10 August, 2016. 09:15
CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
Local woman, Tilly Langton (28) doesn’t trust our Government’s intentions when it comes to the 2016 Census.
“I’m not giving my personal details to just anyone” she says, despite the fact she had a public Facebook profile since 2007, and hasn’t gone more than two hours in nine years without posting deeply personal information onto it.
“I just don’t know what they are going to do with my information. They haven’t given me a good enough reason to fill in he census, and they haven’t given me a good enough explanation on how they plan to protect it,”
With the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today announcing that it believes a series of hacking attacks which led to the census website being shut down last night were part of a deliberate attempt to sabotage the national survey, it appears Mrs Langton may be correct.
She says that when she’s not texting or on Facebook, she only uses ‘encrypted’ messenger services like Whatsapp – and that she would trust a 32-year-old American billionaire software developer like Mark Zuckerberg well before any of the polticians that have been democratically elected in her home country.
“The same goes with SoundCloud, Instagram, Linkedin, Viber, Spotify, Tumblr, Tinder. I trust all of these different software developers more than Turnbull.”
“At least with those accounts I know that my personal information is only being passed on to the giant multinationals who can then cater towards my deepest personal vulnerabilities through the information I share socially,”
“I just don’t know who’s going to get access to my Census data”
However, when presented with the possibility of a fine, Mrs Langton says she would hesitantly fill out the online form.
“Yep. If I’m getting fined, then ok… I’m single mum with ten kids in Betoota.”
“1 Birdsville Street, Betoota”
Australia is full of Poehler like that but complain when facilities are not there when they want them
The census wasn’t hacked, exactly: it was the target of a denial-of-service attack launched – very likely – by people with an attitude towards the census very like Ms Langton’s.
Happily, the ABS is working with defence signals directorate to find the fuckers responsible. Could be good.
Heh. Good luck if you think any of the details on my social media stuff are actually real! Sensible people tend to firewall the virtual world from the real one, particularly when you have a rolling clusterfuck of a govt like ours.