Digital dystopia
It was a week of political intrigue on the Hill, with cyber-politics conspiring to upend human endeavour,
OTTAWA— Somewhere out there, a new Canadian political movement could be born, with one main mission — smash the machines.
In case you haven’t noticed, some of the biggest impediments to democracy and free speech lately have been technology-related.
First, and most seriously, is the ongoing, spreading scandal about “robocalls” in the last election.
As we learned this week, courtesy of chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand, it is now possible that 200 ridings in Canada were infected with “fraudulent or improper” phone calls to voters in the last election.
Many came from robo-dialler machinery, capable of making thousands and thousands of calls in a day.
There was a slight gasp in the basement committee room on Thursday when Mayrand said the robo-calls investigation had now widened to every province in the country, courtesy of about 800 specific complaints, and more than 250 separate investigations.
“These are very serious matters that strike at the integrity of our democratic process,” he said. “If they are not addressed and responded to, they risk undermining an essential ingredient of a healthy democracy — namely, the trust that electors have in the electoral process.”
Meanwhile, the New Democratic Party’s leadership race last weekend was also nearly derailed by some kind of cyber-assault on its computer-voting system.
The company in charge of the machinery, Scytl Canada, issued a statement on Monday, saying the “denial of service” attack came from more than 10,000 “malevolent” computer addresses, intent on taking away the voting rights of NDP members.
“The required organization and the demonstrated orchestration of the attack indicates that this was a deliberate effort to disrupt or negate the election by a knowledgeable person or group,” the company stated.
Actually, almost everywhere you look these days, the machines are turning on the humans.
The Star itself was hit by a massive computer-system breakdown on Thursday, in the hours before the federal budget was released.
The CBC, which took a 10 per cent cut in that budget, was also plagued by technical breakdowns on Thursday, precisely at 4 p.m., when it tried to go to air with budget details. Television and radio were affected, with some regions having no CBC radio at all and some TV viewers seeing sputtering, on-andoff signals.
Canadians, it seems, already have some deep-seated worries about their rights being shredded by machinery.
Witness the furor that erupted when Public Safety Minister Vic Toews unveiled the government’s new online-surveillance legislation earlier this year. This is the proposed law that would expand police powers to see what you’re doing online.
Ironically, the opposition to that legislation also arose online, and Toews himself was attacked by — what else — the computers. Online video threats came from the shadowy “Anonymous” group and a Twitter account called “Vikileaks” (set up by a Liberal staffer) spat out details of Toews’ messy divorce in rapid-fire, 140-character bursts.
Seeing all of this, no one would be surprised if Canadians suddenly rose up in revolt against the computers. Perhaps the Luddites’ time has arrived.
But it’s not really the machines at fault, is it?
The New Democrats are confident last weekend’s cyberattack didn’t intrude into the integrity of the vote. Thomas Mulcair did win the leadership on four ballots, and while it was frustrating for people to vote online, no one is suggesting the results were compromised.
A bit more of a question mark hangs over the last election. Mayrand, in his testimony to the committee on Thursday, said he still stands by the official election results, but he didn’t rule out the possibility that the robo-calls investigation may conclude the system was indeed compromised in some ridings. Criminal charges may result — maybe even by-elections. We won’t know for some time, while Elections Canada
“These are very serious matters that strike at the integrity of our democratic process.” MARC MAYRAND CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER ON THE ROBO-CALLS SCANDAL
carries out this large-scale effort to find the person or persons behind this scheme.
And that’s the issue. While those who use computers have become accustomed to the system-fail message about files being corrupted, we’re talking here about a different type of corruption.
The cyberattack on the NDP was apparently deliberate and orchestrated. As well, it’s looking like the everwidening robo-calls investigation will reveal something a little larger than mere, one-off mischief.
The worry is that it isn’t the machinery that’s getting corrupted, but some of the people plying the political trade right now. If that’s the case, more than the system needs a reset — and smashing the machines won’t fix it.