WEBVTT 00:00.880 --> 00:03.200 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 00:03.420 --> 00:04.960 My name is Sanghoon Lee. 00:04.960 --> 00:08.020 I'm an Applied Data Fellow at the University of Chicago. 00:08.480 --> 00:17.940 Today I want to present about my paper, Vote From Home, Evaluation Framework for Election Security on Remote Voting in Response to COVID-19. 00:19.000 --> 00:25.420 So because it's my first time to present in DEF CON, I just wanted to give some brief intro about myself. 00:25.420 --> 00:32.400 I am a recent policy degree graduate with both engineering and economics background. 00:32.820 --> 00:38.880 I was born and lived in South Korea, and I lived in Japan and the United States as well. 00:39.200 --> 00:43.960 And in the United States, I used to live in Illinois, New Hampshire, and now in Wisconsin. 00:44.440 --> 00:53.720 I worked in the South Korean government agencies in cybersecurity, namely Korea Internet and Security Agency and National Security Research Institute. 00:54.220 --> 01:06.860 I'm a member of ITUT study group 17 security, so I used to make some recommendations and also I reviewed the standardization recommendations from others. 01:07.180 --> 01:11.560 And well, recently I am not joining very actively. 01:11.560 --> 01:15.860 However, it was one of the good part of my job as well. 01:16.580 --> 01:24.240 I'm interested in cybersecurity, quantitative methods, and global conflict, especially cyber conflict. 01:24.240 --> 01:30.060 Well, maybe that's because I'm from South Korea because we have a North Korea facing. 01:30.120 --> 01:34.840 But still, this is my interest and it's a short intro about myself. 01:35.760 --> 01:38.880 So let's talk about COVID-19. 01:39.040 --> 01:51.400 As of 28th of July, total confirmed COVID-19 cases marked more than 60.5 million, while the United States having the highest number of cases. 01:51.780 --> 02:02.080 Global deaths caused by this infectious disease, infectious virus, are more than half million, while the United States have the highest death toll. 02:02.080 --> 02:10.120 Regardless of having been contained or not, the deadly virus spread by human contact has changed our daily so differently. 02:11.200 --> 02:15.320 So as a grad student, I had to see my graduation ceremony. 02:15.320 --> 02:20.420 As a former graduate student, I had to see my graduation ceremony on YouTube. 02:20.880 --> 02:27.300 And a number of workplaces had shifted to work from home. 02:27.400 --> 02:34.820 So some of them are working like this, or like this, and your office is closed like this. 02:35.660 --> 02:42.620 We found a number of possibilities and threats at the same time while working from home, including cyber threats. 02:42.620 --> 02:44.360 Then how about the democracy? 02:46.040 --> 02:56.680 On April 7th, the state of Wisconsin held its in-person primary election as a preparation for the presidential elections scheduled on November. 02:59.000 --> 03:08.940 However, because of the public health concerns, 14 other states have postponed their elections, the primary elections. 03:08.940 --> 03:15.180 And here you can see the United States is not the only country to postpone the election. 03:15.480 --> 03:24.120 A lot of countries all over the world have postponed indefinitely or rescheduled their elections due to COVID-19 outbreak. 03:24.680 --> 03:31.160 Meanwhile, you could see a number of alternative methods to vote, so vote from home. 03:31.680 --> 03:39.040 And to vote from home, there are a number of suggestions how to vote from home. 03:39.040 --> 03:41.760 First is about mail, vote by mail. 03:41.760 --> 03:44.300 Second is about voting online. 03:44.500 --> 04:01.620 And third, well, this is also part of voting online, but because a lot of public perception of blockchain seems to have a transparency and accuracy, I also included blockchain here. 04:02.540 --> 04:07.080 However, we need to ask a question, are they trustworthy? 04:07.480 --> 04:14.860 I already know that history of voting village starts from the questioning cybersecurity of election infrastructure. 04:14.860 --> 04:32.480 Not only such cases of voting machine hacking, disinformation, I wanted to emphasize how the remote voting method involving technology and not involving technology as well is vulnerable, while more public interest and research is required in this field with cross-disciplinary approach, 04:32.480 --> 04:36.240 like what I've done right now. 04:36.340 --> 04:41.860 So first, let's talk about elections, democracy, and COVID-19. 