Cryptography Organization Annuls Election After Losing Decryption Key

The International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), one of the world's premier cryptography organizations, has annulled its annual leadership elections after losing the key needed to decrypt voting results—an ironic mishap for experts in secure communications.

About IACR

IACR is a non-profit scientific organization conducting research in cryptology and related fields. Cryptology encompasses the development of computational and communication systems, focusing on encryption and decryption methods.

The Voting System

The election used Helios, an open-source voting system built on peer-reviewed cryptography. Helios provides verifiability, confidentiality, and ballot privacy: each vote is encrypted to maintain secrecy while allowing voters to confirm their ballots were counted correctly.

Under IACR bylaws, three election commission members serve as independent trustees. To prevent collusion, the cryptographic key for decrypting results is split into three parts—one held by each trustee. All three parts are required for decryption.

What Went Wrong

"Unfortunately, one of the three trustees irrecoverably lost their private key—an honest but regrettable human error—and therefore cannot compute their decryption share," IACR representatives stated.

Without all three key fragments, Helios could not complete the decryption process, making it technically impossible to obtain or verify the final results.

Changes and Resolution

To prevent recurrence, IACR will modify its key management mechanism: decryption will now require only two of the three key parts rather than all three. The organization also confirmed that Moti Yung—the trustee who lost the key—has resigned.

IACR is conducting a new election, which will run until December 20, 2025.