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French expert may get main prize for finding weak points in Moscow e-voting system

There are plans to improve the data encryption keys by Election Day

MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. A French expert may get a sizable part of the monetary reward for probing possible vulnerabilities in the e-voting system for the Moscow City Duma elections, the head of the public headquarters to monitor and control the election, Alexei Venediktov, told TASS on Friday.

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Moscow City Duma chairman rules out possibility of calling off September 8 election

Earlier, encrypter Pierrick Gaudry pointed out weak spots in the online voting system for the Moscow City Duma elections set for September 8.

The press service of the Department for Information Technologies, for its part, noted that data encryption keys for the online voting were actually not strong enough, and plans were to improve them by Election Day.

"I think Mr. Gaudry can be eligible for the biggest part of the prize pool, though there was no hacking actually. However, he was of great help, pointing out a weak link in the length of the key. On Monday, the headquarters will discuss this with IT personnel. I, for one, will be in favor of seeing Perrick Gaudry get the biggest part of the prize pool," Venediktov stressed.

Earlier, Venediktov said that those hackers who break into the e-voting system during its tests ahead of the election could get two million rubles ($30,180). "We are proud that an encryption expert like Pierrick Gaudry took interest in the experiment and told us how to improve encryption," Venediktov added.

The Moscow City Duma elections are due on September 8. A total of 233 candidates, including 171 candidates from political parties and 62 self-nominees have been registered. Registration was denied to 57 potential candidates, including 39 self-nominees. A total of 129 candidates will be running for seats in the Moscow City Duma from various parliamentary parties: 45 from the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), 44 from the KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and 40 from A Just Russia. Among the registered candidates, there are also nominees from smaller parties like Yabloko, the Communists of Russia, Rodina, the Greens and the Party of Growth.

An e-voting experiment will be carried out in three voting districts. A center that will control the process of e-voting in the September 8 elections has been set up at the public headquarters to monitor the election to the Moscow parliament.

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