Turnbull Government credibility in tatters over #Censusfail
Less than seven days ago, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull held a press conference to reassure Australians that the security of the Census was rock solid.
“The security of their personal details is absolute and that is protected by law and by practice,” he said last week.
“That is a given.”
The assurance came in the wake of growing community angst and concerns over the security and retention of confidential data submitted online via the ABS website.
ABS chief statistician David Kalisch also fronted the media, appearing on ABC 7:30 to allay concerns.
“The ABS has the best security features,” he said.
“We’ve never had a privacy breach with Census information.”
At the time, Dr Mark Gregory from the RMIT School of Engineering issued a stark and largely ignored warning that “Australians should be worried” about the ABS collecting their personal information.
“They can’t guarantee the security of the information. We know that Australia does not have mandatory data breach reporting laws and until those laws are put in place and security improved both within government and business then Australians have a great concern about the privacy of any information that they provide,” Dr Gregory said.
Today the so-called guarantees of “absolute security” issued by both Malcolm Turnbull and the ABS are in tatters with the ABS forced to take down the site overnight due to inadequate security and the risk that systems had been compromised.
The entire sorry affair vindicates Greens senators Scott Ludlam, Janet Rice, Sarah Hanson-Young, Lee Rhiannon and Larissa Waters and fellow crossbenchers Nick Xenophon and Jacqui Lambie who all declared they would be refusing to give their names when filling the census out.
And Christopher Pyne one again looks like a total twat after saying:
“I think Senator Xenophon is engaging in somewhat of a tinfoil hat kind of politics when he says that he’s raising doubts about the census.”
But then, this is the government that brought us the copper NBN, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.
theguttertrash.com 
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http://www.smh.com.au/national/census-website-attacked-by-hackers-abs-claims-20160809-gqouum.html
China bought part of IBM some years ago … (now Lenovo) … and I believe it was the consumer (laptop) division … however? I did watch Jason Bourne yesterday and anything is possible … including a “backdoor” (please don’t, sreb) … 😉
I feel violated.
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“”I feel violated.””
Situation normal then.
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Situation normal then.
Wait for the, “nasty, bitter, twisted, piece of work … old man … 😉
tut tut …
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“”Expert rubbishes ABS hacker claims and says census was doomed from the start””
http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/hacking/expert-rubbishes-abs-hacker-claims-and-says-census-was-doomed-from-the-start/news-story/28f271aeedaaddbbbfb403d9a9713476
I am absolutely gobsmacked that they only catered for 1 million/hour. Any tool would know that, worst case scenario, you would need to cater for 24 million/hour.
The worst part is, the heads that will roll are probably going to be all those geeks who claimed exaclty that, and the serial technical failure malcayman has probably squirreled away the savings from the rollout in the Caymans.
I also think that, according to the libs, this is a resounding success. They would recoil at the thought that something like this would actually influence where services are directed, when we all know full well that bribes influence the libs as to where services are directed.
They pullled the guts out of the abs, deliberately, and now will stand on their pulpit and bash the crap out of ‘cardigan wearing public servants’, and claim that ‘private can do it better.
Of course, the unpleasant fact that it looks like this WAS done by a private firm won’t detract them from their crusade.
The employment data has now been ruined in the same way that the qld health payroll debacle occurred.
Census meltdown just the latest Bureau of Statistics bungle
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/census-meltdown-just-the-latest-bureau-of-statistics-bungle-20160809-gqow3e.html
…”Reckless” doesn’t begin to describe the new culture at the top of the Bureau of Statistics.
Its most important product apart from the census is the monthly employment survey. Two years ago it decided to modernise. It moved much of it online, accepted a lower response rate and changed the months in which different questions were asked.
Against the advice of ABS veterans, it didn’t run a backup survey using the old system…
In August 2014 the number of Australians officially employed jumped an incredible 121,000. The next month, September, it dived 172,000, or it would have had the ABS not pleaded with users to ignore the seasonally adjusted numbers which it no longer trusted.
Without a backup – a parallel employment survey conducted under the old system – it was impossible to tell what was wrong and what was right…
…It wanted to abandon the 2016 census altogether, moving from five-yearly to 10-yearly, to save $200 million.
