Ronan Costello
Editor
The first day of the online USI vote on third level funding did not go as smoothly as the organisers would have hoped. It was discovered early in the day that former students of NUI Maynooth, DIT and UCD were being allowed to vote in the online poll, giving rise to complaints that the final tally would be distorted and therefore invalid.
Students who participated in the vote were asked to submit their college username and passwords. These credentials were then cross checked with the respective colleges’ databases. However, some colleges do not clear their database of information relating to students who have recently graduated or dropped out. In these instances, former students found that they could vote by using their old credentials. Trinity was not affected by this issue, as ISS clears its database on an annual basis.
In an email to student union sabbatical officers, USI Deputy President Colm Murphy said: “Unfortunately a small number of colleges have not disabled their student accounts for some students who have graduated/dropped out and so these former students are still able to cast a ballot. Our team are working with HEAnet and the relevant colleges to correct this problem and ensure that we will be able to screen out these votes after polls have closed and so they will not be counted, and the integrity and anonymity of the process is protected.”
Murphy went on to say that HEAnet would work with each college to ensure that only the votes of current students would be counted. This audit of votes would require the co-operation of the the IT services in each college and, with polls closing on Sunday night, will have to be completed before USI Special Congress which takes place in UCD next Wednesday. Murphy was adamant that USI officers would not be involved in this audit and that voter anonymity was assured.
A photo also surfaced on Twitter which purported to demonstrate a simple hacking of the USI vote website. Murphy issued the following statement from the web developer who had worked on the site:
The USI voting system is running as three modules: www.usivote.com, vote.usivote.com and the Edugate connector – these three systems are completely independent.
Only Gary [Redmond, President of USI], Colm [Murphy, Deputy President of USI] and I [Web developer] have access to log into www.usivote.com to simply update the text on the web pages.
Only I [web developer] have access to log into the backend of vote.usivote.com. Even it was possible to log into the backend of vote.usivote.com there is no logic available to actually view or tamper with votes.
The system also has a safety mechanism built in where it automatically shuts down and will refuse to accept any updates once the election starts. This means that even if Gary or Colm were able to, there is no way to change the election once it has begun.
The image that Colm showed me was a view of a status panel for the Edugate connector. While configuring the system I needed to be able to see which colleges were active on the system. This status panel will not let me change anything… I [webdeveloper] can only view the status of each college i.e. that it is accepting connections
To change the Edugate configuration, I [web developer] need to log in over an SSH encrypted connection using a secure ssh key. Only me and my team can do that.
Even if someone could see the configuration of Edugate partners, they could NOT see the votes that were cast or they could NOT tamper with any of the votes (as these are completely isolated in a separate database). All they could see is that UCD, TCD, etc. etc. were making the following fields available to USI:
- affiliation
- student status
- unique ID number (to prevent someone from voting twice)
UPDATE: USI have released the following statement in relation to the issues above
Some issues have been raised by students, Students’ Unions and graduates about the voting process in the USI Funding Preferendum.
USI would like to clarify the following issues.
It should be noted from the outset that the system used for authentication is not software designed for or by USI and is provided by HEAnet, see below for more information.
How the process works.
The process for students voting is; a student logs on to www.usivote.com to cast their vote, they select their college, they are then transferred over to a server in their college where they enter their username and password as if they were logging into a computer on campus. Their college then checks if they are a current student and provides this along with a unique identifier, not related to their student number, and transfers the student back to the usivote.com server to allow them to vote if, and only if they are a current student. The unique identifier is used to ensure that the student can only vote once. It is important to point out that USI receives no personal information about the student at any point in the process as all verification and generation is carried out by the students’ own college on their servers.
Graduates being able to vote
The process outlined above is a tool called Edugate, provided by HEAnet. HEAnet is the IT infrastructure provider for all Irish Higher Education Institutions, the Public & Civil Service including Government Departments and Leinster House. HEAnet provides Edugate for a number of purposes including verification of student status used to operate campus car parks, education discounts on computer products such as the Apple Education Store Discount, online voting in a number of colleges and the ability to access computers and IT services in another college’s campus.
Each individual college maintains its own database of current students, i.e. the same database used for registration, examinations etc. It has transpired today a small number of colleges have not kept their databases up to date and this has allowed some recent graduates to cast a ballot. As part of the Edugate system each college is required to keep their database up to date. Only each individual college has access to its own database.
How this issue has been resolved
Throughout the entire process we have been in constant communication with HEAnet and as soon as we became aware of this issue, it was immediately brought to the attention of HEAnet.
As the databases of some colleges still contained students who have graduated, or progressed to another course using a different student number, some graduates have been able to vote, and some students who have progressed to another course have been able to vote twice.
Each of the small number of colleges affected by this issue is now auditing and updating their databases. At the close of polls, the unique identifier codes for each ineligible person in the database will be crosschecked against all votes cast. If it is discovered that any person who not a current registered student has voted, their identifier code will ensure that their ballot shall be deemed void and not included as part of the counts.
At no point in this process will the identity or person details of any person be revealed. This process will not identify any individual student or graduate but will ensure that only the votes of currently registered students are counted.
Twitpic purporting to show someone has gained access to administration ofwww.usivote.com
Earlier today there were claims that a user had been able to access the administration panel of the USI voting system.
The USI Voting system is running as three modules: www.usivote.com, vote.usivote.com and the Edugate connector – these three systems are completely independent.
www.usivote.com is the physical website where the pages explaining the preferendum are located. When a user begins the voting process they move to the vote.usivote.com module.
Nobody at USI has access to log into the administration of vote.usivote.com. Even it was possible to log into the administration system of vote.usivote.com there is no ability to actually view or tamper with votes.
Secondly, the system also has a safety mechanism built in where it automatically shuts down and will refuse to accept any updates once the election starts. This means there is no way to change the election or modify votes once it has begun.
The image posted online earlier showed a view of a status panel for the Edugate connector. This screen was an online tool used by our web development company to show which colleges were active on the system. It is a status panel and will not let a viewer change anything. This panel was used for testing purposes and does not affect the live vote.
