Type | Private |
---|---|
Established | 2007 |
Parent institution | Princeton University |
Director | Matthew Salganik |
Academic staff | 20 professors and researchers [1] |
Students | 21 graduate students and 44 undergraduate students (2018-2019) [2] |
Location | , , United States |
Website | www |
The Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University is a leading interdisciplinary research center, dedicated to exploring the intersection of technology, engineering, public policy, and the social sciences. Faculty, students, and other researchers come from a variety of disciplines, including Computer Science, Economics, Politics, Engineering, Sociology, and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
The CITP conducts research in a number of areas, such as Internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, electronic voting, government transparency, and intellectual property. Various media outlets, government agencies, and private organizations have cited the research of the CITP. [3] [4] [5] [6] The current Director of the CITP is Matthew J. Salganik, a professor of sociology at Princeton University. [7]
One of the leading research initiatives at the CITP centers on electronic voting. Edward Felten, Ariel J. Feldman, and J. Alex Halderman conducted security analysis on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, one of the most widely used machines of its kind. [8] [9] They discovered a method that allowed them to upload malicious programs to multiple voting machines. [10] Their research gained additional media attention when it was brought before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June 2017. [11]
The Interconnection Measurement Project is an annual initiative at the CITP that provides ongoing data collection and analysis from ISP interconnection points. Aggregated data serving roughly 50 percent of residential broadband subscribes is collected every 5 minutes. [12]
The CITP offers an undergraduate certificate in Technology and Society, Information Technology Track. This program requires students to complete a combination of core, technology, societal, and breadth courses in and outside the area of information technology. The goal of the program is to help students better understand how technology drives social change and how society itself shapes technology. [13] The CITP also hosts a number of workshops, policy briefings, lecture series, and initiatives at Princeton University.
Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (DESI), was a subsidiary of Diebold that made and sold voting machines.
Bev Harris is an American writer, activist, and founder of Black Box Voting, a national, nonpartisan elections watchdog group. She helped popularize the term "black box voting", while authoring a book of that title.
Edward William Felten is the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he was also the Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy from 2007 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. On November 4, 2010, he was named Chief Technologist for the Federal Trade Commission, a position he officially assumed January 3, 2011. On May 11, 2015, he was named the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer.
The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school provides an array of comprehensive coursework in the fields of international development, foreign policy, science and technology, and economics and finance through its undergraduate (AB) degrees, graduate Master of Public Affairs (MPA), Master of Public Policy (MPP), and PhD degrees. The school is consistently ranked as one of the best institutions for the study of international relations and public affairs in the country and in the world. Foreign Policy ranks the Princeton School as No. 2 in the world for International Relations at the undergraduate and No. 4 at the graduate level, behind the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Seth David Schoen is senior staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology civil rights organisation, and has been actively involved in discussing digital copyright law and encryption since the 1990s. He is an expert in trusted computing.
Black box voting signifies voting on voting machines which do not disclose how they operate such as with closed source or proprietary operations. If a voting machine does not provide a tangible record of individual votes cast then it can be described as black box voting.
Computational sociology is a branch of sociology that uses computationally intensive methods to analyze and model social phenomena. Using computer simulations, artificial intelligence, complex statistical methods, and analytic approaches like social network analysis, computational sociology develops and tests theories of complex social processes through bottom-up modeling of social interactions.
A direct-recording electronic voting machine records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchscreen; and they process data using a computer program to record voting data and ballot images in memory components. After the election, it produces a tabulation of the voting data stored in a removable memory component and as printed copy. The system may also provide a means for transmitting individual ballots or vote totals to a central location for consolidating and reporting results from precincts at the central location. The device started to be massively used in 1996 in Brazil where 100% of the elections voting system is carried out using machines.
The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), and the Center for Communications and Computing (C&C) – to assist the United States government in addressing national security issues, particularly those requiring scientific and technical expertise. It is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.
Hacking Democracy is a 2006 Emmy nominated documentary film broadcast on HBO and created by producer / directors Russell Michaels and Simon Ardizzone, with producer Robert Carrillo Cohen, and executive producers Sarah Teale, Sian Edwards & Earl Katz. Filmed over three years it documents American citizens investigating anomalies and irregularities with 'e-voting' systems that occurred during the 2000 and 2004 elections in the United States, especially in Volusia County, Florida. The film investigates the flawed integrity of electronic voting machines, particularly those made by Diebold Election Systems, exposing previously unknown backdoors in the Diebold trade secret computer software. The film culminates dramatically in the on-camera hacking of the in-use / working Diebold election system in Leon County, Florida - the same computer voting system which has been used in actual American elections across thirty-three states, and which still counts tens of millions of America's votes today.
The Hursti Hack was a successful attempt to alter the votes recorded on a Diebold optical scan voting machine. The hack is named after Harri Hursti.
Civic technology, or civic tech, enhances the relationship between the people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and communications technology supporting government with software built by community-led teams of volunteers, nonprofits, consultants, and private companies as well as embedded tech teams working within government.
J. Alex Halderman is professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he is also director of the Center for Computer Security & Society. Halderman's research focuses on computer security and privacy, with an emphasis on problems that broadly impact society and public policy.
Matthew Jeffrey Salganik is an American sociologist and professor of sociology at Princeton University with a special interest on social networks and computational social science.
Election cybersecurity or election security refers to the protection of elections and voting infrastructure from cyberattack or cyber threat – including the tampering with or infiltration of voting machines and equipment, election office networks and practices, and voter registration databases.
The Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance (JRC) is a leading research center at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University. Founded in 2011, the JRC primarily promotes research on public policy as it relates to financial markets and macroeconomics. The center has also expanded its research and teaching to multiple disciplines, including economics, operations research, political science, history, and ethics.
The Princeton University Department of Mathematics is an academic department at Princeton University. Founded in 1760, the department has trained some of the world's most renowned and internationally recognized scholars of mathematics. Notable individuals affiliated with the department include John Nash, former faculty member and winner of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; Alan Turing, who received his doctorate from the department; and Albert Einstein who frequently gave lectures at Princeton and had an office in the building. Fields Medallists associated with the department include Manjul Bhargava, Charles Fefferman, Gerd Faltings, Michael Freedman, Elon Lindenstrauss, Andrei Okounkov, Terence Tao, William Thurston, Akshay Venkatesh, and Edward Witten. Many other Princeton mathematicians are noteworthy, including Ralph Fox, Donald C. Spencer, John R. Stallings, Norman Steenrod, John Tate, John Tukey, Arthur Wightman, and Andrew Wiles.
The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) is a research institute on self-determination, self-governance, and diplomacy. LISD is affiliated with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Founded in 2000 by the Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, the Institute aims to enhance global peace and stability through its projects, publications, and commentaries.
Electronic voting in the United States involves several types of machines: touch screens for voters to mark choices, scanners to read paper ballots, scanners to verify signatures on envelopes of absentee ballots, and web servers to display tallies to the public. Aside from voting, there are also computer systems to maintain voter registrations and display these electoral rolls to polling place staff.
Andrea M. Matwyshyn is a United States law professor and engineering professor at The Pennsylvania State University. She is known as a scholar of technology policy, particularly as an expert at the intersection of law and computer security and for her work with government. She is credited with originating the legal and policy concept of the Internet of Bodies.