Accessed, not hacked!

Jinxed as the matriculation examination this year has been, the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) suffered another jolt on Wednesday night when the toppers’ list surfaced on the Facebook, complete with names of the rank holders and their marks.

Faced with yet another furore over the leak of results, the flabbergasted BSE authorities ran for cover. While initial reactions indicated towards hacking, it was subsequently found to be an event of coincidence with a 21-year-old engineering student, Jnanadarshan Nayak, at the centre of the episode.

Nayak had posted the list on his facebook page, hours before the results were officially announced. But he sought to come clean stating that his access  was due to the “error or negligence” by the site managers. He presented himself before the BSE authorities to clarify the sequence of events.

“In no way have I hacked the BSE website nor have I even attempted to do so”, he said, even as police subjected him to a round of questioning. Nayak said he was searching for the correct website ID of BSE owing to the confusion over spelling of Odisha in the address. When he clicked www.bseorissa.in, it directed him to the results.bseorissa.in page. The page had three links __ regular results, ex-regular results and Top 100 Merit list.

“The first two links were not functional, but the BSE_2012.pdf file, containing the Top 100 Merit List, was accessed and downloaded automatically. On opening, I found the name of a student of my school, Ravenshaw Collegiate, on Rank 3. So, I shared the screenshot of the Top 10 list on my facebook page”, he said.

The Electronics and Instrumentation stream student insisted that it was the mistake of the site managers who failed to block online access at the time of uploading. The site was open from 7.30 pm to around 8.10 pm and anybody could have accessed it at the time.

While the Government sought a report, the BSE authorities concurred that the contents could have been accessed during uploading of the results on to the server. The job of uploading and managing the servers was entrusted to CSM Technologies.

“The slip could have occurred during the trial run by the site managers to ensure glitch-free operations after announcement of results. There has been negligence as the sites should have been blocked during uploading. We have sought a detailed report from the company and will take suitable action on the matter. A report has also been submitted to the Government”, BSE president Satyakam Mishra said.