This week is the grand finale for American Idol - will it be Bo or Carrie, or should I say "Carrie or Bo"? We are subtly and not so subtly influenced by any number of factors in our preferences and since American Idol is decided by viewer voting, such influences — for example, the ongoing AOL American Idol poll — can be a factor in the voting.
With that in mind, check out the thorough research conducted by a fellow named Jim into the AOL poll results:
- The poll allows you to revote as much as you want. You might do one or a hundred votes by clicking and waiting etc. It doesn't matter because it averages out when other people also vote for their favorites. So it's pretty even and fair, right? But what if you found out that there was a way to bypass the manual clicking, and feed aol's computer votes automatically and at high speed? What would you think if a person able to do this could put in 10,000 votes while having lunch? Or 80,000 votes while they sleep? Enough votes that it would completely reverse the positions of favorites that several hundred thousand people voted for. In a week it could vote over a million times. Also keep in mind that maybe only one person to less than ten may know how to do that. Or would be willing to do that. If it were like that, it would hardly be fair, or even be a real poll anymore. Well, that's exactly what I discovered has been happening for 7 weeks now. 24/7.
Most people don't take polls too seriously, but at the same time, most glance at them believing there is some truth. Also if someone is #1 on a poll week after week, people will tend to notice they are consistantly #1 and form a good impression. I wondered if by Bo being #1 on the poll for 8 weeks in a row, would effect people's judgement and eventually the media to the point they believed it too. Pretty soon I started seeing more and more write ups about Bo with, "If the polls are any indication of a winner then" blah blah, "then Bo is the next American Idol".. That would further fuel that belief. I think Bo deserves to win as much as Carrie does, but I don't like the idea of people being mislead. Especially since it's the largest poll and it's broadcast to aol users desktops.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Aaman
I assume the American Idol voting is verified and audited by a CPA firm, like KPMG or Arthur Andersen, oops, scratch that last example.
2 - Eric Olsen
they claim they control for high volume machine voting, but ...
3 - TylerNewton
"I assume the American Idol voting is verified and audited by a CPA firm, like KPMG or Arthur Andersen, oops, scratch that last example."
Actually it's not. All of this came out when people complained about not being able to vote for Clay in AI2.
AI voting uses some company, but I am sure it's not an accounting firm.
Very stupid if you ask me, but they are just trying to be extremely cheap.
4 - Dave Nalle
It's not just that they're cheap, it's that their voting system is entirely inappropriate for meaningful verification. There are no restrictions on who can vote or even how many times they can vote. What could an accounting firm verify that would be meaningful?
Dave
5 - Aaman
How would one design a verifiable, phone-based voting system?
The Wonders of the World project did it by having people get a verification code prior to acknowledging the vote, but could one make it painless?
6 - Joe Murphy
The irony is that people who are pouring in these unauthorized votes may not really be helping their favorite!
If their fellow-fans think their Idol has a really big lead, they may be lulled into a false sense of security and end up registering less phone/text votes on shownight than they would have if they had seen a truer picture!
So in fact the poll-bombers may be passing the advantage over to the other contestant - which presumably is the last thing they meant to do!
On our website (americanidolwatch.com) we've been running similar polls during the finals. Initially we tried to prevent repeat votes by using cookies. However, on 3 occassions die-hard fans (for different contestants) tried some manual bombing of the polls by repeatedly deleting their cookies and re-voting. Fortunately we made snapshots of the polls and were able to back-out the bombing attempts.
Since then we have 'bomb-proofed' our polls as best we can, although we've decided to allow users 'a vote a day' to simulate, to some degree, the multiple vote scenario of Idol itself.
Our view is that the polls are primarily for fun, but since they may also influence opinion, they should be as accurate as possible.
It sounds like AOL could easily disregard those 'unauthorized' votes, but they choose not to. Maybe they like showing bigger numbers on their poll counts!
