Hackers force web poll to close after skewing results

Online polls on nzherald.co.nz have been pulled until further notice. Photo / Kenny Rodger

Online polls on the Herald's website nzherald.co.nz have been pulled until further notice after hackers entered the system, skewing the results of three polls.

The polls - which included questions relating to whether people thought Destiny Church was a cult or a church, if people thought it was okay for MP Rodney Hide to take his girlfriend on tour at taxpayers' expense and if people were sick of being told they were ruining the planet - were hacked late last week.

Jeremy Rees, nzherald.co.nz publisher, said a staff member was alerted to the hacking when, in the space of four hours last Thursday, the Destiny Church poll swung from 97 per cent of people saying it was a cult to 60 per cent saying it was a church, with an unusually high number of responses.

On Friday, the Rodney Hide Poll showed 90 per cent of people thought it was unacceptable that he took his girlfriend Louise Crome overseas, leaving taxpayers to foot the $25,163 bill. But that poll also swung rapidly, moving in favour of the MP.

The poll was pulled down and the one that replaced it asked if people were sick of being told they were ruining the planet and from 4pm it was noticed that the number of votes was unusually high for a Friday afternoon, with about 2000 votes an hour.

Mr Rees said IT specialists were looking into the problems and had identified internet protocol (IP) numbers 118.92.185.135, 118.90.40.97 and 203.109.154.13 as the source of the problems but polls had been stopped until issues were resolved.

While some people might think the poll hacking was a conspiracy from interested parties, that was often not the case, Mr Rees said.

"Often most likely it's some kind of 18-year-old guy in a black T-shirt who's bored from looking at the new Google wave [a type of software] product and has decided to take a hack."