SECURE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL VOTING SYSTEM USING

CRYPTOGRAPHIC MECHANISMS

WONG LAM SHEN

FACULTY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITI TEKNIKAL MALAYSIA MELAKA

2014

BORANG PENGESAHAN STATUS TESIS

JUDUL: SECURE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL VOTING SYSTEM USING CRYPTOGRAPHIC MECHANISMS SESI PENGAJIAN: SESI 2013/2014 Saya WONG LAM SHEN mengaku membenarkan tesis (PSM/Sarjana/Doktor Falsafah) ini disimpan di Perpustakaan Fakulti Teknologi Maklumat dan Komunikasi dengan syarat-syarat kegunaan seperti berikut: 1. Tesis dan projek adalah hakmilik Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka. 2. Perpustakaan Fakulti Teknologi Maklumat dan Komunikasi dibenarkan membuat salinan untuk tujuan pengajian sahaja. 3. Perpustakaan Fakulti Teknologi Maklumat dan Komunikasi dibenarkan membuat salinan tesis ini sebagai bahan pertukaran antara institusi pengajian tinggi. 4. ** Sila tandakan (/) _____________ SULIT (Mengandungi maklumat yang berdarjah

keselamatan atau kepentingan Malaysia seperti yang termaktub di dalam AKTA RAHSIA RASMI 1972)

_____________ TERHAD (Mengandungi maklumat TERHAD yang telah

ditentukan oleh organisasi/badan di mana penyelidikan dijalankan)

_____/_______ TIDAK TERHAD __________________________ ___________________________ (TANDATANGAN PENULIS) (TANDATANGAN PENYELIA) Alamat tetap : 111B-4-10, Jalan Bukit Penara, 11000 Balik Pulau, Pulau Pinang. Tarikh : __________________________ Tarikh: _____________________

Dr. Shekh Faisal Abdul Latip

SECURE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL VOTING SYSTEM USING

CRYPTOGRAPHIC MECHANISMS

WONG LAM SHEN

This report is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Bachelor of

Computer Science (Computer Networking)

FACULTY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

UNIVERSITI TEKNIKAL MALAYSIA MELAKA

2014

DECLARATION

I hereby declare this project report entitled

SECURE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL VOTING SYSTEM

USING CRYPTOGRAPHIC MECHANISMS

is written by me and is my own effort and that no part has been plagiarized without

citations.

STUDENT :_____________________________ Date:_____________

(WONG LAM SHEN)

SUPERVISOR:_____________________________ Date:_____________

(DR. SHEKH FAISAL ABDUL LATIP)

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DEDICATION

To my beloved parents, my whole family, my supportive supervisors, Dr.

Shekh Faisal Abdul Latip, my evaluator, PM Dr. Rabiah Ahmad and all my

understandable friends, thank you for the support and guidance given throughout the

completion of my PSM.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to show my gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Shekh

Faisal Abdul Latip for all the ideas and advices in guiding me throughout the project.

I would also like to thank my family members especially my parents because they

have given me the greatest support in all sorts of materials throughout my years of

studying in this university.

Last but not least, I would like to thanks to all my friends and course mates for their

kindness in sharing knowledge and resources.

Thanks a lot.

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ABSTRACT

The project that had been developed is going to be concerning about the

voting system of UTeM student representative election. The project will be known as

the Electronic Voting System. This report contains the introduction, methodology,

analysis, design, implementation, testing, and project conclusion of the project. The

project methodology, used is Rapid Application Development model (RAD). The

problem statement of this project is difficult to avoid the appearance of the ghost

voters during the election time and the information of ballots and voters are easily

exposed because the current voting system is not secure. This electronic voting

system is going to be online using Internet and can be access by all UTeM students.

This system is developed by using HTML and PHP as the programming language

and Wamp server as the database. To develop the system, designs had been made

that covers the system architecture, user interfaces and database design. This project

offers the voters to cast easily through internet. The database also makes the ballots

counting become faster, easily and accurately.