I can understand how fans like to see their Idols top these online polls, but voting hundreds or even thousands of (automated) times, is I think, taking them a little too seriously!
7 - Joe
In the past I brought up this topic with a software engineer. At first, he thought that the Auth votes meant that they were the votes being cast once by a user. However, he switched to AOL and discovered that Auth votes are votes that are being casted from AOL. If anyone could verify this, it would clarify the issue.
8 - Jim
Interesting, but auth is for authorized in this case. I verified this myself because the poll file gets stores the same regardless of the ISP being aol or not. I have AOL and Comcast, and the 7 weeks of research yielded identical results regardless of which ISP was used. Even if it were that way, the steady stream of nonAuth votes was also verified. And one million plus nonauth votes was happening back when other contestants only got 100,000 or so in earlier weeks. So there is definately automated voting. Not once, but for weeks on end. The poll is open until tomorrow night. Try and I think you will see for yourself that it's that way.
9 - Jim
I actually think things are in Bo's favor in terms of real votes, but regardless of who wins, this poll will be there next year with all new idols. Hopefully there is a small chance that AOL will improve it. I know they can, but will they?
10 - Susan
It seems that nothing is trustable on the net. I always knew polls were not to be trusted, but what I read really says it all. Coming from Bo fan, I don't like having people try to make the poll look good. It's dishonest to say the least.
11 - Mike
Interesting 'facts', but you are completely wrong. 'Auth'="Authenticated", not "Authorized". Those are the votes received from users accessing the poll from inside of AOL's network. They have to be tracked differently than those in the nonAuthvote node because the user's IP address cannot be reliably tracked through our proxy servers, which handle web requests.
By the way, one guy (Joe) was smart enough to figure this out and I liked the way you quickly hushed him up with your "Interesting, but auth is for authorized in this case" nonsense...
For anybody who doesn't believe me, log into AOL and hit the poll using the URL submitted by the flash movie and watch the numbers in the authVote node increment. Then, log out and try it from another ISP and you'll see the numbers in the nonAuthVote node increment.
Please get your facts straight before inventing reality. I hope none of you geniuses are actually earning a living as web application developers because your problem solving skills are laughable.
12 - Natalie Davis
Hee hee hee.
Mr. Mike's info notwithstanding (and good on you, sir, for speaking up), who really trusts polls anyway???
13 - Aaman
That still does not explain a steady stream of votes at 3 AM in the night - rockers and groupies have better things to do at that time
Good explanation, though
14 - Natalie Davis
This rocker and fan (I prefer fan to groupie) is up and voting, you better believe it! If that little wooden girl wins... grrrrr...
15 - Jim
Thank you for your points Joe Murphy. I'm not sure if you are the same person as "Joe", but people being lulled into a false sense of security is what I think is so unfair about all of this.. I'm currently reading that most people believe Bo will win because of the AOL poll. I think he probably will anyway, but not because the AOL poll is so high. He may win by only .1% and AOL will claim they've correctly identified the winner again. Sooner or later, someone who doesn't win idol will get the overload of votes, and AOL will make the wrong prediction. It's a good thing you got the snapshots. I went to your poll and like it. I have been directing people to it since yesterday. Well, Idol is over tomorrow, but I'd direct them next year.
I think the fact that you have a working poll is very interesting. Maybe it can get more wide spread attention. The bad part is someone here has just said that the "unauthrozied" votes may be "unauthenticated" votes meaning AOL has NO ability to detect them at all. It still doesn't change the fact that an huge, unnatural amount of spam votes came in and I saw this for weeks. It's been partly disguised in the final week because of many excited voters, but the prior weeks have been a dead giveaway for anyone who watched the numbers closely. Without a verification system, the AOL poll can not function properly as long as there is even one person willing to automatically vote on it. I know how it's possible to do this, so the fact that I understand it, couldn't be good. I doubt I am the only one. I typically try different polls and try to see which ones I can break. Not because I want to cheat on them, but so I can determine which ones to trust.
