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Bitcoin United States Privacy Security Politics Technology

Colorado Candidate For Governor Wants To Put His State On the Blockchain (gizmodo.com) 61

Posted by BeauHD from the willing-to-try-new-things dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The Democratic nominee for governor of Colorado, U.S. Representative Jared Polis, wants to add blockchain to the list of items voters consider this year. Polis currently represents Colorado's 2nd district in the House, and he won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination last month. He's held his seat in the House for about a decade and has been a fairly solid progressive. On Wednesday, Polis added a set of limited proposals regarding blockchain to his gubernatorial platform that at least give us an idea of what it means for a politician to campaign on blockchain. Polis told us he would like to resolve some of the "ambiguity" in federal rules, encourage fintech company investment, remove some licensing requirements for token securities, and exempt cryptocurrencies from state money transition laws. He says these companies are "trying to fit what they're doing into an obsolete, outdated, and often obsolete federal law."

Polis also wants to explore how blockchain could be used for voting security. Polis isn't ready to necessarily endorse moving all voting to the blockchain system. He likes paper ballots and told us, "this would be more how the information is generated and stored from those paper ballots rather than doing so in a centralized database it would be done across a distributed ledger." The congressman also thinks that blockchain could be used to streamline the process for storing public records and making them available to the public. "We're talking more about everything from Colorado contracts, expenditures, titles, a lot of the data-intensive aspects of state government can be more secure and more accessible through distributed ledgers," he said.
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Colorado Candidate For Governor Wants To Put His State On the Blockchain More

Colorado Candidate For Governor Wants To Put His State On the Blockchain

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  • voteing where 51% of the cpu power controls the rules? like that will not be fixed by people with deep pockets.

    • don't confuse how bitcoin works with how voting might work...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        It is the same basic problem though. Blockchain is only a secure as it is shared.
        • that's the security in it - the shared aspect helps ensure no single person or group can subvert it...that's the theory anyhow

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, well, I'm from Colorado, and Jared Polis is well known for being an idiot. But he has a D behind his name, he's gay and his seat is Boulder, CO, so he's always won no problem. This guy actually said that anybody simply accused of rape on campus should be expelled immediately because "it's better safe than have a potential rapist on campus". When he was called out for his "guilty until proven innocent" views, he said he misspoke, but never apologized for what he said. If there were a poster child f

  • Seemed appropriate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday August 09, 2018 @07:06PM (#57099550) Homepage

    https://xkcd.com/2030/ [xkcd.com]

  • What does that mean? (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday August 09, 2018 @07:06PM (#57099554) Journal
    It means we haven't hit peak blockchain insanity yet, and probably won't for quite some time.
    • Why is a tech site like slashdot full of tech people constantly bashing blockchain? I remember everybody bashing Bitcoin here since the beginning. Isn't this some kind of a new technology circlejerking denial?
  • Blockchain for real-estate titles isn't stupid.

    • Re:Hmm ... titles (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Thursday August 09, 2018 @07:50PM (#57099708) Homepage

      Blockchain for real-estate titles isn't stupid.

      As a matter of fact, it is.Blockchain would be a terrible idea for real estate. Understand the two key things about it and you'll understand why:

      First, Blockchain is used when there is no suitable central authority to rely on. Each change to a protected asset is cryptographically authenticated by equipment run by multiple organizations. The consensus of those authentications accepts the change. When a central authority like a government agency is readily available, there is no need for this technique. Indeed it's more expensive than using a single trusted central authority.

      Second, Blockchain is intentionally irreversible. Once a change is published and accepted, it can never be removed or undone. In financial transactions, that's actually a bad thing. Combating fraud in financial transactions (such as real estate transactions) critically depends on reversing false changes.

      An asset protected by Blockchain can only be changed by someone who has the key for the most recent change. When your key is stolen and used to publish a false change, that's no longer you... it's the thief. When your key is lost on a crashed hard drive, nobody can publish further changes to the asset. Ever again.

      • How is central DB secure when admin or a hacker can change records? That is the whole reason why you want to go blockchain for mission critical data. Hackers can't change it on blockchain because it is immutable by design.
      • Wish I'd seen your reply before leaving town. The thing you're missing is that there is no central database of home ownership today. When you buy or sell a house, one of the services you pay for is a title search. The agent pulls all records on the property from the county court and checks to see if the seller has clear title. All that means is the only records on file show consecutive transfers to the current seller. You may instead find multiple claims on a property, which could indicate fraud, or confl
        • Sorry for the wall of text. Didn't realize the mobile app doesn't do preview.

        • "Now that I've made my final mortgage payment Mr. Bank, please sign the property over to my crypto ID."

          "Sorry, the key we used for your property was lost in the Great Server Crash of '15."

          • That only happens because Bitcoin is anonymous. Title transfers wouldn't be.

            • Anonymity has nothing to do with it. If the key is lost you can't perform the cryptography necessary to transfer the asset. Regardless of whether you can legally prove who the lost key belonged to.