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ABSTRAK

Projek yang telah yang akan dibuatkan berkaitan tentang sistem pilihan raya

wakil pelajar UTeM. Projek ini akan dikenali sebagai Sistem Pengundian Elektronik.

Laporan ini mengandungi pengenalan, metodologi, analisis, reka bentuk,

pelaksanaan, pengujian, dan kesimpulan projek. Metodologi projek, yang digunakan

ialah model Rapid Pembangunan Aplikasi (RAD). Pernyataan masalah projek ini

adalah sukar untuk mengelakkan kemunculan pengundi hantu semasa pilihan raya

dan maklumat undi dan pengundi mudah terdedah kerana sistem pengundian semasa

tidak selamat. Sistem pengundian elektronik akan menggunakan kemudahan Internet

dan boleh diakses oleh semua pelajar UTeM. Sistem ini dibangunkan dengan

menggunakan HTML dan PHP sebagai bahasa pengaturcaraan dan Wamp server

sebagai pangkalan data. Reka bentuk telah dibuat untuk membangunkan system yang

merangkumi seni bina sistem, antara muka pengguna dan reka bentuk pangkalan data.

Projek ini menawarkan pengundi untuk mengundi dengan mudah melalui internet.

Pangkalan data ini juga membuat undi menerusi pengiraan menjadi lebih cepat,

mudah dan tepat.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

DEDICATION ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

ABSTRAK v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES xi

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Project Background 1

1.2 Problem Statement 2

1.3 Objective 3

1.4 Scope 3

1.5 Project Contribution 4

1.6 Report Organization 5

1.7 Summary 6

LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Introduction 7

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2.2 Student Representative Council 8

2.2.1 Background of UTeM Student Representative Council 9

2.3 Previous Projek Sarjana Muda 10

2.4 Voting System 11

2.4.1 Current Voting System 11

2.5 Cryptographic Mechanisms 12

2.5.1 Usage of Cryptography 12

2.5.2 RSA Cryptography 13

2.5.3 Digital Signature 15

2.5.4 Digital Signature (Basic Principle) 15

2.5.5 Generating a Digital Signature 15

2.5.6 Verify a Digital Signature 16

2.5.7 Architecture of Digital Signature 16

2.6 Summary 17

METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Introduction 18

3.2 Project Methodology 18

3.2.1 Phase I: Analysis & Quick Design 19

3.2.2 Phase II: Prototyping Cycles 20

3.2.3 Phase III: Testing 20

3.2.4 Phase IV: Implementation 20

3.3 Project Requirement 21

3.3.1 Security Requirement 21

3.3.1.1 Aunthentication 21

3.3.1.2 Confidentiality 21

3.3.1.3 Integrity 22

3.3.2 Software Requirement 22

3.3.3 Hardware Requirement 23

3.4 Project Schedule and Milestones 24

3.5 Summary 26

viii

ANALYSIS 27

4.1 Introduction 27

4.2 Problem Analysis 27

4.3 Requirement Analysis 28

4.3.1 Data Requirement 28

4.3.1.1 Admin table 28

4.3.1.2 Ballot table 29

4.3.1.3 Voters table 29

4.3.1.4 Candidates table 30

4.3.2 Functional Requirements 30

4.3.2.1 Login Module 30

4.3.2.2 Voter Management Module 30

4.3.2.3 Admin Management Module 31

4.3.2.4 Flowchart 31

4.3.3 Non-functional Requirements 34

4.3.3.1 Performance 34

4.3.3.2 Security 34

4.4 Summary 34

DESIGN 35

5.1 Introduction 35

5.2 Suggestion Electronic Voting System 35

5.3 High-Level Design 37

5.3.1 System Architecture 37

5.3.2 User Interface Design 38

5.3.2.1 Navigation Design 38

5.3.2.2 Input Design 39

5.3.2.3 Output Design 40

5.3.3 Database Design 60

5.3.3.1 Conceptual and Logical Database Design 60

5.4 Detailed Design 61

5.4.1 Software Design 61

5.4.2 Physical Database Design 65

5.4.2.1 Create Database 65

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5.4.2.2 Create table “Admin” 66