16 - Jim
Mike, I had originally wondered if it meant authenticated or non authorized, so thank you and Joe for bringing it up. I wrote what I did, because of misunderstanding. Regardless of whether the votes come from inside the network, I think you are missing the bigger point. The point is that an un-natural steady flood of votes have come into one contestants total for weeks at all hours of the night. Even without any techincal analysis, some people had alrady noticed that it was wrong when Bo had over 60% of the poll. I didn't get most of my information based on Auth or NonAuth, but thought that also fit with what I found. So if authenticated does mean from inside AOL, it still can not change the fact that nonauth votes streamed like clockwork from outside the aol network from someone. It also can not change the fact that AOL's design allows someone with the know how to vote with a computer casting over 100,000 îo.RØó- r day. I also never hushed anyone up. Joe is free to write back. I wasn't being sarcastic with him either. I was saying it the way I saw it. His point is interesting, but what I figured was that the votes were still not good votes regardless. If need be, I will make corrections, but the main point made is still holding perfectly. I would love to believe it was all a horrible mistake and that this poll wasn't spammed, but unfortunately that isn't the case.
If this is the case, then the AOL poll is actually worse than I thought it was, because it means it doesn't detect anything at all. It's not like because it means authenticated, the problem finally goes away, or what I've stated is imaginary. Valid points were made, and would expect you to look at the whole situation and not a small part. It makes it seem like you work for AOL, because you didn't notice what is true but only defended the poll. Like I originally said, AOL's idea was fine, with the exception that anyone who figures out how to vote automatically, controlls the entire poll.
I took many measurements and compared them to the other 12 finalists and the figures were out of whack from a statistical standpoint. I actually know how the automatic voting on the AOL poll is being done. In a test, I was able to match the vote rate I spoke of with 3 computers and it works, so my problem sovling skills couldn't be too far off. No need for you to be insulting about it regardless of the point being made.. If I know how to do this my self then I couldn't be imagining the possibilities here. If you like, maybe you can assume that I am the only one that knows how, which I highly doubt. If that's true, then I could be a threat to the AOL poll. I could do that, but I am an honest person who stepped forward with the hopes for a better poll.
It doesn't end with the AOL poll either. The main site on Fox that has a poll on the main page, is also being spammed with this automatic method. http://idolonfox.com/ I also know how the vote feeding method for that site works as well. The current question at Fox is, "In the finale, I can't wait to see:", Vonzell 3%, Previous year's Idols 22%, Group numbers 1%, Anthony 6%, Scott 5%, Constantine 64%. If I wanted to do a demonstration I could abnormally raise any choice by 10% even though I would need 220,000 votes since it has 2.2 million votes. This could be accomplished by one computer at 57,000 votes per hour in 3.8 hours. Now try that with just a mouse and sore fingers! LOL. I actually wouldn't want to mess that poll up. I have however, seen that somene else has already done that on a past poll. One of the poll questions was to choose what single out of 3 available for the the idols to sing on the CD. To think that the single for American Idol could be chosen by ONE person for example! This is happening in more than one place on the net, and it isn't good. I'd like to see the AOL poll rewritten because it's a fun poll to use. Without that, the poll will continue to suffer from favorites reversing places in the future.
17 - Eric Olsen
thanks for the input, very interesting, and thanks again to Jim for passing on the results of his hard work
18 - Mike
Jim - I'm sorry if I came off as insulting, but I'd seen a link to this blog on the AI message board at Prospero and the poster claimed that Bo wasn't winning fairly on the AOL poll, echoing much of what was said here. I apologize.
Of course people are automating votes on the AOL poll, but they're doing it for Carrie as well as for Bo. Have you seen the numbers this week? Almost ten million votes, (when most weeks only have a few million total, although it has escalated over the last three weeks).
In fact, Carrie received over 1.5 million in a two hour period last night! It's insane. Humans are not casting all of those votes.
