Cryptographers' Secret Vote Has One Problem

When one of the world's top cryptography groups voted to elect new leaders, they did what you'd expect cryptographers to do: protected the results with encryption. The problem is that now even the group can't read the results and must vote again. The New York Times reports that one of three trustees of the International Association of Cryptologic Research lost their encryption key, rendering the results of the electronic vote impossible to access.

It's an "honest but unfortunate human mistake," the group explained to members, per Ars Technica. The IACR, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, held a month-long election for leadership positions starting in October via an electronic voting system called Helios. Now they must start over. "It turns out that managing keys and managing secret keys is the hardest part of this—even among the world's best cryptographers," software engineer and Helios creator Ben Adida tells the Times. Going forward, the group will adjust the system to require only two keys.