[00:00.880 --> 00:06.700]  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sanghoon Lee. I'm an Applied Data Fellow at the
[00:06.700 --> 00:13.200]  University of Chicago. Today I want to present about my paper, Vote From Home, Evaluation
[00:13.200 --> 00:20.640]  Framework for Election Security on Remote Voting in Response to COVID-19. So because it's my first
[00:20.640 --> 00:27.220]  time to present in DEF CON, I just wanted to give some brief intro about myself. I am a recent
[00:27.220 --> 00:34.320]  policy degree graduate with both engineering and economics background. I was born and lived in
[00:34.320 --> 00:40.480]  South Korea, and I lived in Japan and the United States as well. And in the United States, I used
[00:40.480 --> 00:45.940]  to live in Illinois, New Hampshire, and now in Wisconsin. I worked in the South Korean government
[00:45.940 --> 00:52.640]  agencies in cybersecurity, namely Korea Internet and Security Agency and National Security Research
[00:52.640 --> 01:00.980]  Institute. I'm a member of ITUT study group 17 security, so I used to make some recommendations
[01:00.980 --> 01:08.480]  and also I reviewed the standardization recommendations from others. And well,
[01:08.480 --> 01:15.860]  recently I am not joining very actively. However, it was one of the good part of my job as well.
[01:16.580 --> 01:20.640]  I'm interested in cybersecurity, quantitative methods,
[01:20.640 --> 01:27.240]  and global conflict, especially cyber conflict. Well, maybe that's because I'm from South Korea
[01:27.240 --> 01:33.640]  because we have a North Korea facing. But still, this is my interest and it's a short intro about
[01:33.640 --> 01:44.880]  myself. So let's talk about COVID-19. As of 28th of July, total confirmed COVID-19 cases
[01:44.880 --> 01:51.400]  marked more than 60.5 million, while the United States having the highest number of cases.
[01:51.780 --> 01:58.320]  Global deaths caused by this infectious disease, infectious virus, are more than half million,
[01:58.540 --> 02:04.980]  while the United States have the highest death toll. Regardless of having been contained or not,
[02:04.980 --> 02:10.120]  the deadly virus spread by human contact has changed our daily so differently.
[02:11.200 --> 02:17.240]  So as a grad student, I had to see my graduation ceremony. As a former graduate student,
[02:17.240 --> 02:26.180]  I had to see my graduation ceremony on YouTube. And a number of workplaces had shifted to work
[02:26.180 --> 02:34.820]  from home. So some of them are working like this, or like this, and your office is closed like this.
[02:35.660 --> 02:41.120]  We found a number of possibilities and threats at the same time while working from home,
[02:41.120 --> 02:44.360]  including cyber threats. Then how about the democracy?
[02:46.040 --> 02:52.220]  On April 7th, the state of Wisconsin held its in-person primary election as a preparation
[02:52.220 --> 03:02.440]  for the presidential elections scheduled on November. However, because of the public health
[03:02.440 --> 03:10.180]  concerns, 14 other states have postponed their elections, the primary elections. And here you
[03:10.180 --> 03:16.720]  can see the United States is not the only country to postpone the election. A lot of countries all
[03:16.720 --> 03:22.900]  over the world have postponed indefinitely or rescheduled their elections due to COVID-19
[03:22.900 --> 03:31.160]  outbreak. Meanwhile, you could see a number of alternative methods to vote, so vote from home.
[03:31.680 --> 03:39.920]  And to vote from home, there are a number of suggestions how to vote from home. First is about
[03:39.920 --> 03:47.440]  mail, vote by mail. Second is about voting online. And third, well, this is also part of voting
[03:47.440 --> 03:57.640]  online, but because a lot of public perception of blockchain seems to have a transparency and
[03:57.640 --> 04:05.940]  accuracy, I also included blockchain here. However, we need to ask a question, are they
[04:05.940 --> 04:11.780]  trustworthy? I already know that history of voting village starts from the questioning
[04:11.780 --> 04:17.740]  cybersecurity of election infrastructure. Not only such cases of voting machine hacking,
[04:17.740 --> 04:23.840]  disinformation, I wanted to emphasize how the remote voting method involving technology and
[04:23.840 --> 04:29.200]  not involving technology as well is vulnerable, while more public interest and research is
[04:29.200 --> 04:36.240]  required in this field with cross-disciplinary approach, like what I've done right now.
