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Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

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Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#31

Post by RealityVoid »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #10
andi999 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isnt the stereotype 'deutsche Gruendlichkeit' which is not efficiancy but thoroughness, which just mean that a few thousand pages need to be filled out, signed and countersigned for the 400 mill order.

Living in both Germany and Austria, I've learned that the excessive paper based bureaucracy is mostly there so that people in charge have their butts always covered. "It's not my fault, I did everything by the book, here look, I've got the paperwork to prove it" . Tip for anyone living or wanting to move there: keep digital copies of all important letters, bills, documents, contracts and paperwork you get. It's not u…

This sort of abdication of responsibility permeates through german companies as well and it pisses me off to no end.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#32

Post by arc-in-space »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14
tonnydourado wrote: post #5

> Finally, the CCC appeals to the manufacturers of the connectors to look for honest ways of earning a living. This is fucking brilliant XD

In almost every country there is a number of well connected companies who make a living exclusively by specializing at navigating through the complicated layers of bureaucracy and swindling the taxpayer by selling overpriced and unnecessary proprietary products and services to a government who by cluelessness or corruption, has no idea or doesn't care about sensible technical solutions and just agrees with whatever t…

I work at a company like this. From what I gather, it seems to have started out as a fine product-oriented business, but turned into what it is today due to the incentives involved. We sell our product primarily through public sector invitations to tender, where what matters is hitting a bunch of feature checkboxes on a list, with zero regard for the actual quality of the product.

You get exactly what you pay for.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#33

Post by formerly_proven »

hef19898 wrote: post #29
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This exchange is expected to burden the already struggling healthcare system with additional costs of around 400 million euros. I'm always amazed at the gross inefficiencies of the German bureaucratic machine (including most public and government institutions), despite the traditional world renowned stereotype of "German efficiency", even though at this point I know I shouldn't be surprised anymore. The CCC is a nat…

Call me jaded, but my experience with public contracts told me that, most likely, the hardware will still be replaced or, best case, the company providing the firmware will get a follow up contract around 100 million to do the update. Also expect close to no media coverage about that, or any political consequences. Heck, it took a thorough, highly public late night show investigation into the head of a government age…

It’s probably difficult to appreciate for Americans how wildly intransparent German governments and their agencies are across the board. The default for everything is to be closed and private. No accountability mindset at all.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#34

Post by raverbashing »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14
tonnydourado wrote: post #5

> Finally, the CCC appeals to the manufacturers of the connectors to look for honest ways of earning a living. This is fucking brilliant XD

In almost every country there is a number of well connected companies who make a living exclusively by specializing at navigating through the complicated layers of bureaucracy and swindling the taxpayer by selling overpriced and unnecessary proprietary products and services to a government who by cluelessness or corruption, has no idea or doesn't care about sensible technical solutions and just agrees with whatever t…

One big german company who has had a couple of scandals attached to their name and that has been 'disappearing' progressively from markets operated in similar ways (and the market cap going down progressively).

They end up cornered in markets where the expertise needed and moats are high and where they are slightly not too behind or ahead of the competition.

But anyway, the way to procure such "routers for secure networks" would be to add a contractual requirement of support for 20+ yrs.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#35

Post by moooo99 »

Dwolb wrote: post #23
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the agency is public or private has no innate meaning in terms of efficiency. The people in the organization and the processes make it more or less efficient and this is true independently from where the funding is coming from. Can public organizations be made more efficient? Of course, as any organization can. Finally, in this case is it not a private firm that is promoting inefficiency via dishonest m…

Private companies have a stronger incentive to make choices that accrete value to the firm. On average, this means they’re more rigorous in their vendor selection processes. Therefore private entities are less likely to make bad purchases.

> Therefore private entities are less likely to make bad purchases.

This claim gets thrown around so much, I can't stand it. The bigger a company gets, the more bureaucracy you have to deal it. Many big companies/market leaders are basically no better than government agencies when it comes to efficiency.

