Census 2016 - Page 6

Blue Shadow · 12-08-2016, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romulus

Absolutely.

To add insult to injury, there is an error with the paper forms. People have completed their forms, put them in the mail, only to find a few days later the forms have been mailed back to them! The way the return envelope is designed, and the instructions on how to place the census form in the envelope causes the household address where the form was mailed to to be the return address.

Government and bureaucratic incompetence at his highest. David Kalisch needs the sack. No un-elected bureaucrat should be paid the odd $700k he's on.

This debacle also serves to demonstrate the government does not have a revenue problem. It has an expenditure problems. It wastes hundreds of millions of dollars in staff and programs which are demonstrable failures.

Bureaucrats should be paid big bucks as per the market in the private sector, Govt just needs to hire propper ones that can do the job. Most bureaucratic jobs are filled by Govt cronies and mates and not for the qualification.

LG17 · 12-08-2016, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romulus

Absolutely.

To add insult to injury, there is an error with the paper forms. People have completed their forms, put them in the mail, only to find a few days later the forms have been mailed back to them! The way the return envelope is designed, and the instructions on how to place the census form in the envelope causes the household address where the form was mailed to to be the return address.

Government and bureaucratic incompetence at his highest. David Kalisch needs the sack. No un-elected bureaucrat should be paid the odd $700k he's on.

This debacle also serves to demonstrate the government does not have a revenue problem. It has an expenditure problems. It wastes hundreds of millions of dollars in staff and programs which are demonstrable failures.

Tell me this. If there is no return address on the envelope, just a barcode, how does the humble postie know where to deliver it?

Junkyard-Dog · 12-08-2016, 08:14 PM

ABS - what a joke.

roddy1960 · 12-08-2016, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Junkyard-Dog

ABS - what a joke.

G'day Junkyard. My ABS works fine. Tested it the other day...All jokes aside you're right..They kept telling us that it's safe , not able to be corrupted , yadda yadda....If it was so great , then why shut it down ? I did mine on Monday night instead online but ....so many others missed out..what an absolute joke as you say..Cheers Rod..

Junkyard-Dog · 12-08-2016, 08:39 PM

Just to be abundantly clear on this topic. They are blaming a DDoS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) but it's blatantly obvious that they simply did not prepare their servers for the workload that they would experience with the census. Plain and simple, the ABS "effed up" and were not prepared for the sheer number of clients that were going to access their site.

I worked in the IT industry for almost ten years and in that time I worked for a number of different private and public corporate entities. I experienced TWO DDoS attacks in that time. It is a rare occurrence. What the ABS is telling the Australian public amounts to nothing more than propaganda. They stuffed up but are not willing to admit their mistakes. That is all.

MITCHAY · 12-08-2016, 09:25 PM

You can have a denial of service from either legitimate or illegitimate traffic or a combination of the two.

From what information has been released it seems even planning for legitimate traffic it would have still fallen short.

The media have beat it up though by using the word 'hack' as it is more sexy for them. But denial of service has been used as a diversion before so not entirely incorrect.

The ABS is copping a lot of crap and certainly I'd expect some be held to account but remember that IBM were the ones contracted to deliver this work and should be held to at the very least the same level of criticism if not the majority of it.

LG17 · 12-08-2016, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

You can have a denial of service from either legitimate or illegitimate traffic or a combination of the two.

From what information has been released it seems even planning for legitimate traffic it would have still fallen short.

The media have beat it up though by using the word 'hack' as it is more sexy for them. But denial of service has been used as a diversion before so not entirely incorrect.

The ABS is copping a lot of crap and certainly I'd expect some be held to account but remember that IBM were the ones contracted to deliver this work and should be held to at the very least the same level of criticism if not the majority of it.

Didn't IBM do the Qld Health payroll debacle too?

**cs123** · 12-08-2016, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LG17

Didn't IBM do the Qld Health payroll debacle too?

Why yes they did...

MITCHAY · 12-08-2016, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LG17

Didn't IBM do the Qld Health payroll debacle too?

They were involved in it to what extent I do not know to be honest.

The QLD Health Payroll implementation is one of, if not the biggest public administrative failures in Australia.

If I recall correctly and (I have had a few drinks tonight

), it was fixed under budget and under time but no one heard of it.

This is just what I remember hearing from my colleagues at the SAP conferences.

**cs123** · 13-08-2016, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

They were involved in it to what extent I do not know to be honest.

The QLD Health Payroll implementation is one of, if not the biggest public administrative failures in Australia.

If I recall correctly and (I have had a few drinks tonight

), it was fixed under budget and under time but no one heard of it.