04:42.560 --> 04:49.760 Election is a cornerstone of democracy, and it's a central feature and a basic predicate of democracy. 04:49.760 --> 05:02.360 The primary mechanism to select and to check, so check and balance the political leader, and it allows electors to participate in the governance of the country and also the municipality. 05:03.680 --> 05:22.300 And COVID-19, because the COVID-19 outbreak is a very serious issue in public health, government responses usually involve mobility restriction, social distancing, and restrictions on economic freedom, business operations, and organizational activities. 05:23.720 --> 05:40.480 As a result, the state stay-at-home restriction orders affected to reduce mobility by 7.87%, and we've seen a lot of civil unrest against the government orders, and it's happening right now as well. 05:40.480 --> 05:48.460 And we also see a lot of cases of disinformation campaigns to install the public distrust within the society. 05:49.920 --> 05:58.660 On elections, first, it discourages voters from casting a vote because it's dangerous for you to cast a vote in person. 05:58.660 --> 06:05.860 Second, that there is a varied impact which induces the postponement putting off the election. 06:06.200 --> 06:11.300 Third, electoral cycle as a whole can be posed with various types of risk. 06:11.300 --> 06:23.600 Electoral cycle here, in the table below, I mentioned about the three different electoral cycle, which is pre-electoral, electoral, and post-electoral. 06:23.600 --> 06:30.900 They all has a risk due to the COVID-19, and usually the risk is about limits on fiscal meetings. 06:31.260 --> 06:43.120 And in this paper, not my own paper, the paper which I referenced, he suggests that most of the mitigation method would be online. 06:43.220 --> 06:53.120 So access to the internet and have a meeting at there, have a training at there, and diffuse the information at there. 06:53.400 --> 06:58.940 And there is a way of voting online, and there's a postal voting. 06:59.280 --> 07:15.680 And at the same time, after the election, there is online review, online meeting sessions, and documentations can be transferred online, and we can have even online parliaments, just like we have seen recent testimony of the big techs. 07:19.830 --> 07:26.310 So what I wanted to deliver is the assessment framework on remote voting security. 07:27.330 --> 07:34.510 The framework evaluates in-person voter verifiable voting versus remote voting methods. 07:34.510 --> 07:41.330 The criteria is software independence, accuracy, fairness, trustworthiness, and secret vote. 07:41.430 --> 07:54.550 The software independence here is defined as a voting system is software independent if an undetected change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome. 07:54.550 --> 07:58.090 And it's defined in 2008 by Professor Rivest. 07:59.710 --> 08:17.650 And here, during the evaluation, first, I didn't distinguish between the internet and mobile voting, because they're both basically both of them are network method of voting. 08:17.650 --> 08:24.010 And vote by mail is defined as a voting method using paper ballots casted by a mailing service. 08:24.290 --> 08:27.950 The traditional voting is in-person method with paper ballots. 08:27.950 --> 08:32.230 However, I did not consider DREs, because you know what? 08:32.430 --> 08:38.530 We already have plenty of knowledge of how DREs are exposed to cyber threats. 08:38.590 --> 08:45.070 And this research only considers the electoral cycle, so the election itself. 08:47.440 --> 08:52.620 The criteria for the criteria are first, software independence. 08:52.620 --> 08:55.420 I measured this yes or no. 08:55.420 --> 09:00.540 Second, accuracy, whether the vote is accurate or not by three different levels. 09:00.540 --> 09:09.320 Third, fairness, whether the vote has a fair chance to cast a vote by the electorates by three different levels. 09:09.320 --> 09:19.460 Fourth, trustworthiness, it's also about whether the vote is trustworthy, and especially whether the results are trustworthy. 09:19.500 --> 09:29.020 Fifth, the secrecy is about whether the casting of votes is assured with the secret vote principle. 