Quantum cryptography to secure ballots in Swiss election
Advanced form of cryptography uses photons to exchange encryption keys
By
Ellen Messmer
,
Network World
, 10/11/2007
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Swiss officials are using quantum cryptography technology to protect voting ballots cast in the Geneva region of Switzerland during parliamentary elections to be held Oct. 21, marking
the first time this type of advanced encryption will be used for election protection purposes.
Still considered an area of advanced research, quantum cryptography uses photons to carry encryption keys to secure communications
over fiber-optic lines and can automatically detect if anyone is trying to eavesdrop on a communications stream. For the Swiss
ballot-collection process, the quantum cryptography system made by id Quantique will be used to secure the link between the central ballot-counting station in downtown Geneva and a government data center
in the suburbs.
“We would like to provide optimal security conditions for the work of counting the ballots,” said Robert Hensler, the Geneva
State Chancellor, in a statement issued today. “In this context, the value added by quantum cryptography concerns not so much
protection from outside attempts to interfere as the ability to verify that the data have not been corrupted in transit between
entry and storage.”
The use of quantum cryptography in the voting process will showcase technology developed in Switzerland. The firm id Quantique,
based in Carouge, grew out of research done at the University of Geneva by Professor Nicolas Gisin and his team back in the
mid-1990s.
According to id Quantique’s CEO Gregoire Ribordy, the firm’s Cerberis product, developed in collaboration with Australian company Senetas, will be used for the point-to-point
encryption of ballot information sent over a telecommunications line from the central ballot-counting station to the government
data center.
Ribordy said the Swiss canton of Geneva — there are 26 cantons throughout all Switzerland — has about 200,000 registered voters who will either go to the polls on Oct. 21 and cast their
vote, or vote by mail.
“The votes cast by mail are all collected in the days before the election and all brought to the central counting station
on Oct. 21,” Ribordy said.
“Once the election is closed – at noon on Sunday, Oct. 21 – the sealed ballot boxes of all the polling stations are brought
to the central counting station, where they are opened and where the votes are mixed with the mail votes. Counting them is
then manually done at the central counting station. People counting the votes at this central station use computers to transfer
the counts to the data center of the canton of Geneva,” Ribordy explained.
He said the quantum-cryptography system is ready to be put into action. Ribordy doesn’t think the high-speed link has been
encrypted by any means in the past, but he added that the IT department of the Swiss government is not sharing a lot of information
on certain details for security reasons.
The use of quantum cryptography in the Swiss election marks the start of the “SwissQuantum” project managed by Professor Gisin,
with support from the National Center of Competence in Quantum Photonics Research in Switzerland.
Comments (4)
RE: Quantum cryptography to secure ballots in Swiss electionBy nullcrux on October 13, 2007, 1:50 pmIt's just true that it can't be eavesdropped on. It's actually easier to eavesdrop on fiber traffic because the exposed fibers can simply be bent at the right angle...
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RE: Quantum cryptography to secure ballots in Swiss electionBy nullcrux on October 13, 2007, 1:53 pm*not true* it's not true...
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Ok...By UmOK on October 15, 2007, 8:20 pmGood luck sending a message thats "not" tampered with. Crossing through all that traffic its bound to run into a hitch. No one will be able to vote because...
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Little explanationBy jijitus on October 17, 2007, 12:48 pmIt can be eavesdropped on. *But* physics say the photons will be affected so the other end will know there's someone in the middle... or the fiber is broken. That...
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