Thread by @KimZetter

Researchers find backdoor in Swiss online voting system that would let someone replace all ballots with fraudulent ones. “No election system should have a backdoor that allows the people running the election... to undetectably modify the election outcome.” motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…

“I don’t think this was deliberate. However, if I set out to design a backdoor that allowed someone to compromise the election, it would look exactly like this.” motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…

“The vulnerability is astonishing. In normal elections, there is no single person who could undetectably defraud the entire election. But in this system they built, there is a party who could do that.” motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…

“We have only examined a tiny fraction of this code base and found a critical, election-stealing issue. Even if this [backdoor] is closed its mere existence raises serious questions about the integrity of the rest of the code.”

Here’s a link to the researchers’ paper describing the “astonishing” backdoor just found in the new Swiss online voting system. people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/vjteague/Unive…

And here’s a link to the full response from Swiss Post about the critical backdoor researchers found in their new Swiss online voting system. post.ch/en/about-us/co…

Here’s great thread from researcher @SarahJamieLewis about backdoor her group found. “Do not let people minimize this issue. This isn't ‘some random hacker can steal an election’ this is ‘SwissPost can prove they didn't steal an election, even if they did’

https://mobile.twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/1105378257317191680

@SarahJamieLewis Despite serious nature of backdoor in Swiss voting system, it likely won’t turn Swiss voters against system, people in Switzerland tell me. Last week a study found that 67% of Swiss support the system and only 8% oppose it. If anyone stops program, it will have to be officials.