              • It's entirely possible I misunderstand some blockchain details, please correct me if I'm wrong. I understand each transaction can optionally contain additional information besides just the financial details. I thought this information is readable to anyone. If this is the case, I would put the legal names of the parties in that data. Then if someone loses their key you could create a new entry that references the orphaned transaction. The physical property isn't lost like a bitcoin just because you can't tr

                • You're correct, but then you have an origin problem: how do you determine that the first record in the new chain is the authentic descriptor of the property? For that matter, how do you determine that the first record in any chain is an authentic descriptor of the property?

                  • That's what I'm telling you, that's a problem today. I've worked in real estate and as bad a system as physical copies at the county courthouse may be, the solution proposed by the mortgage industry - just let us build a database and we'll take care of it - is a thousand times worse. Unless you're a bank, then it's literally a machine for stealing homes.

                    With a blockchain ledger you're no better off in the first step, but every subsequent transaction increases trust.

    • What happens when you lose the key? The property disappears?
      • It doesn't disappear - it is just a immutable record saying that you own the property - unlike paper/central DB designs where this data can be changed so your ownership can disappear. Does it make sense to use blockchain from this perspective? I think so...
        • I know people who've lost their private bitcoin keys. I don't know anyone who's had the records of ownership lost on their property.

          So let's see if you've thought this through.....imagine I lose the crypto-key for my property. What will happen? I can't sell my property anymore (because a key would be needed for that)?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          It doesn't disappear - it is just a immutable record saying that you own the property - unlike paper/central DB designs where this data can be changed so your ownership can disappear. Does it make sense to use blockchain from this perspective? I think so...

          You said as if the ownership of the property will never be changed. No, the property doesn't disappear, but the ability to update does. Does it make sense to use blockchain from this perspective? I don't think so.

  • You will need to be decrypted before you leave.

  • Exempt cryptocurrencies (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday August 09, 2018 @08:31PM (#57099820)
    exempt cryptocurrencies from state money transition laws? I know it's legal to smoke there but, man, there comes a time when you need to slow down. On the plus side if he pulls it off I could see Colorado being the equivalent to incorporating in Delaware as far as shady crypto currency transactions go.

  • This reminds me of that Family Guy episode where Lois runs for office and replies, "Nine Eleven!" for every question, and is cheered.

    "Sir, how do you feel about state computer cybersecurity?"

    "We will use blockchain technology!"

    "And what about the wildfires?"

    "Blockchain!"

    "And the local millage for the high school swimming pool?"

    "Block..."

    (Everyone leans forward...)

    "...chain!" (Cheers!)

  • By fraud, I mean inside jobs that paper ballots don't protect against. We aren't looking for the cheapest solution, but the most secure one. The number of times paper ballots have gone missing, or been accidentally destroyed, even when subpoenaed, is astounding. Keep the hand marked paper ballots, count and use them as the primary method, mark each with a digital signature that is the identifying owner and the key in the blockchain that the voter does not see. Have all the voting precincts across the s
    • Go ahead, Mod me a troll because you disagree with reality. Destroying ballots [politico.com] to avoid a recount while subpoenaed for said ballots happens.

    • No, it can't. Voting fraud is a huge topic. It covers everything from voter registration, to selecting candidates, to running an election, to validating the results, to resolving disputes, to controlling equipment, processes, and people. It is an enormous undertaking, and it can't be fixed with a silver bullet.

      And furthermore, a blockchain is not private, it is the opposite of private, it has a technical dependency on not being private, in fact. But votes HAVE to be private. That's why we have physical elec

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by doom ( 14564 )

        And furthermore, a blockchain is not private, it is the opposite of private, it has a technical dependency on not being private, in fact. But votes HAVE to be private.

        I was trying to explain this to someone over on reddit just recently. Even if you presume the blockchain end of things is perfectly secure, and no one can check the status of your vote (or vote for you!) without your secret key, you still need to worry about cases like (1) your boss demands access to your key or you're fired, (2) you decide

        • Lmafo, did you not read my comment??? The key and user info is put on the paper hand filled ballot, by the machine, AFTER the ballot is turned in. It is hidden to the user and preserves the voting data in a secure distributed ledger rather than a centralized location. Paper is the primary method, the blockchain is backup for when legitimate or illegitimate accidents happen. We *already* use image backups of voting ballots, this is a method to ensure those backups are far harder to fake and nearly impossi
          • The user info is just the ballot info^ no information about the name or anything else is used just like the images we already store today. Too many people confuse Bitcoin with an encrypted distributed ledger.

  • I'm waiting to see Colorado's reaction... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Thursday August 09, 2018 @09:21PM (#57099930)
    When they tally the votes and realize their new governor will be Pepe the frog.

  • Dilbert (Score:3, Funny)

    by Frankie70 ( 803801 ) on Friday August 10, 2018 @03:37AM (#57100668)

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DS... [twimg.com]

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