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How To Create An Open, Honest And Transparent Government In Malta

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E-mocracy is a concept Lovin Malta has spoken about in the past as well as in our April Fools manifesto. This is a guest post about how some of our ideas can be implemented.

What do the following have in common?

  • That useless chip on the back of your ID card
  • Blockchains (related to Bitcoin)
  • Secret messages
  • The dark web 
  • Ex-Soviet countries like Estonia and Ukraine

A high-tech crime or spy movie? Sure. But more importantly, they are all building blocks that would enable us to build a society guided by a government who is forced to deal in the open, with complete transparency. Sounds familiar? For those of you who loved Lovin Malta’s April Fools joke, it should.

Some of the pledges in Lovin Malta’s April Fools political manifesto really resonated with some of us:

  • We will implement a revolutionary online database of every single government transaction
  • […] adopt a real-time donations transparency portal through which the public can scrutinize party donations
  • […] public online vote

The context was a humorous one but it’s actually a very serious matter that could change our society in real, meaningful ways. But how exactly would we build this portal or database? Who would control the servers where the information is held? The government? A politician? An international establishment? Aren’t those the very same people we don’t trust in the first place? What if they decide to change the information in the online database? Delete it, hide it, modify it, or get hacked? 

New Girl

All is not lost. We can build a system that is not controlled by any one person or power, that is public, and verifiable by anyone. Let’s explore the pieces of the puzzle to make this system a reality.

1. Your ID Card

Have you ever wondered what that chip is for at the back of your ID card? It looks like the same chip you find on your VISA card, and in fact, it serves a very similar purpose to your bank card. That chip can store a set of “passwords” that only you (and only you) have access to. Of course, in Malta the chips are empty.

Id Card

These “passwords” let you digitally sign any online documents — like your vote or a petition or an executive order. Once you sign a document, anyone can verify that it really was you who signed the document and that the document hasn’t been changed at all. Imagine the ID cards actually worked — we can now sign documents in a way that the government accepts — after all, they issued the card to begin with. No more standing in queues to sign an official document — everything can be done online! Already a big step, but it gets better! 

OK… so I can digitally sign my vote, or my donation to the political party of my choice, now what? Where do I send this signed document? Like we said before, I’d rather not send it to some government controlled server. I’d rather trust everyone else… so why not send my signed vote to every computer on the Internet? That way, everyone has a copy of my vote, anyone can count the votes in an election, anyone can scrutinize the donations I make…

2. Blockchains

That’s where “blockchains” come in. Blockchains may sound like something kinky coming out of 50 shades of grey, but actually they’re the tech behind currencies like Bitcoin. Imagine a database which isn’t controlled by any one person or institute, a database you can download on your laptop, which you can verify independently and which gets updated almost instantly with any votes or donations that person makes. 

Blockchain

A blockchain lets anyone and everyone download a copy of this database we’re imagining. When I send a vote or a donation, everyone gets a copy, verifies it, and everyone stores it in their database.

Distributed Database

Blockchains are already in use, and blockchain networks already span the globe. When your votes or donations are sent to everyone in the world, all of a sudden everything becomes quite open and transparent. A corrupt politician cannot simply delete votes, and if they corrupt or change one copy of the database, other people will have copies that dispute them. A corrupt politician or person would need to compromise more than half the world’s blockchain to get away with an attack, and if your blockchain is global or at least nationwide — that’s kind of difficult. That’s why blockchains are touted as a world-changing technology

Economist Bitcoin

Awesome! So now I know where to send my votes and donations, a place where no one can tamper with them, and is accessible to anyone. But hold on… maybe that’s a bit TOO public.

3. Secret Messages

When we vote, we are given privacy. No-one should see who you actually voted for, just in case someone is blackmailing you or forcing you to vote against your will.

Go T

“But I did vote PartitLM, I swear!”

“We saw your vote on the blockchain…we said we wouldn’t hurt you if you didn’t vote for us, but now we changed our mind”

Right — you get the picture. We need a way of voting, which:

  • Tells everyone that we voted — but not who we voted for, we’ll keep that a secret. We want people to know we voted so that a politician cannot “misplace” votes, or create votes out of thin air…
  • Lets the election officials know who I voted for, without letting them know who I am (they need to count the votes after all)

Sounds like a hard thing to do, but it’s actually possible to do this using maths magic called “Blind Signing”. Unless you’re a math nerd, take my word for it here…

4. The Dark Web

Cool… now I have my anonymous vote, and I have the place I’m sending it to. But how to get there without being followed? All this fancy talk about maths is worthless if someone simply watches where I send the votes from and comes knocking at my door..

Enter the dark (or deep) web. For those not in the know… there is a “second Internet” out there that is only accessible by using special programs on your smartphone or laptop. These programs bounce your message around lots of computers around the world before delivering your message to the final destination. This makes it hard for someone to follow your messages all the way along their journey. This makes the dark web great for criminal wishing to evade the law, but it also makes it great for us to cast our votes without fear of being tracked down…

Deep Web

Technology is a double edged sword — about time we start using tech like the Deep Web for good…

That’s the end of our Journey. We used ID cards to sign our vote electronically, blockchain to vote online from anywhere and make sure everyone sees we voted, secret messages to make sure only the right people can see who I voted for, and the dark web to help keep our privacy when voting… 

It’s a long journey and it seems daunting, impossible… but take heart! Others have done it, or are doing it!

Bonus: Estonia and Ukraine

Estonia has given all its citizens an ID card with a chip that actually works. They are already using it to vote online, setup a business online, file their taxes online… all with tons of cost savings for the government I might add

Ukraine is going a step further and implementing a system like the one we just outlined to do their elections — who can blame them? With fears of Russian meddling and rife corruption, they have to!

It’s up to us

We Maltese shouldn’t have to wait for fears of Russian meddling or rife corruption (so maybe it’s too late on the corruption front…) to act. It’s going to be a long journey, and a lot of people who like the status quo are going to fob us off.

Ross Finger

Freedom comes at a cost, but innovation, persistence and belief in ourselves can make this a reality. Will you step up and help?

Cool Kid

I’ve purposely kept this post light on technical details but this post is based on academic papers and has basis in real cryptographic principles. If you are interested in the nitty-gritty details please check out the following paper from MIT, or feel free to contact me.

If you want to support Lovin Malta’s Campaign for Change, donate some money to our crowdfunding initiative and tell a friend about it!

READ NEXT: We Are Not Running For Election, But This Is How We Can All Fight For Change Together

Christian is an award-winning journalist and entrepreneur who founded Lovin Malta, a new media company dedicated to creating positive impact in society. He is passionate about justice, public finances and finding ways to build a better future.

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