09:31.360 --> 09:39.440 And the criteria measures of in-person voting with three different voting methods, remote voting methods. 09:39.440 --> 09:41.820 First, online voting. 09:41.820 --> 09:43.620 Second, vote by mail. 09:43.620 --> 09:45.140 And third, blockchain. 09:45.140 --> 09:55.240 Because blockchain, as I mentioned before, is considered as they're very safe and transparent because the blocks are distributed. 09:55.240 --> 10:02.600 So I included this as a method to evaluate within my framework. 10:03.400 --> 10:06.640 And the evaluation results are like this. 10:06.940 --> 10:14.360 As I mentioned, I evaluated internet voting, blockchain, vote by mail, and traditional method. 10:14.460 --> 10:21.580 In terms of software independence, because internet and blockchain both involve software, it is not independent. 10:21.660 --> 10:24.740 However, vote by mail is software independent. 10:24.740 --> 10:29.220 And in traditional method, it is yes, it is indeed independent. 10:29.580 --> 10:38.000 Accuracy, internet voting, blockchain voting, we already found the vulnerabilities that may change the results of the voting. 10:38.000 --> 10:39.680 So it's not assured. 10:39.680 --> 10:42.360 While vote by mail is partially assured. 10:42.360 --> 10:47.940 However, we also need to consider the other points apart from the cybersecurity. 10:47.940 --> 10:52.820 So I cannot say this is fully assured. 10:53.020 --> 10:56.360 And about the traditional, yes, it's assured. 10:56.600 --> 11:03.320 Under the consideration that the vote is fairly administered. 11:03.320 --> 11:14.820 And fairness, internet and blockchain, it's partially fair because apart from cybersecurity, not a lot of people may have access to internet or blockchain technology. 11:14.820 --> 11:17.780 So that's why I mentioned, I'll explain this some more later. 11:18.600 --> 11:21.140 Vote by mail, it's seemingly fair. 11:21.140 --> 11:27.160 And traditional method, I think it's the most fair method. 11:27.200 --> 11:32.100 And trustworthiness, it's vulnerable for both internet and blockchain method. 11:32.300 --> 11:34.520 And vote by mail is less vulnerable. 11:34.520 --> 11:38.340 It cannot, it cannot say it's fully editable. 11:38.440 --> 11:43.680 However, in traditional method, it is editable and safe. 11:43.680 --> 11:47.760 And for the secret vote principle, it's also safe. 11:47.840 --> 11:50.400 Internet and blockchains are vulnerable. 11:50.500 --> 11:52.580 And vote by mail is less vulnerable. 11:52.580 --> 11:56.600 And traditional method is editable and safe. 11:57.380 --> 12:06.180 This measurement, this measurement evaluation was provided by all the research referenced by myself. 12:06.180 --> 12:12.800 So if you see the, if you read the paper, you can see the references from this all results. 12:13.840 --> 12:20.560 And to make some points, first, voting and internet voting vulnerabilities are not zero-day. 12:20.560 --> 12:36.340 They have, I can, even at a non-cybersecurity technology professional, a non-hacking professional as me, can, could find a number of vulnerabilities are listed from academic papers. 12:36.500 --> 12:40.320 And also some corporate reports as well. 12:40.320 --> 12:49.600 And vote by mail is exposed to such issues as vote for sale, identification issue, which may undermine its credibility. 12:50.100 --> 12:55.520 And as I just mentioned, involving technological equipment is not free from digital divide. 12:55.540 --> 13:14.940 Well, a lot of researchers, a lot of researchers tell that, tell that the use of, the increased use of technology and division of technology, especially the information of communications technology, leads to a better human progress, enhanced opportunity, 13:14.940 --> 13:17.700 more freedom and more civil rights. 13:17.700 --> 13:26.640 However, still, because it's not affordable to everyone, it is likely to face a digital divide in there. 13:26.640 --> 13:37.620 And this may be an international issue, but it also could be a domestic issue, which is very critical to, critical to consider while administering the election. 13:37.620 --> 13:40.780 At the same time, not everyone is digitally literate. 13:40.780 --> 13:49.520 So, for me, if I am provided with some guidelines, I can cast a vote by blockchain applications or internet. 