[04:36.340 --> 04:44.920]  So first, let's talk about elections, democracy, and COVID-19. Election is a cornerstone of
[04:44.920 --> 04:51.460]  democracy, and it's a central feature and a basic predicate of democracy. The primary mechanism to
[04:51.460 --> 04:57.600]  select and to check, so check and balance the political leader, and it allows electors to
[04:57.600 --> 05:06.640]  participate in the governance of the country and also the municipality. And COVID-19, because the
[05:06.640 --> 05:13.820]  COVID-19 outbreak is a very serious issue in public health, government responses usually involve
[05:13.820 --> 05:19.200]  mobility restriction, social distancing, and restrictions on economic freedom, business
[05:19.200 --> 05:28.180]  operations, and organizational activities. As a result, the state stay-at-home restriction
[05:28.180 --> 05:36.620]  orders affected to reduce mobility by 7.87%, and we've seen a lot of civil unrest against the
[05:36.620 --> 05:43.000]  government orders, and it's happening right now as well. And we also see a lot of cases
[05:43.000 --> 05:48.460]  of disinformation campaigns to install the public distrust within the society.
[05:49.920 --> 05:56.780]  On elections, first, it discourages voters from casting a vote because it's dangerous for you to
[05:56.780 --> 06:03.880]  cast a vote in person. Second, that there is a varied impact which induces the postponement
[06:03.880 --> 06:11.300]  putting off the election. Third, electoral cycle as a whole can be posed with various types of risk.
[06:11.300 --> 06:19.740]  Electoral cycle here, in the table below, I mentioned about the three different electoral
[06:19.740 --> 06:25.640]  cycle, which is pre-electoral, electoral, and post-electoral. They all has a risk due to the
[06:25.640 --> 06:34.680]  COVID-19, and usually the risk is about limits on fiscal meetings. And in this paper, not my own
[06:34.680 --> 06:42.000]  paper, the paper which I referenced, he suggests that most of the mitigation method would be
[06:42.000 --> 06:50.120]  online. So access to the internet and have a meeting at there, have a training at there,
[06:50.120 --> 06:58.040]  and diffuse the information at there. And there is a way of voting online, and there's a postal
[06:58.040 --> 07:06.380]  voting. And at the same time, after the election, there is online review, online meeting sessions,
[07:06.380 --> 07:12.080]  and documentations can be transferred online, and we can have even online parliaments, just like we
[07:12.080 --> 07:22.690]  have seen recent testimony of the big techs. So what I wanted to deliver is the assessment
[07:22.690 --> 07:31.550]  framework on remote voting security. The framework evaluates in-person voter verifiable
[07:31.550 --> 07:38.790]  voting versus remote voting methods. The criteria is software independence, accuracy, fairness,
[07:38.790 --> 07:46.070]  trustworthiness, and secret vote. The software independence here is defined as a voting system
[07:46.070 --> 07:51.810]  is software independent if an undetected change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable
[07:51.810 --> 07:58.090]  change or error in an election outcome. And it's defined in 2008 by Professor Rivest.
[07:59.710 --> 08:09.710]  And here, during the evaluation, first, I didn't distinguish between the internet and mobile
[08:09.710 --> 08:18.350]  voting, because they're both basically both of them are network method of voting. And vote by
[08:18.350 --> 08:24.010]  mail is defined as a voting method using paper ballots casted by a mailing service.
[08:24.290 --> 08:31.130]  The traditional voting is in-person method with paper ballots. However, I did not consider DREs,
[08:31.130 --> 08:37.430]  because you know what? We already have plenty of knowledge of how DREs are exposed to cyber
[08:37.430 --> 08:45.070]  threats. And this research only considers the electoral cycle, so the election itself.
[08:47.440 --> 08:55.420]  The criteria for the criteria are first, software independence. I measured this yes or no.
[08:55.420 --> 09:01.840]  Second, accuracy, whether the vote is accurate or not by three different levels. Third, fairness,
[09:01.840 --> 09:09.320]  whether the vote has a fair chance to cast a vote by the electorates by three different levels.
[09:09.320 --> 09:15.060]  Fourth, trustworthiness, it's also about whether the vote is trustworthy,
[09:15.800 --> 09:22.100]  and especially whether the results are trustworthy. Fifth, the secrecy is about
[09:22.100 --> 09:29.020]  whether the casting of votes is assured with the secret vote principle.
[09:31.360 --> 09:38.080]  And the criteria measures of in-person voting with three different voting methods,
[09:38.080 --> 09:45.140]  remote voting methods. First, online voting. Second, vote by mail. And third, blockchain.
[09:45.140 --> 09:52.580]  Because blockchain, as I mentioned before, is considered as they're very safe and transparent
[09:53.080 --> 10:02.600]  because the blocks are distributed. So I included this as a method to evaluate within my framework.
[10:03.400 --> 10:11.180]  And the evaluation results are like this. As I mentioned, I evaluated internet voting,
[10:11.180 --> 10:16.140]  blockchain, vote by mail, and traditional method. In terms of software independence,
[10:16.140 --> 10:22.200]  because internet and blockchain both involve software, it is not independent. However,
[10:22.200 --> 10:28.180]  vote by mail is software independent. And in traditional method, it is yes, it is indeed
[10:28.180 --> 10:34.100]  independent. Accuracy, internet voting, blockchain voting, we already found the
[10:34.100 --> 10:40.560]  vulnerabilities that may change the results of the voting. So it's not assured. While vote by
[10:40.560 --> 10:46.940]  mail is partially assured. However, we also need to consider the other points apart from the
[10:46.940 --> 10:55.400]  cybersecurity. So I cannot say this is fully assured. And about the traditional, yes, it's
[10:55.400 --> 11:04.600]  assured. Under the consideration that the vote is fairly administered. And fairness,
[11:04.600 --> 11:11.260]  internet and blockchain, it's partially fair because apart from cybersecurity, not a lot of
[11:11.260 --> 11:16.040]  people may have access to internet or blockchain technology. So that's why I mentioned, I'll
[11:16.040 --> 11:24.640]  explain this some more later. Vote by mail, it's seemingly fair. And traditional method, I think
[11:24.640 --> 11:30.640]  it's the most fair method. And trustworthiness, it's vulnerable for both internet and blockchain
[11:30.640 --> 11:38.340]  method. And vote by mail is less vulnerable. It cannot, it cannot say it's fully editable.
[11:38.440 --> 11:46.300]  However, in traditional method, it is editable and safe. And for the secret vote principle,
[11:46.300 --> 11:52.580]  it's also safe. Internet and blockchains are vulnerable. And vote by mail is less vulnerable.
[11:52.580 --> 12:01.020]  And traditional method is editable and safe. This measurement, this measurement evaluation
[12:01.020 --> 12:09.020]  was provided by all the research referenced by myself. So if you see the, if you read the paper,
[12:09.020 --> 12:17.080]  you can see the references from this all results. And to make some points, first,
[12:17.080 --> 12:23.700]  voting and internet voting vulnerabilities are not zero-day. They have, I can, even at
[12:24.340 --> 12:30.900]  a non-cybersecurity technology professional, a non-hacking professional as me, can, could find
[12:31.700 --> 12:39.380]  a number of vulnerabilities are listed from academic papers. And also some corporate reports
[12:39.380 --> 12:46.360]  as well. And vote by mail is exposed to such issues as vote for sale, identification issue,
[12:47.080 --> 12:52.700]  which may undermine its credibility. And as I just mentioned, involving technological
[12:52.700 --> 13:00.600]  equipment is not free from digital divide. Well, a lot of researchers, a lot of researchers
[13:00.600 --> 13:08.060]  tell that, tell that the use of, the increased use of technology and division of technology,
[13:08.060 --> 13:13.240]  especially the information of communications technology, leads to a better human progress,
[13:13.240 --> 13:20.420]  enhanced opportunity, more freedom and more civil rights. However, still, because it's not
[13:20.420 --> 13:27.820]  affordable to everyone, it is likely to face a digital divide in there. And this may be an
[13:27.820 --> 13:33.660]  international issue, but it also could be a domestic issue, which is very critical to,
[13:34.280 --> 13:39.440]  critical to consider while administering the election. At the same time, not everyone is
[13:39.440 --> 13:46.540]  digitally literate. So, for me, if I am provided with some guidelines, I can cast a vote by
[13:46.540 --> 13:54.120]  blockchain applications or internet. However, it is not, it is not fully possible to
[13:54.820 --> 14:02.220]  give proper explanation at the different literacy levels over the age groups. So,
[14:02.220 --> 14:07.220]  not everyone is digitally literate. So, this is the thing that we should consider further.
