September 27, 2016: Invited Speaker Seminar: When Internet Voting Comes to Canada: A Cyber Security Perspective

Dr. Aleksander Essex

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 11:00 am
Room EV001.162

Abstract

Canada is becoming interested in Internet voting, and a parliamentary committee is now studying how it might be deployed in future elections.  From a cyber security perspective the threats are numerous and complex.  From a democratic perspective, the stakes are high.  In this talk we'll look at some of the enormous risks of voting online caused by both current technological limitations, as well as how the culture and priorities of election officials and internet voting vendors impact election security.

Biography

Aleksander Essex is an assistant professor of software engineering at Western University with a specialization in cyber-security, and applied cryptography.  He has worked in the field of trustworthy electronic voting for over 10 years.  In 2009 he was part of a group conducting the first cryptographic end-to-end verifiable governmental election in the city of Tacoma Park, MD.  He served as a subject matter expert for the city of Toronto, evaluating the security of vendor proposals during their recent internet voting RFP.  He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Waterloo.