[Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

[Tim Starling]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I can confirm that a leak of the ongoing vote counts did, in fact,
> occur in the last election. It occurred because an election official
> felt that the then-Board (and possibly others) should know the results
> of the election ahead of time to prepare. The leak occurred at a time
> when the result was very unlikely to change. Still, this was a serious
> error in judgment, and it is certain that this particular election
> official will not be asked to coordinate future elections.
> 
> Working with an independent group seems like a reasonable way to
> reduce risks. The Board has discussed this internally. The Debian
> project was named as a potential partner in overseeing the next
> election. If we do want to pursue that, it is about time to initiate
> discussions with them.

I agree that an independent group should be involved. In fact I think the
vote should be run on external servers, with a voter list (usernames and
password hashes) sent to them before time. If it has to be run on our
servers, it should be on an isolated server with limited shell access, and
we should end our policy of giving the keys for the voting record to
emotionally involved volunteers or staff.

-- Tim Starling