Category: News making

New Poll: Wildrose up by 17 points

Another poll shocker from Campaign Research today as their latest tracking poll shows the Wildrose Party in Alberta up by 17 points over the PC Party.

You’ll remember a week ago that Campaign Research first released their poll via this website and had Wildrose up by 9 points while other pollsters had the PCs tied with Wildrose. In the following days, other pollsters caught up to confirm the 9 point lead.

Now, this poll show’s Danielle Smith’s Wildrose up by 17 points.

Here are the other highlights:
– Wildrose would take 45.5% of the popular vote if an election were held today
– PCs at 28.4%
– gap closing in Edmonton, expanding in Calgary and rural areas
– Wildrose 50.0% in Calgary, 28.1% in Edmonton, and 51.9% in the rest of Alberta
– Best Premier poll: Smith has 30.5%, Redford has 28.9%

UPDATE: Here is the Campaign Research press release,

It’s getting nasty in Alberta

Well, that didn’t take long. After Alberta Premier Alison Redford promised a few days ago to run a positive campaign, this tweet from one of her staffers regarding Redford’s chief political opponent Danielle Smith from the Wildrose Party,

Amanda Wilkie is listed as the Executive Assistant to the Executive Director of the Office of the Premier (Southern Alberta Office).

Redford cited former Premier Ed Stelmach’s concern about the current election,

Redford says recently, on what she says “must have been a particularly heavy day,” she thought about the speech Premier Ed delivered when he threw in the towel. At the time, Stelmach warned of a “profound danger” that this very election would focus “on personality and U.S-style negative attack politics.”

“He was very specific about that and he was very right,” says Redford, calling this “a pretty emotional time right now in Alberta.”

This latest campaign gaffe comes after the PCs were accused of push polling — Smith’s own father was even allegedly a target of the tactic.

Alberta politics is getting a bit nasty. And as for Wilkie’s tweet? She later apologized,

UPDATE: Danielle Smith has responded,

March 31, 2012 (Calgary, AB): Today Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith issued the following statement in response to comments made by a Staffer in Premier Redford’s Calgary office regarding the Wildrose Family Pack.

“In the last day the question has been raised about why I don’t have children of my own. When David and I married in 2006 we intended to have children together. After a few years we sought help from the Calgary Regional Fertility Clinic. I appreciated the support and assistance of the caring staff as we went through tests and treatments, but in the end we were not successful.

“I consider myself very fortunate to have a terrific stepson, Jonathan, David’s son from a previous marriage. I am also blessed to have grown up in a large family with four siblings who have given me the opportunity to be the auntie of 5 terrific nieces and nephews: Emily, Sam, Chloe, Seyenna and Logan.

“Family is very important to me and I consider this to be a very personal matter. I will not be commenting on it further.”

UPDATE: Alison Redford has responded,

Edmonton, AB – Premier Alison Redford released the following statement today:

“Alberta is made up of all types of families. Each one has a story. Each one is unique. There is no one type of family that is more authentic than the other.

Last night, a tweet was sent that was entirely inappropriate. It was hurtful and does not reflect my values nor those of my campaign in any way.

Once I became aware of the tweet, I called Danielle Smith immediately. I look forward to speaking with her privately.

The young woman who authored the tweet has resigned from her position. From that action I know she understands the gravity of her actions.”

Who is Pierre Poutine?

John Ivison published an interesting piece in the National Post last week that breezed by what would have been technobabble to some,

Mr. Meier set out to follow the digital trail himself. Pierre Jones had covered his tracks sufficiently that a “burner” phone, PayPal account and the Gmail address he’d been using offered no clues. Mr. Meier spent hours piecing together a “session log,” breaking down when Pierre Jones used the RackNine system and what he did while on it. “We put it together one Lego block at a time. It pierces the veil to indicate who is using the system,” he said.

Mr. Meier said he had his “Eureka” moment at 3 a.m. one morning, and by 5 a.m. had written a 22 page report for Elections Canada. “He [Pierre Jones] screwed up. Just for a fraction of a second but it was enough for me to find him,” he said.

Let’s get right to the point.

A “cookie” in web browsing terms is a string of characters that is stored in a file on your computer that your computer relays back to a website when you’re browsing. For example, when you login to a website, the reason why you can go from one page to another is because of this file stored on the user’s computer. A secure site (e.g. gmail) asks the computer if it has any of that site’s cookies on its hard-drive. If so, what does the cookie say? If the cookie has the same encoded string common to what the site is expecting, the user can proceed to the next page, and the next without having to login for each new page.

Session are a bit different but are similar in tracking utility. From About.com,

Sessions are not reliant on the user allowing a cookie. They work instead like a token allowing access and passing information while the user has their browser open. The problem with sessions is that when you close your browser you also lose the session. So, if you had a site requiring a login, this couldn’t be saved as a session like it could as a cookie, and the user would be forced to re-login every time they visit.

So, Meier reconstructed the session log, and had a Eureka moment. This means that there was likely a common session linking two users. This likely means that one ‘client’ of Racknine’s logged out of Racknine’s web interface. Likely holding a session token on the same computer, another ‘client’ (Poutine) was logged in. Oops.

To see an example of this, logout of Facebook and look at the url. Logging in with new credentials can store the session key under the newly logged in user as well.

We can deduce that Pierre Poutine very possibly used the same computer as another legitimate user account on Racknine. Alternatively, a web url with a session key (e.g. racknine.com/menu.php?id=4due2sjdh29c809encgg) could have been shared from one user on one computer to another computer.