again political, again not technical.
Electronic or online, i.e. i-voting? The Americans only learnt to distinguish between these two in the last couple of years. They couldn’t have online voting (which is what we call i-voting), as they don’t have anything like our ID card and PKI. The real issue isn’t about the physical, plastic ID card, but about a nationally supported PKI system (Public Key Infrastructure), which makes it possible to identify the cardholder remotely by electronic channels and to make sure that the signature they give is authentic. This service, provided by Estonia’s Certificate Authority, is the very ‘magic’ that allows Estonian banks, the Tax Board or small company websites to identify people electronically.
The glad news is that the Estonian online voting system is still secure and we can use it to vote again in a couple of days. We’re grateful to our foreign guests for these little crumbs that will help us make the e-voting procedure even better in the future. Those of you who suspect a computer virus at home – do make sure you head your polling station on the day of the elections!
We have the only functioning nationwide e-voting system in the world! Let’s be proud!
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