5.4.2.3 Create table “Student” 66

5.4.2.4 Create table “Candidate” 67

5.4.2.5 Create table “Ballot” 67

5.5 Summary 68

IMPLEMENTATION 69

6.1 Introduction 69

6.2 Software Development Environment Setup 69

6.3 Software Configuration Management 70

6.3.1 Configuration Environment Setup 70

6.4 Summary 71

TESTING 72

7.1 Introduction 72

7.2 Test Plan 73

7.2.1 Test Organization 73

7.2.2 Test Environment 73

7.2.3 Test Schedule 74

7.3 Test Strategy 75

7.3.1 Classes of Test 75

7.4 Test Design 76

7.4.1 Test Description 76

7.4.2 Test Data 77

7.5 Test Result and Analysis 77

7.6 Summary 78

PROJECT CONCLUSION 79

8.1 Introduction 79

8.2 Observation on Weakness and Strengths 79

8.3 Propositions for Improvement 80

8.4 Contribution 81

8.5 Conclusion 81

x

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE TITLE PAGE

Table 3.1 Software Requirement 22

Table 3.2 Gantt Chart 23

Table 3.3 Milestones 24

Table 4.1 Admin Table 26

Table 4.2 Ballot Table 26

Table 4.3 Voters Table 27

Table 4.4 Candidates Table 27

Table 5.1 Input Design 36

Table 5.2 Conceptual, Logical and Physical Database Design 54

Table 5.3 Student Login Algorithm 55

Table 5.4 Student Digital Signature Algorithm 56

Table 5.5 Administrator Login Algorithm 57

Table 5.6 Administrator Registration Algorithm 57

Table 5.7 Student Registration Algorithm 58

Table 5.8 Candidate Registration Algorithm 59

Table 7.1 Requirement of the Test Environment 73

Table 7.2 Test Schedule 74

Table 7.3 Classes of Test 75

Table 7.4 List of Testers 77

Table 7.5 Test Result 77

xi

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE TITLE PAGE

Figure 2.1 Literature Review Phase 7

Figure 2.2 The Current Process Flow of the SRC Voting System 11

Figure 2.3 Digital Signing and Verification 16

Figure 3.1 Rapid Application Development Model 19

Figure 3.2 Gantt Chart 23

Figure 4.1 Voter Flowchart 29

Figure 4.2 Admin Flowchart 30

Figure 5.1 System Architecture 34

Figure 5.2 Navigation Design 35

Figure 5.3 Main Menu of the Voting System 37

Figure 5.4 Student Login Form 37

Figure 5.5 Invalid Student ID or Password 38

Figure 5.6 Force to Change Passwword 38

Figure 5.7 Password Changed 38

Figure 5.8 Student Login after Changed Password 39

Figure 5.9 Student Main Interface 39

Figure 5.10 Public Key and Private Key 40

Figure 5.11 Voting Interface 41

Figure 5.12 Insert Private Key 42

Figure 5.13 Inserting Wrong Private Key 42

Figure 5.14 Wrong Private Key 43

Figure 5.15 Inserting Correct Private Key 43

xii

Figure 5.16 Ballot Submitted 44

Figure 5.17 Private Key has been used 44

Figure 5.18 Invalid Private Key 45

Figure 5.19 Invalid Ballot from Student 45

Figure 5.20 Admin Login Form 46

Figure 5.21 Admin Main Interface 46

Figure 5.22 Admin Registration Form 47

Figure 5.23 Admin Account Successfully Created 47

Figure 5.24 Student Registration Form 48

Figure 5.25 Student Account Successfully Created 48

Figure 5.26 View and Delete Student 49

Figure 5.27 Student Deleted 49

Figure 5.28 Add Candidate Form 50

Figure 5.29 Candidate Successfully Added 50

Figure 5.30 View and Delete Candidate 51

Figure 5.31 Candidate Deleted 52

Figure 5.32 Ballots Status 52

Figure 5.33 View Vote Information and Result 53

Figure 5.34 View Students’ Votes 54

Figure 5.35 Insert a Valid Master Key 54

Figure 5.36 View All Decrypted Votes 55

Figure 5.37 Wrong Master Key 55

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Project Background

The word "vote" means to choose from a list, to elect or to determine the ideal

candidate based on the voter judgement. The main goal of voting is to come out with

leaders of the voter's choice. Some of the problems that involved are needed to queue up

for a long time, insecure or inaccessible polling stations, problems of counting ballot and

also inexperienced personnel. This electronic voting system is used to overcome these

problems. It should be noted that with this system in the place, the users will be given

enough time during the voting period and the voters can vote from anywhere and

anytime. Electronic voting system can make our modern social life more efficient,

simple and convenient.

