The Australian Census website was DDoS'd 4 times last night and Australian media is full of shit

[comicsansms]

 

Tuesday the 9th of August was the place the Australian Census took place, it was the 1st online census in Australian history, it didn't turn down so well.

 

 

 

There was 4 DDoS attacks during the night, one of them took the website down at 7.30PM, the other 3 were just an inconvenience. Australian news outlets such as the ABC are full of shit and are claiming that the census was hacked, when only it was just DDoS'd. Due to the fact that it was just a DDoS attack, no data was been taken or ever compromised, just a lot of people were not able to fill in the form, and only 2 million forms were successfully submitted.

The many million people who were unable to complete their census form have until the 23/08 to complete them, but the data has to correct as of the 09/08, they also will not have to pay the $100 fine.

 

The ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars stressing the systems for 1 million forms an hours. The thing is there is 23 million people in Australia, and there is an average of 2.6 people per household, so there would be 8.8 million households, and what time would you complete the census? I know I completed it after tea at about 8PM, I am speculating that most people completed it sometime after work and before they go to bed or start binge watching TV. Assuming 90% of 8.8 million decided to enter it between 5PM and 9PM, 7.92 million households tried to enter the form and that is close to 2 million per hour, just under double what they tested it for, which was showing when I completed my form. When I was completing my small part of the form, I got 3 errors saying my information was not uploaded, ultimately it didn't effect me since my data did get submitted, but the cracks were showing.

 

Honestly I think this online census was a test, a failed test, I don't think it will be the last online census, hopefully in a 5 years time they have cut out the bugs and backend issues and it will be ready to run.

 

Source:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-10/australian-bureau-of-statistics-says-census-website-hacked/7712216

 

Edit 1: Fixed typos.

Edit 2: Added an image.

 

UPDATE 1: Malcolm Turnbull blames IBM, ABC is still full of shit and the website is still down.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Comic_Sans_MS
Typo, added an image and added more info

[Guest]

It wasn't the news sites claiming it was hacked, that was the ABS calling that one.

[Energycore]

Just now, Windspeed36 said:

It wasn't the news sites claiming it was hacked, that was the ABS calling that one.

Must be nice living in Astreya

 

But I do think online census will become the norm one day. Of course with DDoS protection lol

[AresKrieger]

Yeah in america you can tell the census to go to hell without penalty which I like

[comicsansms]

2 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

It wasn't the news sites claiming it was hacked, that was the ABS calling that one.

I'll look into that. I'll update it if that is correct.

[johnno124]

2 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Must be nice living in Astreya

Please, it 'Straya. not Astreya

[AresKrieger]

5 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

It wasn't the news sites claiming it was hacked, that was the ABS calling that one.

Based on the article he linked they (ABS) were never quoted as saying hack, they used the word attack, and the source  ABC reffered to it as a hack so I think they way he wrote it may be correct

[comicsansms]

7 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

It wasn't the news sites claiming it was hacked, that was the ABS calling that one.

Quote

The 2016 online Census form was subject to four Denial of Service attacks yesterday of varying nature and severity.

The first three caused minor disruption but more than 2m forms were successfully submitted and safely stored.

After the fourth attack, just after 730pm, the ABS took the precaution of closing down the system to ensure the integrity of the data.

Steps have been taken during the night to remedy these issues, and I can reassure Australians that their data are secure at the ABS.

They don't mention "Hack" they just say it got DDoS'd and they took it offline.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/617D51FA32D27BF9CA25800A0077B7BD?OpenDocument

[Eroda]

i didnt fill it out i never got the letter with the login information because AusPost forr some reason dont deliver to my house..

[Rune]

Should have used squarespace with their SCALEABLE SOLUTIONS

[blaze756]

I went postal Census and by the sounds of it, it was a good idea. Next time I'll try out the online system. By then it should be better... hopefully. 

[Serin]

Was amusing watching it all unfold last night.
Did mine my paper form as for some odd reason they sent it without my requesting - used a name from a fanfic I'm writing but the rest of the data's good. Not that I think the data from this round is going to be useful after all this crap.

[Kobz360]

Completely agree man, the media completely blew it out of proportion - you see other Aussies posting on FB and other outlets claiming that their information was stolen, they can't trust anyone and whatnot.. when in reality it was just a DDoS lol 

 

The use of the word "hack" implies to the average person that people were able to access all the data and take it.. none of that appeared to have occurred last night at all 

[CPUmodder]

Well seeing we only had 70 physical servers to host the site i'm not surprised 

Quote

Running the Census in-house would help address security perceptions arising from the data being handled from a third-party, the ABS said at the time. It said it also made sense to outsource the project to a third-party rather than deal with the one-off high traffic spike internally.

The agency became 95 percent virtualised after cutting 300 physical servers to 70, which hosted 1500 virtual machines.

 

Source: http://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-wins-96m-to-host-ecensus-in-2016-397613

 

(Do correct me if I am wrong) 

[aisle9]

Yes, but how many registered Jedi are there in Australia this year?

[LoE Ferret]

Made an account just for this.

 

If you submitted a form after 7:30pm then you really did not submit. The servers were brought somewhere between 7:30 - 7:45pm.

 

I spent a bit of yesterday finding out exactly what was said by whom, especially around the word "hack". It appears the media used that term whilst the ABS used "DDoS". Sadly if it is a DDoS attack, it was a fairly weak one not to show up on the attack maps AND least be honest, the backend of the eCensus was made by IBM... enough said.

 

Sadly, I predicted this would happen (mass server issues) so I didn't bother logging in on the night.

[JAKEBAB]

iirc it's the 23/9 not the 23/8. Waiting on my postal form still, they can suck a big fat one if they think im writing my address and name lol.

[ClownFace1511]

I was laughing listening to the media say it was hacked by china or russia.