[14:08.160 --> 14:14.500]  And to make some remarks here, paper ballots are seemingly invincible towards cyber threats
[14:14.500 --> 14:20.920]  posed on remote voting by a cheap software independence. However, we also need to require
[14:20.920 --> 14:27.260]  operational transparency while administering the election. Second, unlike other features of the
[14:27.260 --> 14:35.880]  internet, blockchain, remote voting is essentially exposed to cyber threats. And third, the results
[14:35.880 --> 14:44.020]  suggest that further concerns on administering election remotely, so such as like a digital
[14:44.020 --> 14:52.800]  divide, and we also need to be aware of some terrorist groups who want to undermine the
[14:52.800 --> 15:01.180]  election credibility. So, hijack the transportation methods or something. We have a lot of risk,
[15:01.180 --> 15:05.680]  not only cyber risk, but also physical risk here. So, we need to consider those kind of
[15:05.680 --> 15:10.700]  as well. Fourth, the levels determined on the evaluation criteria are not contending
[15:10.700 --> 15:16.720]  immunity of safety, reliability, or auditability beyond the codes and packets. So, it has a room
[15:16.720 --> 15:23.420]  to develop, and it's a room to consider for more, and more discussions, more research should be
[15:23.420 --> 15:31.380]  involved in here. So, not because I'm from South Korea, I wanted to introduce one best practice
[15:31.920 --> 15:39.120]  from South Korea for election. South Korea was also not free from COVID-19 at the moment
[15:39.120 --> 15:47.020]  of election, April. South Korea was one of the top 10 countries with its numbers of infected people.
[15:47.020 --> 15:51.600]  At the same time, South Korea also had its national election to vote for the members
[15:51.600 --> 15:57.660]  of the National Assembly. Interestingly, the election results on April 15 to 2020
[15:57.660 --> 16:04.940]  turned out to show no new domestic coronavirus cases related to the election. So, how is this
[16:04.940 --> 16:11.700]  possible? The voting does not involve voting machines in Korea, so we don't use DREs. It is
[16:11.700 --> 16:18.240]  fully traditional in-person paper ballot voting. With further resources, South Korea was one of
[16:18.240 --> 16:23.940]  most available to administer its election safely, not by special recipe, but by very
[16:23.940 --> 16:36.140]  principle basics. Masks being required, gloves were handed to the voters by the election
[16:36.140 --> 16:43.960]  administration, and they had to keep the distance, social distancing, and the temperatures were
[16:43.960 --> 16:51.760]  checked for all the voters who participated the election. It was simple but effective method to
[16:51.760 --> 16:58.900]  contain the virus from spreading. So, what I want to deliver from this practice is that regardless
[16:58.900 --> 17:05.560]  of how the virus is out there, still in-person traditional voting is available. And we also
[17:05.560 --> 17:12.340]  need to consider about that. So, in conclusion, without paper ballots, online voting is very
[17:12.340 --> 17:18.840]  vulnerable, as we all know. And if and only if in-person voting is unavailable, our second best
[17:18.840 --> 17:25.660]  option is the vote by mail. And in-person with paper ballot election is not an impossible option
[17:25.660 --> 17:34.040]  as we've seen from South Korea and a nationwide election. And the further thing that I want to
[17:34.040 --> 17:40.200]  mention is first, we need to have a better operational capacity in administering the election.
[17:40.840 --> 17:48.320]  Second, we need to recall the higher interest by the electorates, the voters. And finally,
[17:48.700 --> 17:54.420]  we also need not only the general interest, but further research is required. Not only
[17:54.420 --> 18:00.800]  cybersecurity, but also fiscal security, operational security, and how to optimize the
[18:00.800 --> 18:09.240]  voting process. All of them are required and should be considered multidisciplinary. So,
[18:09.240 --> 18:14.940]  thank you for your time and I'm open to questions. So, please send me an email or
[18:14.940 --> 18:21.240]  talk, shoot me a message through discord and any other method. Thank you for listening.