Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down • Hacker News Board

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#101

Post by JamesBarney » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #22

Nasa.gov[1] and justice.gov[2] resolving and have valid TLS certificates for me. > In the end, nothing good will come out of this shutdown. Some people believe increasing border security and funding to reduce crime, reduce sex trafficking, and better protect border agents and law enforcement as good. [1] https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=nasa.gov&latest [2] http://ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=justi…

It seems like the two things that should be taken under consideration when taking the government hostage is, "is it worth it", and "can we win". I personally don't think border security is that important but I understand lots of people feel differently.

But I really don't think the Republicans can win this argument. When they controlled both houses and the presidency they couldn't pass the wall funding. So I'm not sure why they think they can do it after losing the houses. Especially since this politically hurts them among independents far more than it hurts the Democrats.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#102

Post by FPGAhacker » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #17

Serious question for US members of HN: how do you tolerate these shutdowns? I mean, apart from the loss of services, including websites, it seems like many federal workers aren't being paid. Will they be paid back after the shutdown impasse is resolved or is the money they didn't/couldn't earn lost to them. This seems unfair and, in the meantime, how are they supposed to go about their lives? Overall it seems potenti…

Say you have a government that does only two things, of equal cost.

Feed hungry children, and make Statues of past leaders for city squares.

Now imagine the budget of the government was cut in half by Congress. Which of these two things do you think they would stop doing?

The answer is very likely to stop feeding hungry children. Tax payers will feel that pain and become irate at the budget cuts and demand the budget be reinstated.

If they stopped producing statues, taxpayers would probably not notice and wonder why the budget was so high to begin with.

So it goes with the American federal government. The departments shut down things that will cause the most pain, fear, anger to the public until the public demands budgetary reinstatement.

Credits to Thomas Sowell for the analogy.

If you want a good laugh and also see what the fed wastes money on, go look at Rand Paul’s Festivus thread on Twitter.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#103

Post by sparkie » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #100

maratd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of downvoting the parent, make an actual argument instead. You'll find it difficult. If the current shutdown proves anything, it's that many functions of the federal government are un-essential to daily life. Those un-essential parts should be eliminated.

For most people this argument doesn't follow because they don't see elimination of government as a terminal goal. We believe the government does a lot of useful but un-essential functions, like operate federal parks. The other thing is the vast majority of the government's budget is Medicare, DoD, and social security which are all still operating to my knowledge.

The two arguments do not necessarily need to be mutually exclusive. You can have governance without monopoly. This would be the ideal scenario.

Governments operate federal parks, but there are also private parks which are just as well kept, sometimes even better - and they do it at much lower costs. See for example, this small public bathroom which cost $2M to build: https://twitter.com/JohnStossel/status/1077921975123804162

Such enormous waste of resources is so common in many areas of government, and if they operated like any regular business they would be bankrupt overnight. Of course it did not take $2M to build that little shack - there is a huge amount of corruption and everyone involved is taking their slice of the taxpayer's money.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#104

Post by wil421 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #17

Serious question for US members of HN: how do you tolerate these shutdowns? I mean, apart from the loss of services, including websites, it seems like many federal workers aren't being paid. Will they be paid back after the shutdown impasse is resolved or is the money they didn't/couldn't earn lost to them. This seems unfair and, in the meantime, how are they supposed to go about their lives? Overall it seems potenti…

No noticeable impact to me or anyone I know what so ever. The only thing I can’t do is go to a park near the river it’s part of the National Parks system which is shutdown.

Most services I need are run by my state. I can’t really think of anything federal I need beside the IRS in February.

I generally feel bad for federal employees in my area. My credit union is extending interest free loans and some banks are allowing people to postpone mortgage payments. There are two sides to the coin and many banks are actually giving predetory type loans.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#105

Post by wopian » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #98

untog wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they all put their loose change in a pot. Should last for a year or so!

isn't there a free micro instance option? or it was only free for a year?

micro (750 hours/mo) is part of the first 12 months free.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#106

Post by sparkie » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

ok_coo wrote: post #76

bartread wrote: post #17

Serious question for US members of HN: how do you tolerate these shutdowns? I mean, apart from the loss of services, including websites, it seems like many federal workers aren't being paid. Will they be paid back after the shutdown impasse is resolved or is the money they didn't/couldn't earn lost to them. This seems unfair and, in the meantime, how are they supposed to go about their lives? Overall it seems potenti…

My wife came home yesterday and told me that her work said if the shutdown continues in late February - March that they'll probably have to cut her position along with others at her workplace (they're federally-funded). If that happens, I will likely be forced to quit my current job as well and find a higher paying job to help compensate while she looks for new work. I'm currently paid under market rate, but I love m…

Firstly, I'm sorry for you and your wife's situation, and don't intend to sound like an insensitive dick, but I'm a bit fed up of this appeal to emotion about the livelihoods of federal workers missing a paycheck as if these cases are somehow unique and couldn't happen to anyone at any time.