Electronic voting technology is including punched cards, optical scan voting

systems and specialized voting station. It can also involve transmission of ballots and

votes via telephones, private computer networks or the internet. A secure electronic

voting system must meet the security requirements which are authentication,

authorization, accountability, confidentiality and data integrity.

2

In this project, a secure student representative council voting system will be

designed and created using cryptographic mechanisms to protect and enhance the current

manual voting system.

1.2 Problem Statement

The election of UTeM Student Representative Council will be held every year

and there are thirty positions in UTeM Student Representative Council in year 2014.

UTeM have three campus which are main campus, technology campus and city campus.

The student representatives are chosen from seven faculties which located in these three

campuses. When the election of Student Representative Council starts, the staff from

computer centre needs to set up the voting station in each faculty and this will waste the

man power and time due to the geographic location of UTeM. Besides that, the security

of the current voting system is not very secure from some security metrics. The problem

statement of this project is difficult to avoid the appearance of the ghost voters during

the election time and the information of ballots and voters are easily exposed because

the current voting system is not secure.

Research Questions:

i) What is the method used to avoid ghost voters?

ii) How to protect the information of the ballots and voters?

iii) How to make the system become more secure?

3

1.3 Objective

The purpose of this project is to develop an electronic voting system to help and

enhance the election of the student representative council. This system will give a

systematic and comfortable to the user who is involved in the voting or election. The

objective of this system is as follow:

i) To avoid ghost voters through the use of digital signature.

ii) To enhance voters' privacy through the use of encryption.

iii) To enhance the integrity of ballots and voters' information.

1.4 Scope

There are three types of scope in this electronic voting system which is the scope

of the end user, the scope of the system and the scope of the system security.

i) End user

An end user is the person who uses the software or hardware after it has been

fully developed, tested and installed. The users of this electronic voting

system are students (voters), candidates and admin.

ii) The system

This electronic voting system will contains some of the important modules

which are:

i) Registration of voters.

ii) Add, update and delete of the candidates.

iii) View the information of voters and candidates.

iv) Report of the voting result.

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iii) System security

In this electronic voting system, we are concerned on few security aspects

which are:

i) The authenticity of the voters.

ii) The confidentiality of ballots.

iii) The integrity of ballots and voters' information.

1.5 Project Contribution

The advantages or benefits of this system are highly securing, save time and no

risk of repeat voting. This voting system will be better than the old system which is local

voting systems, a system that required voters to queue up for voting and doing face

recognize for voters authentication.

Electronic voting system is ready 24 hours for online voting and leave the online

vote open for many days, which allowed everyone have a chance to vote online at a

convenient time and place. This will save time, money and effort. A high security

electronic voting system can avoid all the cost, effort and expenses of printing, posting

and counting paper ballots. Information can be collected from server anytime and the

result is known immediately after the vote closed. This also will protect our earth by

reducing paper consumption.

This electronic voting system focus on few security aspects which are the

authenticity of the voters, the confidentiality of ballots and the integrity of ballots and

voters' information. The weakness of this electronic voting system is the database

security. The database will store the secret information which is the ballots and this

secret information should not be seen by administrator. This weakness can be solved by

the future researcher.

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1.6 Report Organization

The main body of this report organization is containing the list of figures, tables

and the flows which are used in the report. This report organization will giving some

brief of the scope and objective of the project, methodology, analysis, design,

implementation and testing on the electronic voting system.

In Chapter 1 Introduction, we will discuss about the introduction, project

background, problem statement, research question, objective, project scope,

project contribution and report organization.

