Expert rubbishes ABS hacker claims and says census was doomed from the start

A PROMINENT computer science expert has cast doubt on claims the Census was hacked, saying a lack of planning was to blame.

AUSTRALIAN computer science pioneer Roger Riordan, who accurately predicted the chaos experienced on Census night, has his doubts about the official explanation for the site crashing.

In a statement Wednesday morning the ABS said the online form suffered four “denial of service (DoS) attacks” designed to overwhelm a network with traffic forcing it to shut down.

However one of the country’s most accomplished computer experts has called the explanation “bulls**t”.

Mr Riordan spent 17 years working for the CSIRO and made his millions after developing the first version of VET Antiviral Software while working at the Chisholm Institute of Technology, before establishing the Cybec Foundation in 2002.

Speaking to news.com.au, he expressed his doubts about the likelihood of the attacks and said he believed “incompetence” was the more likely culprit.

While conceding the hack could have taken place, when asked about his thoughts on the ABS’ admission of the DoS attacks, Mr Riordan expressed doubts about it saying “I don’t believe it”.

Instead, he attributed it to a “total lack of planning” and said he believed the crash was largely inevitable.

According to government documents, the ABS spent more than $9.6 million developing the online census platform and nearly half a million load testing it.

Former federal treasurer Peter Costello and Roger Riordan, MD and founder of Cybec at the opening of their new office in 1997.

For Mr Riordan, the issues last night sprung from a fundamental miscalculation.

“The Census made a prior announcement that they considered all the possibilities and that they could handle one million submissions an hour and they could cope with that easily,” he said.

However when Mr Riordan heard that statement he was not filled with confidence.

“Because the only information that I received was an envelope and on the front it said here’s your Census information, keep it for Census night,” he recalled.

“There was no suggestion you should prepare yourself before it.”

Just days before the Census, Mr Riordan expressed his concerns in a letter to Fairfax Media in which he said the lack of information prior to the event would mean many Australians would leave it to the last minute resulting in a rush of traffic to the Census website after dinner.

“So I expect most eligible people will arrive home on (August 9), have dinner, then think ‘oh, the (expletive deleted) Census’, and expect to be able to finish it before bedtime. This could mean up to 10 million people trying to respond in one hour. I predict total chaos,” he wrote.

“Obviously it was going to collapse,” he told news.com.au.

Some Australians on social have expressed similar sentiments.

Was the "hack" on the Census website a DDoS, denial of service? Cos, that's just everyone trying to do the Census.

— Lucy Battersby (@LucyBattersby) August 9, 2016

By DDoS, you mean asking 24 million people to log into @ABSCensus on one night #CensusFail

— A Phazzlepotomus (@phazzles) August 9, 2016

@jdub ABS were definitely blocking connections outside AU from the beginning, had to disable VPN to get on. Makes DDoS claim questionable

— Josh Stewart (@noisymime) August 9, 2016

Lot of computer people in my feed suggesting the alleged “DDOS” was just the ABS system failing to cope. https://t.co/GPWzxfg13g

— Mark Colvin (@Colvinius) August 10, 2016

The ABS said it was now working with the Australian Signals Directorate to determine the source of the attack.

Chief ABS statistician David Kalisch told ABC radio this morning that “it was quite clear it was malicious.”

He also said it had so far been difficult to work out where the hack had come from.

Everyone will want to know who was behind the claimed attack but the ABS will not have an answer and are unlikely to ever have an answer.

— Ben Grubb (@bengrubb) August 9, 2016

The first three attacks caused minor disruption, the ABS said, but more than two million people still managed to submit their surveys successfully. However the ABS took the “precaution of closing down the system to ensure the integrity of the data” just after 7.30pm.

The ABS has been contacted for comment.

Australian Statistician David Kalisch and Duncan Young, head of the 2016 Census Program, held a press conference in Canberra yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith