London, United Kingdom. If Americans are sick of nonsense stories on imaginary “Russian hackers” interfering in American elections, from Britain comes a new twist. The British media is now alleging that outside interests have interfered in the Brexit.
The report by a committee of British members of parliament asserts that foreign states such as Russia and China MAY have interfered in the country’s Brexit vote last summer, which resulted in Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.
The Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee (PACAC) report hones in on the collapse of the British government’s voter registration website, which crashed, 100 minutes before the deadline to register to vote in the country’s referendum on EU membership.
Even though the site’s downing did not materially impact the outcome of the referendum, it forced ministers to extend the deadline for voter registration and led to concerns that people may have been left out of the process.
The reports conclussions indicate that the crash, which had earlier been attributed to a late surge in voter registrations,was now suddenly caused by a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS). UK Brexit officials did not immediately accuse any nation of hacking the government site, but the report referenced Russian and Chinese approaches to cyber-attacks.
In the western press one may rest assured that the mantra “Putin did it” will live on in imagination and legend for all time.