System for the anonymous counting of information items for statistical purposes especially in respect of operations in electronic voting or in periodic surveys of consumption

摘要

The system has a number of decision elements (OD), a verification element (OV) and a counting element (OC), which are functionally and structurally distinct. Each decision element produces an information source (S) and information identity (ID) and to encode the information source so that it cannot be decoded by the verification element (OV) but can be decoded by the counting element (OC). The verification element (OV) includes a decision element identity file (B1), and controls the identity of the decision element to the origin of an incident message (M1). An anonymously derived message (M2) is stripped of decodeable identity information by the counting element (OC). The counting element receives the derived messages from the verification element and processes these messages to produce a statistical data and a statistical file (B2) for the corresponding sources.