[AusNOG] census issues tonight

Wed Aug 10 12:01:38 EST 2016

While we wait:
https://istheabscensusonlineyet.com/

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Daniel
Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 11:34 AM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] census issues tonight

The relevant minister (Michael McCormack) has released a statement blaming DDoS in combination with a router hardware failure:

"There was a large scale denial of service attempt to the census website and online form. A denial of service is an attempt to block people from accessing a website. Following, and because of this, there was a hardware failure," he said.

"A router became overloaded. After this, what is known as a false positive occurred. This is essentially a false alarm in some of the system monitoring information. As a result the ABS employed a cautious strategy which was to shut down the online census form to ensure the integrity of the data already submitted was protected.

"I will be clear from the outset, this was not an attack. Nor was it a hack but rather, it was an attempt to frustrate the collection of bureau of statistics census data. ABS census security was not compromised. I repeat, not compromised and no data was lost."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/census-2016-website-crashes-under-weight-of-demand/news-story/1febee892e1ab043c0e7682c7a3485a4

(paywalled)

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Andy Taylor
Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 10:57 AM
To: 'Nathanael Bettridge' <nathanael at prodigy.com.au<mailto:nathanael at prodigy.com.au>>; 'Robert Hudson' <hudrob at gmail.com<mailto:hudrob at gmail.com>>; 'Michael Keating' <mkeating44 at gmail.com<mailto:mkeating44 at gmail.com>>
Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] census issues tonight

I noticed last night before the system crashed completely the following error:

"status -1 code 101"

I don't know much about .jsp, but it appears that this was an issue with the header?
Is it possible that this was a layer 7 attack that was being implemented?

A status code of 101 indicates that the server is changing to the protocol it defines in the "Upgrade" header it returns to the client. For example, when requesting a page, a browser might receive a statis code of 101, followed by an "Upgrade" header showing that the server is changing to a different version of HTTP.

Andy Taylor
Technical Director

0424 656 973

[ca_logo]

www.coastalaudio.com.au<http://www.coastalaudio.com.au/>

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Nathanael Bettridge
Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 10:53 AM
To: 'Robert Hudson' <hudrob at gmail.com<mailto:hudrob at gmail.com>>; 'Michael Keating' <mkeating44 at gmail.com<mailto:mkeating44 at gmail.com>>
Cc: 'ausnog at lists.ausnog.net' <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] census issues tonight

The validity of the data is suspect. Users in bad moods submitting info that would otherwise be trustworthy, partially completed surveys, I'm sure thousands of households that will now fall through the gaps, the spreading out of census data over a much longer than normal time frame - as a statistical snapshot the Census is effectively ruined.

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Robert Hudson
Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2016 10:44 AM
To: Michael Keating <mkeating44 at gmail.com<mailto:mkeating44 at gmail.com>>
Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] census issues tonight

Why is it safe to say that the stored data is OK? What evidence do we have to support that belief?

On 10 Aug 2016 9:52 AM, "Michael Keating" <mkeating44 at gmail.com<mailto:mkeating44 at gmail.com>> wrote:
I think the point being made, was that the distrust of the Census has been increased with the failure of the website, and the mainstream media taking the 'hacking' angle. It's safe to say the stored data is ok, but there are millions more submissions to go. If people think it was 'hacked', they won't give a truthful answer for fear of their information being stolen (which we know, it won't). More of a general observation than a technical observation (which I do agree with).

On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 9:26 AM, Mark Andrews <marka at isc.org<mailto:marka at isc.org>> wrote:

In message <c7617127-36a9-f5dc-894e-727a6700e016 at spectrum.com.au<mailto:c7617127-36a9-f5dc-894e-727a6700e016 at spectrum.com.au>>, Matt Perkins writes:
> If you ask me the dataset is now terminally compromised. This is
> essentially market research and peoples ability to answer that sort of
> stuff truthfully goes to how much the person doing the servery is
> trusted. With the ABS spouting stuff like Attack from overseas, people
> are very unlikely to tell the truth on this census.
>
> Fellas you blew it.  Cancel the census reschedule for next year and send
> out paper form's Your collective uselessness just put us back 5 years.
>
> Matt

A DoS attack does not make the dataset compromised.

Having too small key space does.  1/100000 is not a big space for
computers to search through.  It's only ~20 bits of security.  A
extra 4 digits would have raised it to ~30 bits.  A extra 8 digits
would have raised it to ~43 bits.  Entering 5 x 4 digit sequences
is not hard.  We do 4 x 4 + 3 for every visa / mastercard transaction
we do online today.

Mark
--
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742<tel:%2B61%202%209871%204742>                 INTERNET: marka at isc.org<mailto:marka at isc.org>
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