Over the last 24 hours the hot topic has been the failed online census attempt by the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics). Dubbed #CensusFail on social media, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

Putting all of the technical aspects aside (platform, server loading/balancing etc.) there’s one thing with the execution rollout which we would’ve done differently. The ABS asked everyone to logon on one very specific date, “Get online on August 9” was the tagline along with the TV ads and other marketing efforts letting the public (and potential hackers know) how important the day is.
Put another way, they asked over 10 million people to access one website on the same day, and given most of the population is working there was possibly a window from 6-10pm where a massive bottleneck of traffic going to occur.

We would’ve recommended the following alternatives to the rollout:

1. Phased Rollout. Segregate groups by postcode, state etc. People in different states/postcodes will get designated a different date to logon.
2. Date range, not a set date. Allow for flexibility and not focus on a single date, rather provide a date range for the public. e.g. “You must complete your online census between date x – date y.”

DDoS by international hackers were blamed for the site going down, there’s a lot of debate about whether this was true or not. It’s certain however, if the dates were spread and a phased rollout was adopted – it would’ve been a less attractive target for the attackers.

Don’t worry, they’ve clarified no fines will be handed out for a system we can’t use 🙂