This is just what I remember hearing from my colleagues at the SAP conferences.

It was so bad there was an inquest. The results of which are available on line.

IBM was found to have behaved in a questionable manner to win the contract. It was a disaster of an implementation.

It is estimated to have cost QLD $1.2B all up.

IBM are banned from QLD govt tenders.

Blue Shadow · 13-08-2016, 08:14 AM

IBM are the most expensive for SAP install &expansion. We use SAP and to have another module added IBM were AUD $1.8M, we had the work done by another company from the US at a cost of AUD $870,000. IBM have never won a tender with us because of cost.

whynot · 13-08-2016, 09:58 AM

Interesting comment from riskybiz. Even if this was only 50% correct, it would be a concern.

http://risky.biz/censusfail

Quote:

IBM and the ABS were offered DDoS prevention services from their upstream provider, NextGen Networks, and said they didn't need it.
Their plan was to just ask NextGen to geoblock all traffic outside of Australia in the event of an attack.
This plan was activated when there was a small-scale attack against the census website.
Unfortunately another attack hit them from inside Australia. This was a straight up DNS reflection attack with a bit of ICMP thrown in for good measure. It filled up their firewall's state tables. Their solution was to reboot their firewall, which was operating in a pair.
They hadn't synced the ruleset when they rebooted the firewall so the secondary was essentially operating as a very expensive paperweight. This resulted in a short outage.
Some time later IBM's monitoring equipment spat out some alerts that were interpreted by the people receiving them as data exfiltration. Already jittery from the DDoS disaster and wonky firewalls, they became convinced they'd been owned and the DDoS attack was a distraction to draw their focus away from the exfil.
They pulled the pin and ASD was called in.
The IBM alerts were false positives incorrectly characterising offshore-bound system information/logs as exfil.
ASD still needs to roll incident response before they can send the website live again. Even though it was false positives that triggered the investigation, there still needs to be an investigation.

nstg8a · 13-08-2016, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whynot

Interesting comment from riskybiz. Even if this was only 50% correct, it would be a concern.

http://risky.biz/censusfail

Pretty much exactly what the dude on the project said the other night.

Mismanagement and incompetence right from day one.

dirty hands · 13-08-2016, 02:19 PM

total waste of effort
we only had to answer about 5 questions
our form answers all said go ahead to question XX

our home received two online census code letters same address
rang the number was told someone would get back to me in 72 hrs as to which one to use

they never did

so we ordered a paper one

i got stuck in hospital census night

every patient in the hospital got a form tuesday night

bloke across from me told the census guy i am illiterate ..he didnt get one
the ukranian say i speak little english ..was left with him for his family to fill out

Romulus · 13-08-2016, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LG17

Tell me this. If there is no return address on the envelope, just a barcode, how does the humble postie know where to deliver it?

There is a return address. The problem is occasionally the automated address reader/sorting machine at Oz Post gets it wrong, and send the envelope back to the residential address.

I received my form by mail on Wednesday, 10 August. As Sensus night was 9 August, and I didn't receive the form in time, I'll send it back blank.

LG17 · 13-08-2016, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romulus

There is a return address. The problem is occasionally the automated address reader/sorting machine at Oz Post gets it wrong, and send the envelope back to the residential address.

I received my form by mail on Wednesday, 10 August. As Sensus night was 9 August, and I didn't receive the form in time, I'll send it back blank.

The address on the envelope is:-

Australian Bureau of Statistics
2016 Census
Peply Paid 90049
Dandenong South Vic 3164

The Delivery Address, also on the front of the envelope is:-
Locked Bag 1425
Dandenong South Vic 3164

It is impossible for the envelope to be delivered back to the householder.

The Australia Post Card reader can get it wrong and read the Census forms barcode, however that just sends the envelope to the wrong place in the Australia Post facility. It then goes back into their system (probably with a marker pen through the Census form barcode applied by a human) and gets sent to Dandenong South.

If you couldn't be bothered filling out your form I certainly hope if where you live misses out on a government, or even private project that you don't utter one word about it.

lgpking22 · 13-08-2016, 05:56 PM

This does interest me what are some of the projects been delivered based on the census there's quite alot based on politicians voting areas or western sydney but what are some census ones

**DJR-351** · 13-08-2016, 06:09 PM

We own a small motel in Country Western Victoria, while we received the Census form for our residence we didn't receive the forms for the motel side, as we are supposed to.

We where full on census night bar one room, one guest managed to get there online form filled before the site went down the crapper, two guests had brought forms with them, the rest expected to pick one up on arrival at the motel (as assured by the ABS) but as we didn't get them they missed out, where not the only Hotel/Motel to miss out on receiving census forms.......

