I was expecting the online Census to struggle under the weight of 12 million users, so my wife and I completed it yesterday lunchtime with few issues (one of the benefits of working from home).
It took us around 20 minutes to complete the survey (we have four people in our home: two parents, two kids), and the survey was fairly straightforward. I was taken aback by some of the privacy issues – e.g. full names, addresses, ages, employer’s name and address, etc – but filled these details out anyway.
So, overall, my experience was pretty good.
Others we not so lucky. For the bulk of people filling the survey after work, they received messages like this when trying to log on:
That’s the problem when many millions of people try to use a service all at once: 12 million users requires Google-styled infrastructure to cope.
Worse, internet security appears to have been lacking, with the ABS claiming that the Census website was attacked four times by overseas hackers last night. From The ABC:
Thousands of Australians were prevented from taking part in the census on Tuesday night as the ABS website crashed.
This morning the ABS’s David Kalisch said the census website had been attacked by hackers four times and was shut down as a precaution after the fourth attack.
“It was an attack, and we believe from overseas,” he said.
When asked if the hacks were a deliberate attempt to sabotage the census, Mr Kalisch replied: “We believe so”.
“The Australian Signals Directorate are investigating, but they did note that it was very difficult to source the attack.”
Mr Kalisch said the site was taken down just after 7:30pm after the fourth attack as a precaution to “ensure the integrity of the data”…
“The scale of the attack, it was quite clear it was malicious.
“Steps have been taken during the night to remedy these issues and I can certainly reassure Australians that the data they provided is safe.”
This is a massive failure. Australians have been asked to provide very personal information and data, and yet there are legitimate concerns that this data may not be safe and could be hacked.
Hopefully, these shenanigans will put an end to calls to conduct elections electronically. If the Census could be hacked, then why not also Australia’s electoral voting system?
