DOJ chief says Palace not ‘seeding’ voters’ data

Workers rush to package vote counting machines (VCMs) at the COMELEC warehouse in at Sta. Rosa, Laguna, where a transmission of mock elections results is also held duing the weekend in preparation for the May 9 elections.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Acting Justice Secretary Emmanuel Caparas on Tuesday defended Malacañang on allegations that it downloaded and “seeded” the supposed voters’ data leaked by hackers from the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) system.

“This is another incident we are playing up something that is not there,” Caparas told reporters.

“There is no such thing as Malacañang seeding the data and making it available to the public,” he added.

READ: DOJ chief assures integrity of polls but mum on safety of voters

Over the weekend, a screenshot went the rounds of social media about the Office of the President’s (OP) mail server being used to transfer the file through torrent and seed the Comelec data.

“I do not think there is any seeding coming from Malacañang  from what I have seen so far, from what I have heard so far,” Caparas said.

He said investigation is already ongoing to determine who made it appear that the Palace server was being used.

Using torrent files refers to peer-to-peer file sharing which is used to distribute data over the Internet. It is one of the most popular means of transferring large files. Once a file has been downloaded, it is “seeded” to make the it available to other users. CDG

READ: 55M at risk in ‘Comeleak’