In a stunning post this afternoon, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog provides evidence that he was easily able to game the Defense Department's "Official" Don't Ask, Don't Tell survey. The survey is costing the DOD $4.5 million and is implemented by contractor Westat, the same company who's responsible for the utterly disasterous E-Verify system. It really can't even be called hacking because nobody broke into anything or did anything to circumvent security measures.
The DADT survey is implemented online, with at least part of it conducted via an online chat with a live agent. In order to access and take the survey, you have to enter a PIN number which servicemembers can request. The major flaw being that each servicemember can request a new PIN number over and over again...apparently as many as they want. And each new PIN number allows you to take the survey again.
Aravosis took the survey 3 times himself and was given the 3 PIN numbers he used from the same servicemember-source.
Of course what this means is that the survey and its "results" are absolutely worthless and will be about as accurate as a Lou Dobbs' poll. It can easily be freeped by those who don't want DADT to be repealed. Any servicemember could take the survey as many times as they want and could give PIN's out to anybody who wants to take the survey, servicemember or not.
As Clarknt67 just said to me on Twitter, its "incompetence at best, malfeasance a definite possibility."
Note: I apologize for not writing more, but I have so much to do before I leave for Netroots Nation tomorrow and I wanted to make sure somebody covered this on DKos. I know Clarknt67 would have done it already if he hadn't already published a diary today.