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Political Party's Leadership Election Hit By DDoS Attack

Posted by Soulskill on from the politics-of-the-future dept.

New submitter lyran74 writes "Saturday's electronic leadership vote for Canada's New Democratic Party was plagued by delays caused by a botnet DDoS attack, coming from over 10,000 machines. Details are still scarce, but Scytl, who provided electronic voting services, will have to build more robust systems in the future in anticipation of such attacks. Party and company officials say an audit proved the systems and integrity of the vote were not compromised."

5 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. What makes it really interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... is that the ruling conservative party is already under investigation for illegal election tampering. It would seem to me that the current Canadian government is one of the most corrupt in the western hemisphere at the moment.

    1. Re:What makes it really interesting... by whisper_jeff · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It would seem to me that the current Canadian government is one of the most corrupt in the western hemisphere at the moment.

      As a proud Canadian, normally I would be outraged by a comment like that. Unfortunately, with what the Conservative party has done (manipulating the previous election) and what Harper has been doing (the list is so damn long...), I find myself entirely unable to argue against that claim... It's disgusting that I can't argue against it...

  2. If someone gave up and didn't vote by davidwr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then the integrity of the election is affected even if the integrity of the ballot box is not.

    It's like if protesters blocking the streets make some voters "give up" on voting before they arrive at the polls. The ballot box's integrity is intact, but the election loses integrity.

    We can only hope that the loss of integrity was spread around evenly so the winners and vote-percentages of the losers are the same as they would have been. We can only hope, we can never know for certain.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  3. Re:On a side note by compro01 · · Score: 4, Informative

    They didn't change it. They never were the "democratic" party (There've been two of those, both in BC, both short lived and unsuccessful).

    In 1958, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (a socialist political party formed in the 1930s) and the Canadian Labour Congress (a union federation) jointly form the National Committee for the New Party to form a new social-democratic political party. The organizations surrounding the committee took up the "New Party" bit and when the party was actually founded in 1961, they decided to just keep the "New" bit as it was already well recognized.

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  4. Re:On a side note by Formalin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Even though they've always been third or fourth place federally, they've still managed to get some things adopted that they implemented in provincial government - healthcare, for example.

    They took 1930's poor dirt-farmer Saskatchewan and made it.. well, paved and electrified, at least, in short order.

    Funny thing is, cons always run their mouths about NDP being a fiscal disaster if they ever got power, but historically, in provincial governments they've always been the most fiscally sound, rarely running deficits (our 'prudent' cons actually have the worst record). I guess it's that old line about repeating something often enough, sheep will believe it.