Implementation-Level Analysis of E-Voting Systems

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ralf Küsters
• Subject Area: Theoretical Computer Science ; Software Engineering and Programming Languages
• Term: from 2010 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 183816017

Systems for electronic voting (e-voting systems) are among the most challenging security-critical systems, with a rich set of intricate security requirements they have to fulfill. For example, besides keeping the votes of individual voters private (privacy of votes), they should also allow voters to check that their votes were counted correctly (verifiability), while at the same time prevent vote buying and voter coercion (coercion-resistance). These and other security requirements have been formalized and analyzed on the protocol design level of e-voting systems.However, ensuring such properties on the implementation-level of e-voting systems is still an openproblem. The goal of this project is therefore to devise general methods and techniques for the soundimplementation-level analysis of e-voting systems and to demonstrate the applicability of these methods and techniques for concrete systems, including a prototypical implementation of an e-voting system provided as a case study within the project. In the project, techniques and methods for language-based information flow security, in particular language-based non-interference, will be combined with techniques and methods for cryptographic protocol analysis. This will advance research on language-based non-interference also beyond the domain of e-voting. Prototypes developed and results obtained within the project can serve as case studies for other projects withinthe Priority Programme.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1496: Reliably Secure Software Systems