Also, I hate this idea of privatization for the sake of "efficiency". Imho some things (like healthcare) have so positive external effects on the whole economy, the should not be trimmed for profit, but for the best results instead. And, as it turns out, letting companies compete for this kinds of public infrastructure with a "winner takes it all" principle often does not quite turn out to be the most efficient choice

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#36

Post by shswkna »

netsharc wrote: post #16
jonathanstrange wrote: post #9

For anyone who doesn't read German, here is a summary: The company in charge of the connectors for the health care system "Telematik" built devices with certificates that expire after 5 years. Instead of updating thousands of machines with new certificates, the company claims these need to be replaced for a total cost of 400M Euro. The CCC showed how the firmware can be changed to accept new certificates, making the…

I wonder how many golf trips with steak dinners and female "companions" the bureaucrats awarding the contracts got treated to... The German government has been lauded as this great bastion, "Look, their economy is still running!", but it's also has its corrupt elements. Besides, the whole roaring economy thing is related to making the rest of Europe peg its currency to the German one by way of the Euro, making the re…

Why downvote this valid comment?

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#37

Post by Semaphor »

ant6n wrote: post #30
Semaphor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already been fined by the EU for refusing to work against corruption. It's a big thing here and voters only care for a few months after the news reports, if that much.

How can I vote to replace corruption?

Don’t vote for the most egregious offenders. I’d say on a party base that’s CDU and AfD, followed by SPD (with our CumEx-"I can’t remember"-chancellor Scholz). Short term, nothing would happen. But if people en large refused to allow corruption, party politics would change.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#38

Post by mananaysiempre »

Dwolb wrote: post #23
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the agency is public or private has no innate meaning in terms of efficiency. The people in the organization and the processes make it more or less efficient and this is true independently from where the funding is coming from. Can public organizations be made more efficient? Of course, as any organization can. Finally, in this case is it not a private firm that is promoting inefficiency via dishonest m…

Private companies have a stronger incentive to make choices that accrete value to the firm. On average, this means they’re more rigorous in their vendor selection processes. Therefore private entities are less likely to make bad purchases.

That stops working when the internal bureaucracy of the company reaches a certain size and internal politics become too isolated from the realities of external competition. (Other reasons for isolation are also possible, such as when the competition on the merits of the product is secondary to competition on the ability to navigate regulation or the social circles of the few prospective customers.)

As far as I’ve seen, the general dynamic of having to spend the budget you’ve been given, even in the most wasteful way possible, or facing a budget reduction next term is universal whether you’re a bureaucrat in a socialist government, a bureaucrat in a large department of a democratic government, or a manager in a large company like IBM or Oracle.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#39

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

arc-in-space wrote: post #32
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost every country there is a number of well connected companies who make a living exclusively by specializing at navigating through the complicated layers of bureaucracy and swindling the taxpayer by selling overpriced and unnecessary proprietary products and services to a government who by cluelessness or corruption, has no idea or doesn't care about sensible technical solutions and just agrees with whatever t…

I work at a company like this. From what I gather, it seems to have started out as a fine product-oriented business, but turned into what it is today due to the incentives involved. We sell our product primarily through public sector invitations to tender, where what matters is hitting a bunch of feature checkboxes on a list, with zero regard for the actual quality of the product. You get exactly what you pay for.

>what matters is hitting a bunch of feature checkboxes on a list, with zero regard for the actual quality of the product.

This is true for most government contracts in most countries.

It gets worse with government contracts involving tech products and services as most governments don't have any skilled and knowledgeable tech people working for them, even in Germany, because why would they work for the toxic and underpaying public sector when they could earn more and get more respect in the private sector. This way, you only retain clueless people who only heard about the internet from a book, don't care about learning or improving things and are just there for a cushy job, ticking boxes and filing paperwork till retirement. If you want to hire skilled tech workers you gotta pay them well and give them freedom, which is not usually what government jobs are all about.

From what I've heard, Denmark is a great example of a well run, transparent government, which also employs skilled tech workers to develop high quality government software in house, instead of farming it all off to slimy companies who are gonna ship low quality trash at insane markups.

Re: Chaos Computer Club saves the German healthcare system 400M Euros

#40

Post by brutusborn »

hulitu wrote: post #25
greggsy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘m assuming the German government wouldn’t be able to compel them to turn over their private key, but they could certainly make it very clear that they would jeopardise any future contracts if they refused to cooperate.

I'm assuming you haven't heard about corr^w lobby.

What's corr^w?
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