ORG report

You can't have missed that ORG have release their report on this years pilots. Unsurprisingly they've declared them a 'threat' to democracy, couldn't have seen that coming could we? A few problems with their reporting method though:

• The outcome of the report had already been decided, i.e. eVoting bad.
• Individual reports on pilots are not available, instead we get the edited highlights, i.e. the juicy bad bits, no breakdowns on how each pilot fared. Guess we'll have to wait for the Electoral Commissions report before we get that.
• Makes recommendations for how to improve the process, whilst slamming the very idea, strange contradiction.

Something occurred to me whilst reading the report though. It's when Jason talks about Opt2Vote using .NET (no not on the client Jason, their solution is ASP.NET it's server side, but let's not let technical accuracy get in the way of a bit of good old MS bashing eh?) and bangs on about how Java is better, and then in a piece about auditing (about how there's no crypto that proves they were audited in the correct order, such as using dodgy hashing techniques). The two are subtle pointers towards... GNU.FREE! This fits with Jason's assertions that the process needs fixing whilst slamming the very idea... get the current round of pilots pulled and get GNU.Free involved.

Having said all that I'd have to agree that a more stringent testing and accreditation regime would be beneficial, perhaps Jason & ORG would like to put in some constructive comment on how this can be achieved? Unlikely.