POL The USPS Just Filed A Patent For A Blockchain-Based Secure-Voting System

[Melodi]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

The USPS Just Filed A Patent For A Blockchain-Based Secure-Voting System


by Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/17/2020 - 13:20
TwitterFacebookRedditEmailPrint

It looks like the United States Post Office is getting in the business of voting.
It has recently been unearthed that he USPS filed for a patent on February 7, 2020 for a "Secure Voting System" that uses a blockchain access layer. Obviously, this could be one of the strongest signals of a welcome adaptation to blockchain by the U.S. government since blockchain was thrust on the map by Bitcoin.
"A voting system can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system," the patent application says. "A registered voter receives a computer readable code in the mail and confirms identity and confirms correct ballot information in an election. The system separates voter identification and votes to ensure vote anonymity, and stores votes on a distributed ledger in a blockchain."


The "United States Postal Service" is listed as the applicant on the application.
"Voters generally wish to be able to vote for elected officials or on other issues in a manner that is convenient and secure," the application says. "Further, those holding elections wish to be able to ensure that election results have not been tampered with and that the results actually correspond to the votes that were cast. In some embodiments, a blockchain allows the tracking of the various types of necessary data in a way that is secure and allows others to easily confirm that data has not been altered."
Equally as interesting as the patent itself is the fact that the application was filed before the coronavirus had wreaked total havoc on the country and long before the idea of mail in voting was being tossed around by pundits and the mainstream media on the daily.
Brian Roemmele pointed the discovery out on Twitter:

Boom!

The US Postal Service just filed this new patent:

“SECURE VOTING SYSTEM”

It uses Blockchain of course but also the prospects of:#Bitcoin

Read this deeply, it says a lot about a lot of things ahead.

This is past “politics”—report to clients. https://t.co/pl482rq4bn pic.twitter.com/zYs07YEAsQ
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) August 14, 2020

 

[Abe Froman]

Blockchain is a nightmare for those who want to cheat.

Expect large objections, all the way to the SCOTUS, from the libs.

 

[Sicario]

Well at least they planned ahead and left PLENTY of time for security/stability testing.
[/SARCASM]

 

[night driver]

Yeah.
It seems only GOVERNMENTS actually can break into a blockchain secured entity....

 

[night driver]

Well at least they planned ahead and left PLENTY of time for security/stability testing.
[/SARCASM]

Well, ya patent it when ya get it. May take a while to USE it, testing and such.

 

[OhioBull]

Interesting development. Things are going on behind the scenes it appears.

 

[Old Gray Mare]

Our incorruptible Bitcoin wallet was corrupted and we got taken for, thank you Lord, only a few hundred. Now they want us to trust our vote to the US Postal System(?) and their blockchain? Next are they going to "buy back" our IRAs and pension funds?

 

[Elza]

Trust your private information to the security of the Federal Government.

 

[intothatgoodnight]

Recall the saying, "They, that count the votes, rule?"

Along this same line of thought, I would add, "They that write the blockchain software/hide the source code, rule."

Open source the entire USPS blockchain software, as implemented, making the entire source code publicly available for analysis and compilation by commonly available open source software compilers, or it isn't really "secure."

That's my in-the-weeds analysis and recommendation concerning THIS particular development.


intothegoodnight

 

[Dozdoats]

Thanks for the thread, M, and all who contributed.

 

[rabcar]

I see using the blockchain for voting as a good idea. I wouldn't be suprised that President Trump has a hand in this idea. The ledger would make it virtually impossible to introduce fake ballots into the blockchain. If the dims get their mail in voting, then the post office would have a mechanism in place to mitigate the risk of mass amounts of fake ballots getting counted.

 

[BassMan]

Our incorruptible Bitcoin wallet was corrupted and we got taken for, thank you Lord, only a few hundred. Now they want us to trust our vote to the US Postal System(?) and their blockchain? Next are they going to "buy back" our IRAs and pension funds?

The term “blockchain” is somewhat vague. The original blockchain implementation, specific to bitcoin, DEFINITELY has issues. For example, if 51% of the chain is hacked, you now control the whole chain. The original blockchain is pretty bad. Actual blockchain is VERY slow (to the point of being COMPLETELY useless for most things).

These days, blockchain refers to a family of technologies, much like “Zerox Machine” is in some contexts a generic term for photocopiers (not just from Zerox). Big companies like IBM and Redhat collaborate. There are other “bitcoin” companies too.

Distributed Ledger is probably a better term than bitcoin for the “ready for prime time” technologies that would apply to USPS voting. Most major organizations are looking into Distributed Ledger.

 

[Old Gray Mare]

Distributed Ledger is probably a better term than bitcoin for the “ready for prime time” technologies that would apply to USPS voting. Most major organizations are looking into Distributed Ledger.

Does calling a turd: fertilizer make it smell any better?

 

[Sid Vicious]

I think Trump might have gotten Pelosi again.

Calls back congress.

Funds USPS for 25 billion.

Trump rolls out blockchain voting.

Dem tears.






I have read through most of the patent. Pretty neat stuff. You can even get a paper ballot if you want.

 

[Bubble Head]

Sounds like there is an ID requirement. They can’t do that. Besides I don’t trust them.

 

[night driver]

I sit in awe of folks who speak this language natively!!

And I have to trust y'all who do to tell us if it sucks or not.

 

[night driver]

Sounds like there is an ID requirement. They can’t do that. Besides I don’t trust them.

As I understood the overview, they split the ID from the vote just after the ballot is available to vote and well BEFORE the vote is cast. Splitting it off of the data segment that gets sent as the vote. I mean I could conceptualize the program diagram using IMS_DB/DC but that would only be a small part of the whole thang.

 

[intothatgoodnight]

I sit in awe of folks who speak this language natively!!

And I have to trust y'all who do to tell us if it sucks or not.

THAT'S gonna be tough to do, Chuck.

Part of the discernment has to do with government, and whether one finds them trustworthy - or not.

Another part of the discernment has to do with biblical/end-time beliefs, and/or the taking of the "mark."

Yet another part of the discernment is the pure technical/mathematical/statistical magic at work, here.

Technology is always a two-edged sword - it possesses the possibility of BOTH good, and evil - DEPENDS upon the INTENT of the group/individuals wielding the technology.


intothegoodnight

 

[frazbo]

Well at least they planned ahead and left PLENTY of time for security/stability testing.
[/SARCASM]

And don't forget money! Thought they were going broke and needed Trump to fill their coffers again. Where did the money come from for the blockchain "secure" voting thingamajiggy? And back in Feb? Really?

 

[Elza]

Part of the discernment has to do with government, and whether one finds them trustworthy - or not.

I doubt you'll find many on this board that will pull the "trustworthy" lever. Certainly not I.

 

[Cacheman]

For those of us that are "blockchain" impaired could someone type up a short summary of what it is and how the patent say's it'll be implemented?

 

[Kris Gandillon]

Based on prior history with government systems, patent or not, something like this takes YEARS to develop, test and roll out as an operational system. No way would it be ready for prime time for the 2020 election and probably not for the 2024 election. They could easily spend YEARS in committee just to decide which of the "In some embodiments" (read the patent) they decide to implement.

 

[Marie]

Somewhere there is gonna be a database that stores all that info. On the local level it would not be stored. On the national level I'm quite sure it is. They take down many criminals in drugs, weapons,fraud and money laundering through the Postal IG