In Chapter 2 Literature Review, we will study about the related works such

as the background of student representative council, comparison of current

and new voting systems, cryptographic mechanisms and the tools to develop

the web-based voting system.

In Chapter 3 Methodology, we will explain about the method used to analyse

and develop the electronic voting system based on the methodology model

and show all the requirements of this project.

In Chapter 4 Analysis, we will preview to the analysis phase, how would the

system be developed and introduce the requirements of software and

hardware.

In Chapter 5 Design, we will describe the experimental design and

environment setup, and design of electronic voting system in this project.

In Chapter 6 Implementation, we will briefly describe about the activity that

involved in the implementation phase, method to be implement and show the

expected output when finished this phase.

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In Chapter 7 Testing, we will briefly describe the activity involved in testing

phase and what is the testing strategy to be adopted in this project.

In Chapter 8 Conclusion, the weaknesses and strength of this project will be

state.

1.7 Summary

In this chapter, we have discussed about the project background, scope of the

project and the problem statement. The main aspect of this project is to bring out a new

idea that was sustained within us for a long term times. This project offers the voters to

cast easily through internet. The database also makes the ballots counting become faster,

easily and accurately. Developing a good system is critical to the success of the system

to prevent system failures and to gain wide acceptance as the best method available.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, the problem statement and project objective have been

clearly discussed. So in this chapter, the literature review will focus on searching,

analyzing, collecting and finding out the conclusion from all the aspects and issues as

shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Literature Review Phase

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There are few main topics of this literature review, which are the background of Student

Representative Council, UTeM Student Representative Council, previous Project

Sarjana Muda, current voting system and cryptographic mechanisms.

2.2 Student Representative Council

Undergraduate with professional technique and skills nowadays is seen as the

prospect of leaders in the future. Student Representative Council (SRC) is one of the

highest student organizations in universities and the main purpose of the organization is

to produce graduates who are capable of becoming leaders in future. They are more

expert or excel in all aspects for the benefit not only among university students but also

for the country's future. There are around 20 universities which have Student

Representative Council (SRC) in Institution of Higher Learning (IPTA) in Malaysia.

The purpose and function of Student Representative Council (SRC) are

(Subsection 48 (10) of the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (Amendment

2009)):

i) Cultivate and train the spirit of corporate life among the students of the

University.

ii) Work with the instruction of Vice-Chancellor, organizing and overseeing the

welfare of students in the University facilities including recreational, spiritual

and religious activities and the provision of food and drink.

iii) Appeal to the Vice-Chancellor on all matters relating to the life and work of

students.

iv) Represented in anybody with reliable rules made for some purpose and appointed

to carry out the welfare of students at the University.

v) To carry out any other activities as may be prescribed by the SRC from time to

time.

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The selection process for members of the Student Representative Council (SRC)

for each Institution of Higher Learning (IPTA) in Malaysia is one of the university's

annual activities. The aim of this activity is to choose a new leader to represent all

students at the university in accordance with the requirements and provisions

(Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (Amendment 2009) (Subsection 48 (1),

(2), (3), (4), (5) & (6)).).

This selection process is very important to maintain the Student Representative

Council (SRC) leadership in university and produce more young leaders who will lead

the country's leadership in the future. The selection process will also provide a very

useful exposure among university students through the process of elections run and then

select student leaders who will mediate the students at the university and the university

management, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the community around him.

2.2.1 Background of UTeM Student Representative Council

The Student Representative Council UTeM is chosen from 7 faculties in UTeM

which are Faculty of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Electrical

Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering,

Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Faculty of Technology

Management & Technopreneurship and Faculty of Engineering Technology. The

Student Representative Council UTeM contains three main states which are executive

council, supreme council and cabinet exco. Executive council contains 4 persons,

supreme council contains 3 persons and cabinet exco contains 23 persons. The amounts

of the Student Representative Council UTeM increased from 27 persons to 30 persons in

year 2013/2014. The increasing of 3 senators are Chinese, Indian and International

student representatives (MPP UTeM, 2013/2014).