Told by the government that would require legislation that would be unlikely to get through the Senate, it decided to get extra value by using the names collected with the census to create permanent linkage keys. Previously destroyed after processing, they would be kept indefinitely in a separate file and used to link the answers to answers to census questions to the answers to other ABS surveys and data collected from organisations such as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Australian Tax Office. If it could find out whether Australians or certain ethnic backgrounds or family circumstances were more likely to claim certain tax deductions or be prescribed certain medicines it could sell the results.
The only problem was that it had put up the idea before to an independent privacy impact assessment, which had savaged it. So it conducted its own assessment in house, which found no problem. It published the results quietly late last year (there was nothing about in in the mainstream press) and then on the Friday before Christmas announced it would retain every name indefinitely in a press release misleadingly titled: ABS response to Privacy Impact Assessment.
By April it had backed down. It was going to keep the names for only four years, but it would keep the linkage keys created from them for as long as would be needed, which could be forever …
The Turnbull government never had any credibility from the moment his henchmen claimed that Abbott had to be stabbed there and then to save the Canning by-election. The correct message was that Abbott had to be stabbed because he was an utter cunt. But Turnbull prefers to be “clever” and is incapable of being forthright.
The ABC/SBS/Fairfax/Guardian crew gave the Turnbull government the appearance of credibility but that evaporated once the honeymoon was over and the leftist journos stopped rimming his beautifully bleached anus.
The census is a sideshow. The problem is that we have yet another narcissist PM who, having achieved his rightful place as ruler, has no clue about how he might govern. In Turnbull’s case the problem is exacerbated by the fact that he takes 2.5 hours each day to remove his lips from the mirror after his morning self-smooching session.
“”Turnbull was only sworn in in mid-July. It’s August. September should be interesting.””
https://newmatilda.com/2016/08/10/censusfail-boycott-grows-servers-crash-so-its-business-as-usual-under-a-turnbull-govt/
The ABC/SBS/Fairfax/Guardian crew gave the Turnbull government the appearance of credibility
Yea, that’d be right, just blame ‘teh’ media!
SPLITTER!
Mediscare, Censuscare …
Labor’s behind all this scare shit!
So who were the Fuckwits© who voted for MALfunction?
Name one … just one?
What would be funny if it wasn’t so fkn serious is that the government are so fkn stupid they think we’d fall for the “hacker” story in the first place!
Call me stupid but don’t treat me stupid! And that’s exactly what I find distasteful and offensive about MALfunction … he treats every Australian as a dumbfuck …
I did my census form by paper last night.I had to. My laptop was purchased in 2008 and is too old to do the census. I did not get my number by mail until last Tuesday. I rang up Tuesday night to get my paper form.
I sent the census back today by carrier pigeon to make sure they get it.
Apparently, trump has just jumped the shark …. again.
Specifically, he suggested that using the constitutional right to bear arms may be the only way to stop Clinton from appointing supreme court justices should she win in November. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Trump said, before adding: “Although the second amendment people – maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Whether Trump was suggesting his supporters use their weaponry against Clinton herself or any liberal judges she might go on to appoint is somewhat open to interpretation. Most people are reading it as the former, but either way it’s unacceptable and a violation of what it means to live in a free Democracy.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/09/donald-trump-second-amendment-quote-hillary-clinton?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=soc_3156#link_time=1470786171
Makes you kind of glad that our biggest problem at the moment is that our grubmint is too stupid to steal our personal information.
Although, this, from ao’s bolded quote above
If it could find out whether Australians or certain ethnic backgrounds or family circumstances were more likely to claim certain tax deductions or be prescribed certain medicines it could sell the results.
is pretty horrifying to me. That Government departments would even countenance selling information gathered via public departments is just wrong, end of story.
Luv the photo of MALfeasance praying on the front page of the Guardian (scroll down a bit) …
https://www.theguardian.com/au
lol
It’s not always the crime, but hte cover up, that pulls you down
Clarification on whether the government is backtracking from its initial diagnosis of a DDoS – which is an attack – has been sought by Guardian Australia from the ABS, but the explanation has been the subject of some scepticism.
Cybersecurity and infrastructure engineering commentators have argued there is no evidence to show there was a deliberate DDoS, and that the failure was the result of inadequate web infrastructure.
A screenshot of Google Ideas and Arbor Networks’ digital attack map – a live data visualisation that tracks DDoS’s worldwide – showing no significant activity in Australia on Tuesday has been widely shared on Twitter.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/10/computer-says-no-australian-census-shambles-explanation-depends-on-who-you-ask
…is pretty horrifying to me. That Government departments would even countenance selling information gathered via public departments is just wrong, end of story…
Which is why I’m refusing to do it.
