It's the end of the world as we know it

We may not have reached the point where the normally trustworthy laptop politely, but firmly says: “I’m sorry, Llewellyn, but I cannot allow that.” Yet!

But the glorious imbroglio that has crashed down around the great Time magazine with the publication of its hitherto supposedly authoritative “100 Most Influential People in the World” for 2009 seems the closest we’ve come to date — even if it was manmade using computers. After all, not only has the apparent hacking of the global vote cooked this venerable magazine’s books, but it has demonstrated how even the world’s most sophisticated anti-fraud safeguards can be crippled.

The eventual upshot of this is to call into question the credibility of each and every computer-based survey, poll and research project. If a loosely-knit clan of tech-savvy geeks, calling themselves “Anonymous” (how bloody original!), can apparently thwart Time’s CAPTCHA (the protection technology supposed to ensure that each cyber-vote cast is cast individually by a human and not en masse by some computer-based blanket bombing run), what does this mean for every other internet popularity contest.

If what the superbrains of ITC are reporting is accurate — and can be trusted — “Anonymous” managed to subvert the first CAPTCHA, and then the second Re-CAPTCHA Time’s IT geeks put in place.

The result, published by Time today, shows that, “the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll and new owner of the title World’s Most Influential Person is moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16 794 368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey.”

“To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it’s worth noting that everyone moot beat out actually has a job,” and cast the entire hugely popular annual blockbuster project in doubt. LOL!!!!

Despite warnings from the global internet community that its results had been hacked and were no longer credible, Time published and has, so it would seem, been damned. This issue goes on to say: “Since moot launched 4chan.org in 2003, the site has given birth to internet memes as diverse as Lolcats and Rickrolling. 4chan averages 13 million page views a day and 5.6 million visitors a month; by some estimates it is the second largest bulletin board in the world. (See the TIME 100 finalists.)”

Oh-kay, then! If you say so, who am I to argue? After all I’ve only been a loyal subscriber since 1977. (I really truly began subscribing for the quality of the “Essay” sections, not the news. Honestly.)

Remember, this poll is intended to measure “influence”. Most people interpret that as the capacity to bring about meaningful change in people’s lives. Of course, those changes can be for the better or the worse, personal and subjective or global and arbitrary. If we take a completely individual perspective on it, each of us can relate to at least one person we would classify as having been “influential” in our own lives. So the results should be pretty potent one would think.

And if one examines all 203 entries (some, like the guys behind Twitter, register as one place), there are clearly individuals we would toss out as of no consequence whatsoever. But — and this is why the hacktastrophe is so important — other people feel differently. What we don’t know now is how many votes for moot were from people like you and me and how many of the nearly 17 million votes he garnered were electronically generated.

The Time/Anonymous fiasco not only has the potential to discredit this annual survey, but to discredit the revered magazine that published it, Time. And if so august a source has its credibility put at risk by clever people who do this just because they can, what are the implications for the plethora of internet polls we’re bombarded with every day? And what does it say about the CAPTCHA technology that is used in thousands of other internet-based applications too?

What tickles my irony bone though is that our illustrious leader is the only South African to make the list and then only manages to squeak into position 180. He lags no less than 116 places behind the infinitely more influential Mad Bob Mugabe. The Zimbabwean serial sociopath and mass murderer ranks three places behind the Dalai Lama, who was denied a visa to SA by shaky Jakey Zuma’s ex (which is a weird conundrum to wrap your head around when the oke’s got five other wives).

At the end of the day, it is the sheer weight of the numbers that count. It is not about the investment of intellectual capital that motivated the vote. It’s not about whether voters really thought deeply about what “influential” meant, who they deeply believed wielded it, and then picked a candidate.

But now we have the whole concept of the vote, the very basis of democracy, tarred-and-feathered by some anonymous yahoos with the brains to match their bytes.

It’s all about the numbers and who has the most. Much like South Africa’s own recent bun-fight at the ballot box.