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Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

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Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#51

Post by thegeekbin »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #13
thegeekbin wrote: post #6

IBM? Well, I'll never be using that app. To my knowledge, Phoenix Pay System is still in the shambles...

Don't worry, you probably won't have to worry about the choice if they will make it mandatory to confirm your "vaccination status".

That is a nightmare. I'm not as concerned with "vaccination status" (though, I disagree) -- but, at least 50% of my concern is IBM.

Everything IBM touches turns into a hot pile of garbage that needs billions to rewrite and it never gets better. We'd get a better job if we outsourced to another country -- OR -- gave contracts to companies that aren't IBM (& know what they're doing, of course).

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#52

Post by jacquesm »

krageon wrote: post #46
ivnubinas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they outsource it they can hire lots of mid and senior level engineers using my country's salaries as a reference. Paying 34K a year salary (which is a top 0.1% salary in the Dominican Republic) they can hire up to 35 senior engineers.

Of course, outsourcing is in the vast majority of cases a complete disaster.

And they'll blame the workers rather than the management.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#53

Post by jacquesm »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #16
nuccy wrote: post #11

In Ukraine, there is a DIYA (Дія) app developed by the government, which holds electronic national passport, passport for traveling abroad, driving license, car registration documents (including car insurance information), child birth certificate (in parents app) and tax payer information. The app generates temporarily barcodes which can be scanned by another DIYA app to verify somebody's identity or presented docume…

That sounds super convenient. Wish we would have something similar in the EU. Edi: yes, I know Ukraine is in Europe, I meant EU

I wish we will never have something similar in the EU. That kind of system is asking for abuse. Please no, let's keep the passports, driver licenses and birth certificates on old fashioned reasonably hard to forge paper with holograms and securely printed (and perforated, check your EU passport hard page against the light).

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#54

Post by jacquesm »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #30
croes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convenient ok, but is it secure? https://globalvoices.org/2021/02/11/security-concerns-and-le...

As a security engineer, nothing civillian-facing is ever 100% secure, it all depends how much resources your attackers have. When modelling your security profile, it's always a matter of "when", not "if" your widget can get hacked. Most you can do is deter black-hats, but not much you can do against well funded state actors.

I'm fine with the 'well funded state actors' being able to do this, I'm not fine with every two bit hacker having access to all that data.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#55

Post by thegeekbin »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
krageon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, outsourcing is in the vast majority of cases a complete disaster.

And they'll blame the workers rather than the management.

That's how outsourcing works -- who cares if management made promises they could never keep up with, right?

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#56

Post by DC1350 »

stagas wrote: post #33

Why do we still have borders? Is it a form of learned helplessness? As a European travelling freely inside the Schengen zone is one of the most amazing things and you can argue it has stopped war among those countries. What is the problem of not extending it to the entire world? Does anyone know? Also, it seems that tons of resources are wasted maintaining them when they could be used for increasing prosperity for ev…

Wealthy countries would immediately be flooded with all the world’s problems if anyone was allowed to migrate. Since wealthy people draw the world’s borders, they aren’t going away. Global equality would be a terrible thing for most people in NA or Europe.

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#58

Post by thegeekbin »

danpalmer wrote: post #17
debarshri wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1.5M goes a long way if the work is outsourced. Generally bigger orgs will have internal contracts. For instance IBM Canada outsources to IBM India at internal discounted rates. When I used to work for TCS, a budget of $80k was good enough for team of 4 for 6 months. I can only imagine that at $1.5M, it is definitely going to get them a few teams.

This only works if the internal client doesn't take the savings as margin, _and_ the communication and project management is good enough to overcome the issues that come with outsourcing. In this case you've now got 3 levels of project management (Canadian govt, IBM CA, IBM India), 2 countries, 2+ languages, and 2 layers of a company who are banned from government contracts in parts of the world for over spending and…

IBM Formula For Pricing:

Initial Price = Estimated_Cost / 1000

"Oops, we need more money" = (Estimated_Exec_Bonus + Estimated_Corp_Greed) + Worker_Cost + Extra_Corp_Greed

Re: Virtual passport app presents real data risk, experts warn

#59

Post by gbear605 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #30
croes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convenient ok, but is it secure? https://globalvoices.org/2021/02/11/security-concerns-and-le...

As a security engineer, nothing civillian-facing is ever 100% secure, it all depends how much resources your attackers have. When modelling your security profile, it's always a matter of "when", not "if" your widget can get hacked. Most you can do is deter black-hats, but not much you can do against well funded state actors.

That’s why the only solution is to not digitize.
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