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Private knowledge for over one million Russian nationals has reportedly been leaked. The info allegedly belongs to a number of the residents who participated within the latest blockchain-based e-vote on Constitutional amendments.
The archive was reportedly accessible for everybody to obtain
In line with an investigation printed by Russian language media outlet Meduza, an archive titled “degvoter.zip”, which comprises stated knowledge, was publicly accessible for obtain for a minimum of a number of hours on July 1 by way of a authorities web site. The file has since been distributed by means of numerous Telegram teams and channels.
The archive was password protected. In line with the publication, nonetheless, it may very well be simply hacked with a free password cracking software.
Together with the archive, there was an unpassword protected database titled “db.sqlite”. This database allegedly contained passport numbers for over one million voters from Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod — two cities in Russia the place residents may forged their votes on-line. The system that allowed for on-line voting was primarily based on the Exonum blockchain platform developed by Bitfury.
Though that knowledge was encrypted with the SHA256 algorithm, the reporters have been allegedly in a position to decode it “very simply” utilizing free software program. That has make them the next conclusion:
“Contemplating the poor safety and availability of the degvoter.zip archive, the Russian authorities really put the private knowledge of all e-constituents from Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod within the public area.”
Journalists reportedly cross-referenced the leaked knowledge with the Ministry of Inside Affairs’ official service for checking the validity of passports. They discovered that over 4 thousand of passports registered for the e-vote have been invalid.
The Ministry of Digital Improvement, Communications, and Mass Media has since commented on the investigation, saying that they exclude “any risk of leakage”, for the reason that passwords have been distributed by means of “safe knowledge channels” and solely to approved personnel.
The company additionally careworn that the passport numbers have been encoded and consisted of a randomly obtained sequence of characters, or hash sums, including:
“Hash sums will not be private knowledge. Publication of random units of characters can’t hurt residents,”
Not the primary failure
As beforehand reported by Cointelegraph, Russia’s blockchain e-vote system has been attracting a variety of controversy. Not solely did it malfunction quickly after going reside, it additionally allegedly allowed double voting, and had a vulnerability that reportedly made it potential to decipher votes earlier than the official rely.
E-voting occured on-line from June 25 to June 30, whereas the referendum itself ended on June 1. With all of the ballots counted, 77.9% voted for the reform package deal and 21.3% towards, in response to the electoral fee.
As per the authorised Constitutional amendments, Vladimir Putin’s time period limits will probably be reset in 2024, which means that he could stay president till 2036.
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