The Nauru files are raw evidence of torture. Can we look away?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/10/the-nauru-files-are-raw-evidence-of-torture-can-we-look-away
Luv the photo of MALfeasance praying on the front page of the Guardian (scroll down a bit)
I clicked on your link. All i saw was a picture of the 8,469 children you locked up from 2007-2013.
All i saw was a picture of the 8,469 children you locked up from 2007-2013.
Who are now being tortured by our Government!
Which is why I’m refusing to do it.
Our grubmints gross incompetence kind of made that decision for me ao 😦
Our grubmints gross incompetence kind of made that decision for me a
The govt you voted for locked up 50,000 people.
You have yet to apologise
The govt you voted for locked up 50,000 people.
And the one you voted for tortures them!
And the one you voted for tortures them!
So torturing happened only from 2013?
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/asylum-seekers-refugees-and-human-rights-snapshot-report/2-onshore-detention-and
2.4 Mental health impacts of detention
Between January 2011 and February 2013 there were 4,313 incidents of actual, threatened and attempted serious self-harm recorded in immigration detention facilities in Australia.[73] In the 2012–2013 financial year there were 846 incidents of self-harm across the immigration detention network.[74]
Between 1 July 2010 and 20 June 2013, there were 12 deaths in immigration detention facilities. Coroners have found that six of those deaths were suicides.[75]
So torturing happened only from 2013?
We are now in 2016. Keep up nil
I don’t know how Neil can show himself in public after refusing to vote LNP at the election.
YOU ARE A DISGRACE!!!
We are now in 2016. Keep up nil
Yes and in 2016 there are no longer any children in detention you immoral piece of shit.
There are thousands of kids who were abused because you locked up 8,469 children.
And you will never admit to it.
Yes and in 2016 there are no longer any children in detention
Changing their classification doesn’t change what they are.
And, to add insult to injury, NOW we are also torturing them!
Neil, I suggest you focus on what the Governor of the RBA is saying. Did you see? MORE govt. debt is required!
“There are thousands of kids who were abused because you locked up 8,469 children.”
Did the ABS count them ?
I’m so pleased that the Double Dissolution Election was so good for us …
And I’m so glad that I didn’t vote for the fkn abortion we now have to live with!
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/10/census-2016-the-political-game-has-changed-and-coalition-failed-its-first-test
“I don’t know how Neil can show himself in public after refusing to vote LNP at the election.”
Do you remember Neil that you voted for neither LNP or Labor at the election.
Instead you voted for ANARCHY.
Well last night the Census descended into ANARCHY
You are responsible for that.
Yes you Neil………………….You are
I hope you are happy with what you have done
I blame Neil
And I’m so glad that I didn’t vote for the fkn abortion we now have to live with!
And you wonder why i detest Labor voters. So if Shorten was PM the census would have been fine?
To me it smells like a leftie stuff up. These fools have no idea of the consequences of their policies. Like the 50,000 boat people we got when Labor abolished the Pacific Solution.
The fools in the Public Service, all lefties, would have been saying everything is fine. No worries.
“”I hope you are happy with what you have done””
Neil has a lot of explaining to do.
In fact, if he has any remaining sense of decency he left, he would give us all an apology.
A poem would be nice.
I agree, a poem would be nice. There just isn’t enough niceness around these days
neels, computer is too old for poems … he could do hip hop tho’ its timeless …
he could do hip hop tho’ its timeless
lol TB, that was deep, especially for the hip a-rythmically challenged hops 🙂
There just isn’t enough niceness around these days
They do say we reap what we sow.
Well done Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Smith [Rtd] a very honourable man.
Half a century on, ‘justice is done’ as honours flow for the soldiers of Vietnam’s Long Tan ba
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/half-a-century-on-justice-is-done-as-honours-flow-for-the-soldiers-of-vietnams-long-tan-battle-20160810-gqpl6y.html
…The tribunal decision ends a decades-long battle by Mr Smith and his supporters for proper recognition for D Company’s bravery. He recommended a swag of gallantry awards at the time but to his amazement, just one of his frontline soldiers “who fought on eyeball terms with the enemy at the coalface” received an award.
That soldier had never worn his medal because he was embarrassed to receive it while his mates had missed out, Mr Smith said.
