Personal data for over a million Russian nationals has reportedly been leaked. The data allegedly belongs to some of the citizens who participated in the recent blockchain-based e-vote on Constitutional amendments. The archive was reportedly available for everyone to download According to an investigation published by Russian language media outlet Meduza, an archive titled “degvoter.zip”, which contains said data, was publicly available for download for at least several hours on July 1 via a government website. The file has since been distributed through various Telegram groups and channels. The archive was password protected. According to the publication, however, it could …

Richard Holden, an economics professor at the University of New South Wales Business School, says using distributed ledger technology could allay Republican concerns over mail-in voter fraud — but would likely benefit the Democratic Party. Holden spoke at the Unitize conference on July 9 on The Law and Economics of Blockchain. The university professor said distributed ledger technology (DLT) has the potential to increase voter turnout and have a “meaningful effect” on the outcome of U.S. elections — but there are still issues around the overall integrity of the process. Screen capture from Unitize The UNSW professor cited Republican lawsuits …

Russia’s blockchain-based voting system for the constitutional amendments had a vulnerability that reportedly made it possible to decipher votes before the official count. Constituents could decipher their own private keys According to research by Russia-language news outlet Meduza, when the constituents casted their vote via a special website, the results would get encrypted by a JavaScript library called TweetNaCl.js. This is an implementation of the "Networking and Cryptography," or NaCi, cryptography library created by the mathematician Daniel J. Bernstein and cryptographers Tanja Lange and Peter Schwabe. Per Meduza, the voting system relied on the so-called deterministic encryption, meaning that using …

Russia’s blockchain-based voting system for the constitutional amendments has reportedly been attacked via an election observer’s node. As reported by state-owned news agency TASS, the attack occurred on June 27 around 8 PM CET. A government of Moscow representative told TASS that the attack did not cause a system malfunction, meaning that all e-votes will be successfully recorded on the blockchain. According to the official, cybersecurity experts were working to restore access to the attacked node. It is not clear if it’s been repaired at this point. E-voting, held from June 25 to June 30 for residents of Moscow and …

This week’s headlines from Japan included SBI announcing a digital asset investment fund, Bitflyer Holdings using blockchain for shareholder meeting voting, Japan's Financial Services Agency warning two unregistered crypto exchanges, a Japanese digital asset exchange self-regulatory group changing chairmen, and Coincheck announcing launch details for its digital shareholder meeting platform. Check out some of this week’s crypto and blockchain headlines, originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. SBI unveils a crypto investment fund As an option for individual participants, Japanese financial services entity SBI Holdings expects to form and open Japan's first digital asset fund at some point over the next few …

Russia’s blockchain-based voting system for the Constitutional amendments is off to a rocky start after going live earlier today, according to local media reports. E-voting, scheduled to take place from June 25 to June 30 for residents of Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod, is based on the Exonum blockchain platform developed by Bitfury. The blockchain will allegedly help to encrypt votes to provide secure and immutable data. Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod residents can vote offline or online via a special website that, according to a report from RIA news agency, was inaccessible during the first few hours after going live. According …

The blockchain arm of Japan-based bitFlyer Holdings is debuting a new app for shareholder voting. According to an announcement by bitFlyer Blockchain, the new app — dubbed bVote — aims to allow Japanese corporations to conduct general shareholders meetings without requiring anyone to physically attend. Per bitFlyer, the app will be able to prevent vote forgery and manipulation and requires users to scan their My Number card (similar to Social Security Number in the United States) for identification. The firm will purportedly put its tech to the test at its own shareholder meeting on June 26. Using blockchain to prevent …

The pandemic has forced many companies to move their operations online. It has also brought the question of online voting to the forefront of conversation in the United States, which is facing an election year. According to a June 7 paper from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Michigan, Democracy Live’s popular online voting platform, OmniBallot, is vulnerable to vote manipulation. Many states have tried OmniBallot, which uses Amazon Web Services to lock in votes, but it has faced security issues. A more decentralized online voting is part of the solution to protect ballots, the researchers …

Russia’s upcoming e-voting on the Constitutional amendments will be implemented using blockchain technology. Moscow citizens will be able to cast their votes on Vladimir Putin’s Constitutional amendments online via blockchain-powered e-voting. As announced on the Moscow government’s official website, Moscow voters can sign up for the upcoming e-voting starting from June 5. Blockchain makes voting “almost impossible to hack” Scheduled to take place from June 25 to June 30, the e-voting will be implementing blockchain technology to “ensure security and transparency.” As officially announced, blockchain will help to anonymize and encrypt each vote to provide safety and immutability of data. …

Waves Enterprise has launched Voting — a blockchain-powered e-voting platform centering corporate clients — for public beta testing. According to the official announcement, published on May 28, the new service aims to “leverage all the advantages of blockchain technology while retaining traditional voting rules and processes”. Artem Kalikhov, chief product officer of Waves Enterprise, told Cointelegraph that only a decentralized solution can guarantee data protection and transparency in online voting: “The blockchain provides a trustless environment for data exchange between independent encryption servers that act as participants of voting protocol. Voting results are protected by cryptographic algorithms. Blockchain technology does …

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has revealed why the University of Wyoming presented a more attractive choice than Harvard, MIT or Cornell for Input Output’s (IOHK’s) lab. IOHK, the company charged with the development of Cardano, donated $500,000 in ADA to the blockchain lab at the university earlier this year. The State of Wyoming is known for its progressive crypto legislation, which allowed former Wall Street executive Caitlin Long to establish the first crypto-native bank in the U.S. Hoskinson noted that the university was, “the first state institution in the entire United States to treat ADA like U.S. dollars.” Gender studies …

A staff memo has revealed that the U.S. Congress is considering blockchain technology as a means for the Senate to conduct remote voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. The report states that blockchain may be deployed alongside end-to-end encrypted, or E2EE, applications to facilitate voting. The memo was composed after the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ Roundtable on Continuity of Senate Operations and Remote Voting in Times of Crisis event. The discussion came as the Senate prepares to reconvene this week. Senate considers DLT-based voting contingency The document states that Congress’ two chambers have always “met in-person to conduct business, including committee …