'Referendum' has too many votes to be credible

For a person to vote online, all he or she has to do is provide an identity card number and a mobile phone number. Strictly speaking, a mobile phone number cannot be used as identification even if it is unique, as we have never been required to link our phone numbers with our personal profiles - as registered in government records. It is reported that there is software easily available to generate an infinite number of identity card numbers and mobile phone numbers. As long as identity card numbers are generated according to a set of rules, the electronic voting system cannot tell whether it is genuine or fake.

At the same time, the voting system cannot prevent non-permanent residents and underage people from voting. All these loopholes could have been detected earlier if voting was only conducted offline. Is it the organizers' secret desire to allow such loopholes so that adolescent members of "Scholarism" can participate?

There is a suspicious ring to the furor surrounding allegations the electronic voting site had been targeted by hackers as early as June 14. That day, they suffered a large-scale DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack. This is a common form of external attack on web-based services. Apple Daily also claimed its websites in Hong Kong and Taiwan were repeatedly attacked in recent days.

If these allegations are true, the people behind the cyber attacks are not just criminals, but idiots. The voting site needs to run better tests; hackers do not run better hacks. The premature attack performed no function other than to make the system administrators go on the defensive and to encourage more Hongkongers to take part in the voting just to show support, and place Jimmy Lai, editor and owner of Apple Daily, on the moral high ground.

While all the hacking accusations lack proof - what we do know is that Jimmy Lai met former US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz on May 27 on his yacht.

If I were the central government in Beijing, and I knew these hacking allegations were false, I would regard the situation as an undeclared war, a fight for sovereignty in the Chinese city of Hong Kong.

The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.