LEE RICHARDSON
CUP Ontario Bureau Chief

TORONTO (CUP) — The person behind the hacking of a Western University student union voting website has came forward, and now likely faces a criminal charge.

Keith Horwood tweeted a YouTube video to Western’s University Student’s Council (USC) president Andrew Forgione Feb. 17, explaining his motivations and offering an apology.

“None of you guys deserved to be put through any of this grief,” said Horwood in the almost ten-minute long video. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but there it is.”

During the hack, elements of the USC elections website were altered and replaced with references to Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.

While the case was originally handled by Western’s campus police, it has now been passed to London police, who are considering criminal charges.

“It’s kind of gone beyond our bounds now,” said Keith Marnoch, Western’s director of media relations. “I don’t know how they’re proceeding with the evidence we’ve compiled.”

The video was released by Horwood after police began to consider more than one person as a suspect. During the video, Horwood — a Western alumnus with a double major in biology and biochemistry — explained how he carried out the hacking to highlight a security flaw in the website’s design.

“What I did was not from a technical standpoint representative of… a mastery of computers by any sense,” Horwood said in the video, adding that his actions involved more “luck” and “chance.”

After a decision by the elections committee and the presidential candidates, votes cast for the new Western USC president during the period of Feb. 14 and 15 are now considered invalid, and a re-vote will be held.

“It was one of the hardest decisions I have had to make,” said Forgione, current USC president, in an email. “Being through the process personally, it was especially difficult.”

During the two-day voting period, over 10,000 students cast votes.

“We’ve never had that kind of voter turnout before,” said Claire McArthur, a candidate running for USC president. “But there’s not much we can do now.”

Students will be able to vote again — on the last day of February and the first day of March — following a brief campaigning period, according to USC communications officer Eliot Hong. A media blackout that will last a week has been called into effect to give candidates a break before the new election.

“It was really difficult for all of us to decide that we had to do this, but it was something that had to be done to keep the fairness of the election process,” said Hong.

Since the video has been released, differences of opinion in the Western community have grown in regard to the potential criminal charges Horwood could face.

“I respect Keith for coming forward into the public eye and for being honest,” said Forgione, adding that Horwood might have misunderstood the implications of rewriting elements of the site. “I’m not sure if it appeased students though, who lost money and time throughout the entire elections process.”

“I feel bad for him,” said McArthur. “I think an investigation is needed but it seems like… he really did seem genuine and he explained it in such a way that I understood where he was coming from.”

An interview request sent to Horwood did not get a reply.

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Photo: KeithWilliamsH/YouTube