Regarding the technology at AOL's site - it is clearly lacking, although there is a built in limitation by IP address which I referenced yesterday. You can't submit more than 1000 votes per hour via automation, which is around the number of votes a person could cast using the Flash movie.
I could suggest a number of ways AOL could limit the majority of the automated votes, but I don't think they'd care. They know their poll is being hacked, and are probably glad to be able to tell their sponsors that they receive the incredible number of 'visitors' they're getting.
The bottom line is, there isn't an online poll that can't be duped into receiving automated votes. It's just the nature of the technology. Anything a person can do with a browser, a program or script can do without human intervention. I don't trust any of them.
When I see a high-profile online poll, I conclude that whoever/whatever is winning is the side who has the most experienced programmers, (or zealots with the most free time.)
19 - Jim
Sure thing Eric. I wanted to say thanks again to you for everything as well :-) It's been fun!
20 - Jim
No problem Mike. Apology accepted. The AI poster probably found it in news since it's searchable and linked it. Some people will miss the main point which is criticising a poll's accuracy and not a Idol favorite. It may appear to criticise Bo to some nervous fans waiting for results and they get the wrong idea. I would have hoped they would have stuck to the point which is the polls reliability. If anything I believe it let Bo's fans down, causing them to believe he had it by a mile and then he didn't win. I feel sorry for the news writers and people that believed them. It's not Bo's fault, or his main fans. Just a few people that did that. They could have just as well targeted Vonzell. That's why I thought it was so unfair to everone. I wasn't too disapointed because I was kind of prepared and have 3 favorites including Bo.. Also Seacrest said they were within 2% in phone votes so I doubted he had the 15 to 25% lead.
Most of what I was indicating was detected earlier on and up until recently. It's understandable that the last 2 or 3 days of the season could cause large numbers of votes to come in. That's why I wished I discussed this 3 weeks ago. But I wanted to be more sure, and it took time to check it all. It's not so much how many votes are received, but the proportions of those variables between different contestants that I was reacting to. For example I'd see that 80% of Bo's total would come outside of aol, while 70% of Carrie's (and others) may be inside. It doubt that only non Aol members are fans of Bo. It just meant the surplus of votes came from one side and not the other. So it was disproportionate. Also the percentage was higher than any other poll and it fit logically. That and also the numbers running in the middle of the night. I honestly didn't see this same pattern with Carrie's or others. Yes, I believe there is some cheating for all the idols, but not the even paced, never ending dedication for Bo.. Also poll bombers tend to give up after a few days of fooling with a poll. It wasn't happening in this case. They were devoted up until the end. If all contestants had an even amount of spam, nothing would have been skewed... Going back to the finale, I do think it's strange that Carrie's score went up in one day. It could be that the last 2 days are a special case due to the hysteria of a winner in sight. So the votes could be real. 3 weeks ago, there wasn't a reason it. Again, I'm not defending her, but just looking at things. And something else occured to me. That was more vote power in the last two days than I've seen all season.
If someone has the power to do that in two days, why wait all season until the last day to use it? Also why have the poll go to 50% vs 50% with only 32,002 votes seperating Bo and Carrie? Why not push it up and over in her favor? So here is a far out theory. AOL was bragging in news that they have correctly predicted the winner for 2 seasons and this was going to be the third. Everyone including news writers were saying Bo would win it and quoted the AOL poll. If by some chance they saw this blog, they may have felt embarrased or on the spot.. While I don't think they want to cheat their own poll normally, it would only be the last day if they did. So I thought they might have figured that if they brought it up to 50% vs 50%, then no one could blame the poll. I have seen them edit their poll data before. Nikko appeared then dissapeared once. I'll admit that's reaching, but when I think over why it stopped at 50/50, it makes me wonder....