13:49.520 --> 14:01.660 However, it is not, it is not fully possible to give proper explanation at the different literacy levels over the age groups. 14:01.660 --> 14:04.220 So, not everyone is digitally literate. 14:04.220 --> 14:07.220 So, this is the thing that we should consider further. 14:08.160 --> 14:17.580 And to make some remarks here, paper ballots are seemingly invincible towards cyber threats posed on remote voting by a cheap software independence. 14:17.580 --> 14:25.400 However, we also need to require operational transparency while administering the election. 14:25.400 --> 14:32.260 Second, unlike other features of the internet, blockchain, remote voting is essentially exposed to cyber threats. 14:32.260 --> 14:54.220 And third, the results suggest that further concerns on administering election remotely, so such as like a digital divide, and we also need to be aware of some terrorist groups who want to undermine the election credibility. 14:54.220 --> 14:59.620 So, hijack the transportation methods or something. 14:59.620 --> 15:03.880 We have a lot of risk, not only cyber risk, but also physical risk here. 15:03.880 --> 15:06.860 So, we need to consider those kind of as well. 15:07.120 --> 15:15.840 Fourth, the levels determined on the evaluation criteria are not contending immunity of safety, reliability, or auditability beyond the codes and packets. 15:15.840 --> 15:24.720 So, it has a room to develop, and it's a room to consider for more, and more discussions, more research should be involved in here. 15:26.120 --> 15:34.720 So, not because I'm from South Korea, I wanted to introduce one best practice from South Korea for election. 15:35.000 --> 15:41.220 South Korea was also not free from COVID-19 at the moment of election, April. 15:41.980 --> 15:47.020 South Korea was one of the top 10 countries with its numbers of infected people. 15:47.020 --> 15:53.360 At the same time, South Korea also had its national election to vote for the members of the National Assembly. 15:53.560 --> 16:03.580 Interestingly, the election results on April 15 to 2020 turned out to show no new domestic coronavirus cases related to the election. 16:03.660 --> 16:06.000 So, how is this possible? 16:06.100 --> 16:11.360 The voting does not involve voting machines in Korea, so we don't use DREs. 16:11.360 --> 16:14.920 It is fully traditional in-person paper ballot voting. 16:15.020 --> 16:26.640 With further resources, South Korea was one of most available to administer its election safely, not by special recipe, but by very principle basics. 16:26.960 --> 16:48.380 Masks being required, gloves were handed to the voters by the election administration, and they had to keep the distance, social distancing, and the temperatures were checked for all the voters who participated the election. 16:49.000 --> 16:54.360 It was simple but effective method to contain the virus from spreading. 16:54.980 --> 17:04.060 So, what I want to deliver from this practice is that regardless of how the virus is out there, still in-person traditional voting is available. 17:04.600 --> 17:07.360 And we also need to consider about that. 17:07.560 --> 17:14.580 So, in conclusion, without paper ballots, online voting is very vulnerable, as we all know. 17:14.580 --> 17:21.260 And if and only if in-person voting is unavailable, our second best option is the vote by mail. 17:21.720 --> 17:31.060 And in-person with paper ballot election is not an impossible option as we've seen from South Korea and a nationwide election. 17:31.620 --> 17:40.200 And the further thing that I want to mention is first, we need to have a better operational capacity in administering the election. 17:40.840 --> 17:46.400 Second, we need to recall the higher interest by the electorates, the voters. 17:46.740 --> 17:54.120 And finally, we also need not only the general interest, but further research is required. 17:54.120 --> 18:02.620 Not only cybersecurity, but also fiscal security, operational security, and how to optimize the voting process. 18:02.620 --> 18:07.460 All of them are required and should be considered multidisciplinary. 18:08.040 --> 18:13.020 So, thank you for your time and I'm open to questions. 18:13.020 --> 18:19.480 So, please send me an email or talk, shoot me a message through discord and any other method. 18:19.480 --> 18:21.240 Thank you for listening.