[crypto] [Fwd: [risc-list] RISC at CWI (Tue, May 4th): Ron Rivest]

[R. Hirschfeld]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [risc-list] RISC at CWI (Tue, May 4th): Ron Rivest
From:    Ronald.Cramer at cwi.nl
Date:    Tue, April 20, 2010 10:11
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Colleague,

It is a great pleasure to announce a lecture in our
CWI/Leiden RISC-seminar series by

                Professor Ron Rivest (MIT).

[Ron Rivest is the `R' from the RSA cryptosystem.
He is a winner of the 2002 ACM Turing Award, which is generally
viewed as a `Nobel Prize in Computer Science.']

Professor Rivest will lecture on

              `The Security of Voting Systems'

on            *Tuesday May 4, 1600h-1700h*.


The location is the *Turing room* at CWI in Amsterdam. This is the Main
Auditorium (Z011) on the ground floor.

>From *1700h-1745h* there will be drinks and snacks. You are all
cordially invited.

The talk is suited for a non-specialistic as well for a
general mathematics/computer science audience.

Please arrive in time before the start of the lecture.


====================================================
Summary, Abstract and Bio
====================================================

Speaker: Professor Ron Rivest (MIT)

Webpage: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/

Title:   The Security of Voting Systems

Date:    Tuesday May 4, 2010

Time:    1600h-1700h

Note:    Drinks and snacks are served afterwards

Location: Turing room, CWI Amsterdam (Main Auditorium (Z011), ground floor)

RISC-webpage: http://www.cwi.nl/crypto/risc.html

Directions:   http://www.cwi.nl/en/general/Address

Abstract:
----------

While running an election sounds simple, it is in fact extremely
challenging.  Not only are there millions of voters to be
authenticated and millions of votes to be carefully collected,
counted, and stored, there are now millions of "voting machines"
containing millions of lines of code to be evaluated for security
vulnerabilities.  Moreover, voting systems have a unique requirement: the
voter must
not be given a "receipt" that would allow them to prove how they voted to
someone
else---otherwise the voter could be coerced or bribed into voting a
certain way.
This lack of receipts makes the design of secure voting system much more
challenging
than, say, the security of banking systems (where receipts are the norm).

We discuss some of the recent trends and innovations in voting
systems, as well as some of the new requirements being placed upon voting
systems in
the U.S., and describe some promising directions for resolving the conflicts
inherent in voting system requirements,
including some approaches based on cryptography.  We also describe the use
of the
``Scantegrity II'' end-to-end voting system, developed by David Chaum and
researchers from MIT, GWU, UMBC, Ottawa, and Waterloo, in last November's
election
in the city of Takoma Park, Maryland.


Bio
---

Professor Rivest is the Viterbi Professor of Computer Science in MIT's
Department of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is a member of MIT's Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory (CSAIL), a member of the lab's Theory of Computation Group and
is a
leader of its Cryptography and Information Security Group. Professor
Rivest has
research interests in cryptography, computer and network security,
algorithms, and
voting systems.

Professor Rivest is a co-inventor of the RSA public-key cryptosystem. He has
extensive experience in cryptographic design and cryptanalysis, and is a
founder of
RSA Data Security and of Verisign.

Professor Rivest is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and of
the
National Academy of Sciences, and is a Fellow of the
Association for Computing Machinery, the International Association for
Cryptographic
Research, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also on the
Advisory
Board for the Electronic Privacy
Information Center.

With Adi Shamir and Len Adleman, he has been awarded the 2002 ACM
Turing Award and the 2009 NEC C&C Prize.

Most recently, Professor Rivest has served on the U.S. Technical
Guidelines Development Committee, which has drafted proposed
standards for certifying voting system in the U.S.


================================================================

Looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday May 4th!


Yours sincerely, Ronald Cramer
(CWI &  Mathematical Institute, Leiden University)


http://www.cwi.nl/en/general/Address

http://www.cwi.nl/crypto

http://www.cwi.nl/crypto/risc.html

http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl