Diego F  Aranha: Can Blockchains Make Voting More Secure
Channel: Aarhus Universitet
Date: 03/06/2019

The talk presents a nuanced view about if and how blockchains can improve official elections in terms of security and transparency. While there is a huge amount of hype and excitement around this potential application of blockchains, we briefly examine the failures of current electronic voting systems and how they relate to blockchain technology, attempting to detect what parts of a typical electoral process can likely benefit from the security properties provided by blockchains.

Diego F. Aranha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering at Aarhus University. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the University of Brasília (3 years) and the University of Campinas (4 years). He holds a PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Campinas and has worked as a visiting PhD student for 1 year at the University of Waterloo. His professional experience is in Cryptography and Computer Security, with a special interest in the efficient implementation of cryptographic algorithms and security analysis of real-world systems. He coordinated two teams of independent researchers capable of detecting and exploring vulnerabilities in the software of the Brazilian voting machine during controlled tests organized by the national electoral authority. He received the Google Latin America Research Award for research on privacy twice, and the MIT TechReview’s Innovators Under 35 Brazil Award for his work in electronic voting.

The talk was given at Aarhus University Digital Innovation Festival 2019. The festival celebrates digital innovation among students, researchers and the industry by gathering a variety of events into a single week. https://www.digitalinnovationfestival.dk

Research profile of Diego F. Aranha:
http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/id(59960ca5-ad41-44e3-8b4c-d9a7e9c0888f).html

Produceret af Media Lab. http://stll.au.dk/medialab/