“Now he will be able to take his own medals out of the box and wear them,” he said…
Where is everyone?
I can’t maintain this outrage all on my own you know.
They do say we reap what we sow.
But that’s the dogbotherers for you, TR … say one thing and do unto others!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thanks for the link, KL
I knew this was coming last week … what a silly system to hand out medals for bravery on a quota system and not for actual bravery …
I hope that someone takes up the rights and makes a film about Long Tan to demonstrate how real heroes are just ordinary blokes … (‘cmon Russell C!)
A reminder and my respect to those 11 of the 18 Diggers killed who were National Servicemen – nashos – Long Tan is eerie, I’ve got goose bumps right now thinking of it – I was there a couple of years ago …
Ironic I’ve just finished The Vietnam Years too …
This year is the 50th Anniversary …
BTW the battle lasted a bit longer than “an afternoon” …
I can only assume that Neil is carefully wording his apology somewhere.
I can’t maintain this outrage all on my own you know.
Did you mean ‘outage’ perhaps?
I can’t maintain this outrage all on my own you know.
Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men and Women and Children … if there is a dog its pretty useless …
Assume nothing with neel …
“…Where is everyone?
I can’t maintain this outrage all on my own you know…”
I have to concentrate on work, been up for half the day already before you’ve surfaced!
LOL! @ KL
I may never do another census in my entire lifetime. There might be many more like me, the trust has been shattered.
Way to go liberal party idiots.
And I won’t need to do another, KL, its now all over the world … apparently … 😦
Way to go liberal party idiots.
The problem ao, as I mentioned above, is that to them, that is a win.
Like they need a Census to determine where their pork is spread. All a Census can tell them is where it would be better for the community to receive services, but they already know where their spivs are.
It is like their undermining the abc, post office etc. The more people hate it, the more the libs win.
“Where is everyone?”
I’m feeling completely neurotic today, even by my standards. I can’t even think of any decent insults.
“I remain concerned about the wide range of ageing and fragile business processes and supporting infrastructure used by the ABS, our difficult capital position, which is barely adequate to ‘keep the lights on’, and the impact these are having on our costs and on our staff.
This situation has been exacerbated by further government-wide efficiency dividends over
the past year which resulted in my decisions to cancel the Work, Life and Family Survey
(WoLFS) and to change the Tourist Accommodation Survey from a quarterly to an annual
collection. The overall situation has been progressively impacting on the time and effort
required to produce key official statistics on time and to the quality expected by our users
and now seriously compromises our longer-term sustainability.
In response to these pressures, which have been building over recent years, from early
2012”
ABS Annual Report 2012
The ALP started the Efficiency Dividends you conveniently forget.
Neither LNP or ALP shine
The ALP started the Efficiency Dividends you conveniently forget.
But were they the idiots who brought the ABS to it’s knees?
The ABS continued to function with Labors Efficiency Dividends, albeit to a lesser degree, but warned that anything further would cripple it.
So what did hockey do, gut it by 6 times what Labors Efficiency Dividends had in it’s last year.
If you want to point the blame, point it at where it belongs.
Especially after all the hand wringing and crying from individuals here about the Public Service and the ‘waste’
fucken hypocrites!
decent insults
Classic oxymoron …
If you want to point the blame, point it at where it belongs.
I think Wally did, TR …
Neither LNP or ALP shine
I still fume whenever the postie happens to turn up … reduced service, increased cost and the prick that did it sits in a fkn ivory tower handing out money to his brother in law at the Muslim Museum and taking home a pay packet that could feed a few dozen families …
The budget needs fixing alright … and quickly!
I think Wally did, TR …
Can you point out where the ABS was becoming unreliable under Labors cuts?
And all the cries of ‘WASTE” ffs.
Labors biggest crime was reducing it down to the point where any further cuts would hinder it’s operations.
Which of course, is the first thing hockey did.
You’d think the “best managers of the economy” would realise the importance of quality information … for decision making … ie managing stuff!
You’d think the “best managers of the economy” would realise the importance of quality information … for decision making … ie managing stuff!
Quality? That’s not something they concern themselves about.. Can’t be accused of doing a shit job if no-one knows how shit you are. Best to keep it well hidden and get as little quality as possible.
We will now know for sure when the apocalypse is imminent, since its harbingers have all been identified.
