Not The Onion

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239

Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can’t Decrypt the Results. (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 4 days ago by Aatube@kbin.melroy.org to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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So secure was the annual contest to fill three director and four officer positions that when one trustee lost his cryptographic key to unlock the results, the error made it impossible.

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[–] Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In other news the owner of a vault whose key he threw away cannot access the contents.

It would be way worse if they somehow were able to decrypt the votes anyways without the key. Whether that be by retrieving the key from a backup or a flaw in the system. Because that would defeat the whole purpose.

All in all the technology they use is very interesting technically, but this event really demonstrates the tradeoff between security and convenience. Imagine if that was the election for a country... Oof

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 4 days ago

well the irony'd be in it anyway

~~—holy iambs, volume 14~~

the vaultkeepers alliance misplacing the key is what makes this such an amazing onion, though you probably agree, and I guess "Cryptographers unveil backdoor to every key ever created after losing key" would be an even better onion