No job is secure, and anyone could lose their jobs for a huge range of reasons. Government workers have some of the most secure jobs out there - they're almost guaranteed work in the future so long as they don't commit some misconduct that gets them fired, because the government doesn't have to "lay off" a bunch of staff if it performs badly. There are a great deal of people out there who would jump at the opportunity to be a government employee and have such job security, good pay, and good pension, even if it meant that they might have to survive the odd few weeks without the pay during a shutdown.

I think the appeal has the opposite effect on people who genuinely struggle to keep jobs, have lost the jobs because of market conditions or the effects of bad government policy, etc. It stinks of entitlement.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#107

Post by gizmo686 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

pimlottc wrote: post #64

lowercased wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For direct employees - currently, from what I've recently heard - the legislation in place provides for back pay for them. For contract workers for agencies, it's unclear that any of them will receive back pay. Per the other comment here, I might suspect that there were some contractors who may still have been 'required' for some reason to work, but may not get back pay in the end. It's speculation on my part, but it…

> For direct employees - currently, from what I've recently heard - the legislation in place provides for back pay for them. Almost in place; the bill in question still needs to be signed by the President. All indications are that he will. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s24 In general, there is nothing that guarantees back pay after a shutdown, though it has happened in every shutdown so far.

There is nothing that guarentees pay for fourloghed workers. Those that are required to work have the fair labor standards act, which requires them to get paid during the shutdown. Since the government is violating the FLSA (in order to comply with the anti-deficiancy act), such workers are eligable for not only backpay, but also damages. In one case stemming from the 2013 shutdown damages were calculated at minimum wage for the first 40 hours a week, then the standard overtime rate for anyone working beyond that. This is addition to the backpay of what their pay should have been (so overtime effectivly payed double during this)

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-02-16/judge-orders...

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#108

Post by JamesBarney » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #103

JamesBarney wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people this argument doesn't follow because they don't see elimination of government as a terminal goal. We believe the government does a lot of useful but un-essential functions, like operate federal parks. The other thing is the vast majority of the government's budget is Medicare, DoD, and social security which are all still operating to my knowledge.

The two arguments do not necessarily need to be mutually exclusive. You can have governance without monopoly. This would be the ideal scenario. Governments operate federal parks, but there are also private parks which are just as well kept, sometimes even better - and they do it at much lower costs. See for example, this small public bathroom which cost $2M to build: https://twitter.com/JohnStossel/status/10779219751…

I think it really did take 2 million dollars. The video explains why. We have decided to make a lot of trade offs when doing government infrastructure work that makes it really expensive. But this isn't government in general, it's American government specifically that is really inefficient at building things.

In Texas I've been to over ten government run parks (like ones you'd go camping in), and I've never even heard of a private one.

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#109

Post by linkmotif » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

linkmotif wrote: post #36

bartread wrote: post #17

Serious question for US members of HN: how do you tolerate these shutdowns? I mean, apart from the loss of services, including websites, it seems like many federal workers aren't being paid. Will they be paid back after the shutdown impasse is resolved or is the money they didn't/couldn't earn lost to them. This seems unfair and, in the meantime, how are they supposed to go about their lives? Overall it seems potenti…

Because most of the government is a waste of money and exists merely to perpetuate itself. The fact that it just shuts down sometimes is a great indicator of just that. It’s an entity that is accountable to nobody because no matter how well or poorly it performs it just collects revenue anyway. You can’t #deletegovt. The sooner people move away from viewing it as a good employer, the better. There’s no smooth or eleg…

I should have said “much of government.”

Re: Government shutdown: TLS certificates not renewed, many websites are down

#110

Post by lol768 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

Operyl wrote: post #39

renholder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyway, it is embarassing to see certificate renewal is not automated - it's something any good sysadmin would have set up. From the original article[1]: " One such example is https://ows2.usdoj.gov , a U.S. Department of Justice website which uses a certificate that expired in the week leading up the shutdown . The certificate has been signed by a trusted certificate authority, GoDaddy, but it has not been renewed…

You can probably verify this yourself with crt.sh! I’m on mobile and busy, but it’s a fun game mucking through the certificates for various domain names.

https://crt.sh/?id=1077863710