Lefties
Funding cuts had nothing to do with this disaster. Stuff happens. It was leftie deadbeats in the PS who kept saying everything would be fine. The people who are too stupid to see unforeseen stuff ups
I recall harbingers of the Great Barrier Reef, who said that a small bleaching event is nothing to worry about, and they can’t see anything from their little dip in the pond.
And every year, it just keeps getting warmer.
And every year, the ‘harbingers’ keep getting stronger.
The harbingers in the ABS were the ones who told hockey that Labor had done their bidding, there was no WASTE. So what did hockey do
GUTTED THEM!
It also appears that IBM didn’t bother with load testing for a DDOS attack. They thought they could get around it more cheaply.
It appears they couldn’t.
Another wonderful example of privatising what should be Government operation. IBM will keep the bonus of their shortcut. They will pay in the short term for the bad press they will receive.
We will now know for sure when the apocalypse is imminent, since its harbingers have all been identified.
See what you’ve done, sreb! Shame, shame, shame …
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
They will pay in the short term for the bad press they will receive.
No way near as much as WE will!
Its not IBM … they should be overseen by the government dept responsible … I also bet SAP was involved the most awful software perpetrated on the planet!
Xenophon suggest Aust gov should be looking to recoup funds from IBM, & gov should be looking at terms of the contract
There is a person in the Public Service on $700K/year plus 15.4% Super running this disaster. He should be gone not tomorrow but yesterday
Where’s our apology.
The sooner Neil gives his apology, the sooner we can all move on.
Meanwhile, the Boomers went close, the Opals shone, the Matildas were victorious, the Socceroos are useless, the Pearls won gold, the Thunderbolts got knocked out, the Dolphins are going reasonably well, the Sharks and the Stingers are still alive, the Kookaburras and the Hockeyroos finally won a match, and the guy dreaming up the nicknames is pulling his hair out.
Apologies without poetry aren’t acceptable.
*Neil, please note
Aw leave the poor sod alone …
No, I demand an apology. You can’t just go about ruining the entire country without so much as a by-your-leave. People have swung by the neck for less!
(“Jikan – that’s what they call me up here” (at the Zen Center of Mt. Baldy))
The main offender now wants less hyper partisan politics – hypocrite.
Code Red: How the ABS Bungled the 2016 Census
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/code-red-how-the-bureau-of-statistics-bungled-the-2016-census-20160811-gqqpxf.html
(Ms Rinehart said the company’s recent growth had been driven by development of its three iron ore mines at Hope Downs in the Pilbara and construction of the Roy Hill mine.)
(Buchanan’s lunar-Right profundities are just another instantiation of the new abnormal in Amerikan politics, surely; Houston doesn’t really have a problem, does it?)
(The wide arse division of Hancock is short of nasty bitches? Can Sophie supervise 2-buck a-day slaves adequately?)
(Abnormally orbiting asteritoids are not new Houston.)
,,,,,Apologies,,,,,,
l am sorry teh ABS is proving itself as `crap` as l`ve often said it was.
l am also sorry teh ABS is packed full of know nothing, cubicle dwellers.
guardian,,,,,Whether Trump was suggesting his supporters use their weaponry against Clinton,,,,,
team-cheerer, you might want to check speeches back at the hilary-v-obama election, what you should find is hilary doing very similar, invoking `JFK-swooning` ,, then ,, `and we all know what happened to him` ,, it was very sinister, basically encouraging nuts to take a shot at obama #pot.kettle
it was very sinister, basically encouraging nuts to take a shot at obama
You got a link for that?
HA HA HA
Mr Abbott also said he should have supported Julia Gillard’s government to implement its Malaysian solution – an asylum seeker swap agreement – when he was opposition leader back in 2011.
‘I do wonder though about the former government’s people swap with Malaysia,’ Mr Abbott said.
‘The 800 boat people that could have been sent to Malaysia was less than a month’s intake even then.’
‘I doubt it would have worked. Still, letting it stand would have been an acknowledgement of the government of the day’s mandate to do the best it could by its own lights to meet our nation’s challenges.
‘It would have been a step back from the hyper-partisanship that now poisons our national life,’ he said.
– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/federal/2016/08/13/abbott-reflects-on–hyper-partisan–politics.html#sthash.NY2CRgtH.dpuf
yea, I s’pose the “hyper-partisanship” is all Blil Shootens fault too, aint it yabot!