An all around cluster duck......

Romulus · 13-08-2016, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LG17

The address on the envelope is:-

Australian Bureau of Statistics
2016 Census
Peply Paid 90049
Dandenong South Vic 3164

The Delivery Address, also on the front of the envelope is:-
Locked Bag 1425
Dandenong South Vic 3164

It is impossible for the envelope to be delivered back to the householder.

The Australia Post Card reader can get it wrong and read the Census forms barcode, however that just sends the envelope to the wrong place in the Australia Post facility. It then goes back into their system (probably with a marker pen through the Census form barcode applied by a human) and gets sent to Dandenong South.

It is not impossible for the envelope to be delivered back to the householder, it has happened. Have you seen the return envelope? I have, I see how the error could occur.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LG17

If you couldn't be bothered filling out your form I certainly hope if where you live misses out on a government, or even private project that you don't utter one word about it.

It's not about being bothered or not; it's about holding the Government to account. The government, through the ABS, stated clearly Census night was 9 August 2016. My form was not available that night. I do not have to comply if the ABS cannot facilitate the required form for completion. The extension in time provided does not concern me, therefore I will simply treat anything to do with timeline extensions as commentary from the government and disregard it.

As far as I am concerned the ABS and Government can stick Census up their proverbial.

LG17 · 13-08-2016, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romulus

It is not impossible for the envelope to be delivered back to the householder, it has happened. Have you seen the return envelope? I have, I see how the error could occur.

It's not about being bothered or not; it's about holding the Government to account. The government, through the ABS, stated clearly Census night was 9 August 2016. My form was not available that night. I do not have to comply if the ABS cannot facilitate the required form for completion. The extension in time provided does not concern me, therefore I will simply treat anything to do with timeline extensions as commentary from the government and disregard it.

As far as I am concerned the ABS and Government can stick Census up their proverbial.

Of course I've seen a census envelope - one was delivered to my property along with the correct form.

As Australia Post is involved, I guess it's not impossible, however, it is.

Itsme · 13-08-2016, 10:15 PM

Well I've now just completed the census, five years wait to the next stuff up....Lol

iCat · 14-08-2016, 12:02 AM

I included my cat & my bird when completing the form. It amused me no end

Madaya · 14-08-2016, 12:28 AM

Hello there iCat, how's things? I'll be doing the Census door knocking shortly

but lucky for you, Melbourne is so far away.
Good point about pets though. Seeing as they are a popular part of many households, why no head count of pets?

LG17 · 14-08-2016, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madaya

Hello there iCat, how's things? I'll be doing the Census door knocking shortly

but lucky for you, Melbourne is so far away.
Good point about pets though. Seeing as they are a popular part of many households, why no head count of pets?

If you include pets then too many councils would get upset! Can you imagine a census count of 10 million pets but only a council count of 2 million registered!

roddy1960 · 14-08-2016, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iCat

I included my cat & my bird when completing the form. It amused me no end

G'day That was a "cheep" shot and will put the cat amongst the pigeons won't it? Wish I'd thought of that and counted my border collie and kelpie on mine..Cheers Rod..

jpblue1000 · 14-08-2016, 01:01 PM

Dont know what all the fuss is about.
we received our paper census forms in the week leading up to census night, filled it in on Tuesday night and posted it back Wednesday. We didn't have 3 million other people crowding our lounge room trying to do our census with us, nor steal any data. Don't see the fuss in the 'privacy' of the 'data' either. Nothing I don't tell people who ask!
Was dissapointed I didnt have 33 options for sex, but realised my follie when that was relating to another thread and sex party questionnaire!

If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail is all else I have to say really!

JP

Mercury Bullet · 14-08-2016, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

Was dissapointed I didnt have 33 options for sex,

You're a Space ship too?

Great, there must be nearly 50 fellow shippers out there now.

We will have to form a "Church of Shipology," then we can claim tax free status.

That will crash the server.

iCat · 14-08-2016, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roddy1960

G'day That was a "cheep" shot and will put the cat amongst the pigeons won't it? Wish I'd thought of that and counted my border collie and kelpie on mine..Cheers Rod..

Love your humour. It matches my completed census :-D

b0son · 16-08-2016, 08:57 PM

http://eftm.com.au/2016/08/how-two-u...-for-500-30752

LOL... why am I not surprised

blueoval · 17-08-2016, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0son

http://eftm.com.au/2016/08/how-two-u...-for-500-30752

LOL... why am I not surprised

The budget used to build/test the original site is ridiculously high. This goes to show that someone was cashing in on fact that it was the government being the customer. And guess what, you and I paid for this mess.