Saboteur could slip net

CYBER cop Alastair MacGibbon has confessed the Federal Government “may never know’’ who sabotaged its Census website in an offshore data assault.

The Prime Minister’s cyber security adviser, who is heading the official investigation into the Census shambles, said the Australian Bureau of Stat- istics “should have had mitigation in place’’ against the denial-of-service attacks that forced it to shut down its website on Census night.

“Attribution is always tough – we may never know,’’ he said.

“But we have a long memory and we will continue to try to work out who interfered with our computer systems.’’

Mr MacGibbon said the Australian Signals Directorate was still investigating whether the cyber sabotage had come from a foreign government, criminal groups, activists or individuals trying to show off their hacking skills.

But he said it was “right and proper’’ for Australians to debate their privacy, given the controversial ABS decision to retain names and addresses from this year’s Census.

“I have always said we should be asking how much information we give away and how much gets forced upon us,’’ he said. “Any good democracy should have a really robust debate on privacy.’’

Former ABS boss Bill McLennan said the ABS should scrap the $470 million Census unless 95 per cent of households answered the survey. He called on the ABS to stop threatening $180-a-day fines for people who failed to fill in the form.

“If you tell people you’re going to prosecute them, they’ll look you in the eye and tell you to bugger off,’’ he said.

“The bureau have been made to look like fools and now a lot of people will maybe not submit forms, or submit incorrect information.

“If you get a 5 to 10 per cent non-response rate, there is a case to shut the Census down and not tabulate it.’’

Mr McLennan said the ABS did not have the legal authori- ty to force people to give their names, which were not important for statistical analysis.

“The names are not all that important,’’ he said.

“They are collecting names so they can keep them after the Census is over and that is an atrocious invasion of privacy.”

ABS boss David Kalisch yesterday said the Census was back online but admitted that some people still could not access it on their computers.