Even though I saw the pattern I described, I will agree with you that yes, all the polls are in danger. That was really what I was eluding to when I mentioned the Fox poll. I'd rather leave particular idols out of the picture and just see it as all polls. As for polls being fooled, I don't think it's impossible or even impractical to get rid of automation. It's just unlikely that it will happen. Yahoo had a problem with machines sending spam emails through their system. They put in a word verification program that makes you type a word on the screen on occasion. If this were added to the poll, then anyone could vote 20 times, but a computer couldn't do like thousands or even one if it asked often enough. The reason they make the letters distorted looking is so that it's impossible for a program to do optical character recognition.. Your point is well taken that AOL will probably do absolutely nothing about it... LOL. I believe that for sure. Like you said, it's the $$$
On the limit dealing with how fast the flash movie (shockwave/java etc) can vote there is about an 8 second delay between each vote. I was trying to figure out if it was possible to beat for fun. I wondered if I could get numbers as fast as what I thought was being done by the bombers. I got around the delay by sending votes through 20 paths at the same time. (I'm being a little bit vauge on details for obvious reasons) Another way disabled the graphics etc.. It was a 16x to 26x speed increase over what a person could do, allowing 2 - 3 votes per second. That gave 7,200 - 12,000 votes per hour and they registered. Over 1000 votes could be done in 5 minutes and it worked. I didn't even need to go through a proxy to switch IP's. Three computers would have been no problem to give 3X that....
But I've about had it with analysis for a while, ROFL. I've done enough for weeks. I figure the seasons over, time to relax and wait for the CD's to come out :-). First Carrie, then Bo Bice if possible. All I can say is What a great 2 hour show they gave us! Again thanks for your input.
21 - Eric Olsen
with Carrie winning the "real" poll, that lends credence to your theory Jim, that the AOL poll was skewed in Bo's favor
22 - Natalie Davis
Or the phone voting was rigged. Or VotefortheWorst actually voted for the worst this week...
23 - Dawn
I was certainly voting for Bo all the way, but I don't see the need to impugn the singing talents of Carrie. They were equal in talent, Bo just had more appeal and charisma from my perspective.
It's best for him this way anyway, he can sing what he wants and won't have to sell his soul to the devil.
Bo lucked out of the machine - we should be happy for him.
24 - Natalie Davis
I AM happy for Bo and I DO think he is better off. But I disagree about Carrie's talent. Vehemently. I wish her well, of course, and thank god she is no hack, but equal to Bo? Nowhere near, IMO. Nowhere. In her dreams. And frankly, I found her better in the earlier rounds than she has been lately. Tuesday, especially, was a joke. Spousal Unit and I were in holding our ears in pain during that high note that supposedly won her the ball of wax. I have studied voice for years -- judging her as a technical singer, Carrie blew major chunks Tuesday. I hear she was better last night with Rascal Flatts and that's great. But "Pitchy" ought to be Carrie's second middle name, following "wooden." Whatever. As Paula Abdul said in a statement sure to receive "hell, yeah"s from many of those unfortunate American masses, who cares about bum notes? Those who do care and knowledgeable music types -- whichever singer they support -- would laugh at the notion Carrie and Bo are equally proficient singers. But this isn't a singing competition, it is AI -- you don't have to be technically proficient to win. (Cases in point, and these are not the only ones: Tamyra Gray, Jennifer Hudson, and Anwar Robinson.) You have to be popular and marketable. 19 Entertainment may see Carrie as more marketable (why not? Kelly Clarkson is still selling big, and if you add a little more blond and a wee bit o' twang, you get Carrie); the majority of votes indicate that she is more popular. But being more popular and marketable -- according to some -- does not necessarily mean that one is a better or equal singer.
25 - Dawn
Kelly Clarkson has turned out to be a really great singer, so hey, maybe the same will happen for Carrie.
Honestly, Bo is better off without the 19 entertainment running his career into the ground. He can do what he does and flourish.
Carrie is exactly the "AI" prototype - malleable, moldable and easily manipulated. It's only fitting.