[governance] Securing Digital Democracy

[James S. Tyre]

This is a free online course by University of Michigan CS Prof Alex Halderman, an expert
in the field.  Officially it started yesterday, but one can register and start when one
wants.  I could be wrong (I often am), but I thought it might interest some here.

https://www.coursera.org/course/digitaldemocracy

Securing Digital Democracy
J. Alex Halderman
In this course, you'll learn what every citizen should know about the security risks--and
future potential - of electronic voting and Internet voting.

Sign Up


Watch intro video
Started on: 3 September 2012 (5 weeks long)
Workload: 2-3 hours/week 
Information, Technology, and Design
Computer Science: Systems, Security, Networking
 

About the Course
Computer technology has transformed how we participate in democracy. The way we cast our
votes, the way our votes are counted, and the way we choose who will lead are increasingly
controlled by invisible computer software. Most U.S. states have adopted electronic
voting, and countries around the world are starting to collect votes over the Internet.
However, computerized voting raises startling security risks that are only beginning to be
understood outside the research lab, from voting machine viruses that can silently change
votes to the possibility that hackers in foreign countries could steal an election. This
course will provide the technical background and public policy foundation that 21st
century citizens need to understand the electronic voting debate. You'll learn how
electronic voting and Internet voting technologies work, why they're being introduced, and
what problems they aim to solve. You'll also learn about the computer- and
Internet-security risks these systems face and the serious vulnerabilities that recent
research has demonstrated. We'll cover widely used safeguards, checks, and balances - and
why they are often inadequate. Finally, we'll see how computer technology has the
potential to improve election security, if it's applied intelligently. Along the way,
you'll hear stories from the lab and from the trenches on a journey that leads from Mumbai
jail cells to the halls of Washington, D.C. You'll come away from this course
understanding why you can be confident your own vote will count - or why you should
reasonably be skeptical.

About the Instructor(s)
J. Alex Halderman is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the
University of Michigan. His research spans computer security and tech-centric public
policy, including topics such as software security, data privacy, electronic voting,
censorship resistance, and cybercrime, as well as technological aspects of intellectual
property law and government regulation. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. 
A noted expert on electronic voting security, Prof. Halderman helped demonstrate the first
voting machine virus, participated in California's "top-to-bottom" electronic voting
review, and exposed election security flaws in India, the world's largest democracy. He
recently led a team from the University of Michigan that hacked into Washington D.C.'s
Internet voting system. In his spare time, he reprogrammed a touch-screen voting machine
to play Pac-Man 

Recommended Background
Most of this course will be accessible to non-technical students. We will provide optional
materials for those with some college-level computer science background.

--
James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org




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