Whoever you are, and whatever party you support doesn't concern me. My concern is that Nigerians should not be made to look like a nation of fools to the world. And you should not look like a fool too. I want to therefore point out some things about the nonsense called INEC Server.

1. What is a server? I am not going to bore you with definitions, but if all INEC has is one or more machines called a server as their IT infrastructure, then EFCC must be called in. In this series of posts, I will be talking about this.

2. Hacking. I saw some post on Twitter where someone reported INEC chairman said their 'server' had 172 hacking attempts in the past few days or hours. Can't remember. I will also talk about this.

3. 'Server' overload. Results were trickling in and some INEC-linked persons opined it may be due to server overload. I will also talk about that.

As many lies and disinformation I find about the server, I will share it here.

Hacking INEC.

I don't even know where to start with this issue of hacking INEC servers. But let's take it bit by bit.

According to people on the streets, INEC delayed uploading results so that the 'winner's votes will not be changed'. Well quit taking the pill of ignorance, stop saying such. I'll pardon the old goons who only know to use Whatsapp but imagine someone under 40 years saying such?

Except INEC IT unit is useless, there would be information systems ('servers') out of the reach of the public, meaning out of the reach of the public Internet. It's not an expensive technology and infact, most small businesses and companies are setup that way. Those systems would hold crucial data etc.

Is iREV portal INEC's 'server'? The iREV website which for ages didn't show anything and which now shows all sorts of thrash is definitely NOT the server that BVAS results are uploaded to; except INEC is crazy

Therefore if anyone is trying to hack INEC server which the public sees (ie iREV) it is a waste of efforts. The issue of hacking INEC server came up during 2019 election, it is time we stop this throwing around of hacking this and hacking that.

Summary on hacking - Vote results are on BVAS, once uploaded, note once uploaded, they would get into a system that is ONLY accessible to INEC internal systems. Again except INEC is useless, such systems are NOT public-network facing.

Server

Infrastructure

Server overload

There are approx 180,000 polling units in Nigeria.

Each polling unit needs to transmit or upload to INEC the following at least

1. Scanned results etc. Since these are images, in terms of size I'll say 15MB.
2. The number of accred. voters and actual result breakdown, these are plain text, so I'll say 50kb and that's negligible.

If there are 180,000 polling units, and please do remember that they won't be uploading results at the same time, since elections didn't start nor end at the same time.

The 'server' needs to handle a total of 180,000 * 15MB = 2.7TB (2.7 terabytes).

Now don't forget the data is not uploaded at once. If INEC is not useless, their so called server should be connected to the Internet with at least 100MBPS link. 1TB is 1000 gigabyte.

How long does it take to copy 1TB at 100Mbps?
On a Fast Ethernet connection (100 Mbps), it would take six minutes. on a Gigabit Ethernet connection (1 Gbps), it would take 36 seconds. on a 10 Gigabit Ethernet connection (10 Gbps), it would take 3.6 seconds.

Even if we make 6 minutes, 60 minutes, under 3 hours, 2.7TB would have been transferred in. And Internet traffic is asymmetric. Uploading channels are normally freer.

So where did server overload come in? Let's ask the owner on NL which site gets more traffic - NL or INEC. Then ask how much INEC spends on their systems and how much he spends. You'll be shocked.

So I think you understand a bit of the tech around uploading results and lie of server overload.

What about software handling the uploads?
Of course they could have a badly programmed system, but I really don't think so. Even if you are encrypting, it should not lead to results crawling in as if it is a car carrying it from the PU into the server. Uploading is a basic operation. See this [b]"With a single CPU core, a web server can handle around 250 concurrent requests at one time, so with 2 CPU cores, your server can handle 500 ..."[/b]A MySQL database can have 75 concurrent connections per gigabyte of usable memory. I am using very low-budget VMs in this estimate. You can be sure INEC with 40bn annual budget isn't using single-core machine. Except they are ...

Another 8 years of wailing loading

Now, where did technology fail in the election?

Summary - it wasn't hackers that disturbed uploading and it wasn't overloaded servers. Someone somewhere knows who did or what did.

The technology failed when people abandoned it. And this shows the backwardness inherent in most Nigerians. In this case, the backwardness inherent in INEC. We understand electricity is rocket science to the govt, but now even a basic information system to upload <15MB from 180,000 places they could not power.

This lack of regard for standard would make any technology fail. Very few institutions in Nigeria (if any) has any regard for standards and best practices. Is INEC one of them? With this matter I see around them, they never operated by standards. If there were standards, BVAS would work. If there were standards, if BVAS didn't work, they would have openly declared that election day what has happened and what their staff should do. Did they do that? No. All these are basic information systems and management sense by the way.

But they think they are smart and we are fools. No, they should shift their lies to something else and not technology.