Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

element.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 278 posts

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#61

Post by mr_mitm »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #50
kapep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe this changes too in the future? E-Rezept was supposed to launch in 2022 but has been postponed until mid 2023. Some regions already tested it. It didn't work out well, so some regions dropped out of the testing phase. I'm pretty sure it won't work well at launch and we will have to rely on printed prescriptions for quite some time until all pharmacies and doctors use the new system.

It is always puzzling to me with how Germany has many cultural similarities with us Nordics and is an advanced science nation, yet is always so much slower in adopting new technologies. In Norway we have used electronic receipts since 2013. That is like a decade. But I suspect it is a difference in attitude. I think in Scandinavia we are generally far more enthusiastic about new things.

Germans have diffuse fears of new technology. Many of us are skeptical whenever it comes to new gadgets, especially if the risk of being tracked or spied on plays a role. Eventually most people level out and get it anyway, like the cell phone, the smart phone, credit cards, Google/Apple pay, etc. Not sure if our history has something to do with it so that many feel uneasy about giving away too much control about our personal data, but maybe it does.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#62

Post by moooo99 »

victor106 wrote: post #44
kioleanu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn’t but it’s on the right track. I am working as a developer in one of the federal agencies and have direct contact with the efforts. It helps a lot that public agencies can now offer a so called IT Zulage of a few hundred euros to 1000 per months that brings salaries on par with the private sector. In my team, this worked wonders and we managed to get some really good people. On the other hand, the task is eno…

why can't you hire consultants to do take on some of the work?

Presumably budgets. Over the last decade or so, German politics developed the fetishization of the "Schuldenbremse", an attempt to reduce the national debt (which is already fairly low) no matter what. Unfortunately the way they went about it was not to reduce overheads or make processes more efficient (if you want to do anything here in Germany, there's a decent chance there is a form for it), instead they basically cut down on any investment. Fundamentally this means that there is a massive investment backlog in the digitalization of the government and education, in internet, rail and road infrastructure etc.

And now every project seems to maximum demands, minimum budgets and zero flexibility. To make matters even more absurd, we have a ridiculous amount of federal levels, each with their own responsibilities and "approaches" to digitalization (and responsibility to save money).

For example, my mom is an office worker on a city level. The neighboring city developed a software for some process related to state law and offered it to our city. Our city, being the genius it is, does approach this state mandated process a little bit different. Instead of using the software the neighboring city developed and adjusting to their (almost identical) process, they choose to make their own software. But because they have basically zero development experience and engineering resources, they are looking to outsource. But because they don't have the budgets, they are looking for government support programs (that apparently even exist).

So yeah, even easy things are over complicated here

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#63

Post by neuronic »

victor106 wrote: post #44
kioleanu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn’t but it’s on the right track. I am working as a developer in one of the federal agencies and have direct contact with the efforts. It helps a lot that public agencies can now offer a so called IT Zulage of a few hundred euros to 1000 per months that brings salaries on par with the private sector. In my team, this worked wonders and we managed to get some really good people. On the other hand, the task is eno…

why can't you hire consultants to do take on some of the work?

They absolutely do. I have friends working as private sector IT consultants with federal agencies as one of their clients. These projects lock them into idiotic bureaucratic processes and extensive internal politics (more than in private sector). You can help improve quite a bit but it's like moving a plowing truck through pure molasses instead of snow.

The teams are often led by government officials who will do everything to keep things as they are to protect their position, of course with little to no repercussions.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#64

Post by znpy »

lzauz wrote: post #60
foepys wrote: post #38

Germany was quite advanced when it came to technology but then the drive to make more of it somehow stopped. It has always been incredibly sad to me that the German ID card (Personalausweis) has an RFID chip inside with trust zones, certificates, authorization features, and much more and just never had been used. Like at all except for getting cigarettes at vending machines. 12 years after the first RFID Personalausw…

Quoted post unavailable.

I wouldn’t call such people mentally invalid.

However, as an Italian, i understand your feelings.

Public administration has always been the land of bureaucratic people that want to see sheets of paper, stamps and signatures.

They’re almost often unfamiliar with technology and they are mostly unwilling to change their workload.

The real problem if very often that upper management is often also old and unfamiliar with technology too, hence incapable of understanding the value that technology could bring hence unwilling to push its adoption.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#65

Post by moooo99 »

German officials have had a whole lot of groundbreaking visions for as long as I can remember. The visions were never the issue but the delivery. I remember Peter Altmaier claiming in 2017 that in 2021 any government service will be accessible online lmoa. To this day I regularly have to print out PDFs and send them via registered snail mail or fax (yes, I actually have a fax)

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#66

Post by kgoedecke »

pimeys wrote: post #12
mhd wrote: post #8

As mentioned in the article, the German health services already adopted Matrix for their "TI-Messenger", which is supposed to make secure communication between health care professionals easier. Or, well, possible at all. Right now this is a morass of "don't mention anything private" emails, letters and faxes. I'm surprised that ticker tape isn't involved somehow. But don't worry, if German health services doing somet…

And we still have to walk to the doctor's office to get that prescription for the same Asthma medicine you always get every three months. Instead of just getting it electronically to the nearest pharmacy. Now we have to queue up in the doctor's office with sick people, wait for them to print and sign a red piece of paper and then walk to the pharmacy. Maybe this changes too in the future?

I did have a video call with my doc the other day and he mailed me a prescription. Which then got scanned by my digital mail box (caya), then it got forwarded in physical form to my house and now I can finally in person go to the pharmacy with the actual paper and get it... LOL.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#67

Post by lzauz »

znpy wrote: post #64
lzauz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I wouldn’t call such people mentally invalid. However, as an Italian, i understand your feelings. Public administration has always been the land of bureaucratic people that want to see sheets of paper, stamps and signatures. They’re almost often unfamiliar with technology and they are mostly unwilling to change their workload. The real problem if very often that upper management is often also old and unfamiliar with…

You are being too benevolent. You think progress in bureaucracy is being resisted because those people are "old and unfamiliar", but they actively resist it because their paycheck depends on it. They know if they get fired they are completely useless in the job market.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#70

Post by catiopatio »

Pxtl wrote: post #58

Quoted post unavailable.

It doesn’t take a religious nut or a conspiracy theorist to see the catastrophically enormous downsides of universally mandated, centrally managed, and cryptographically-backed state identification cards, complete with RFID.

Imagine, for example, that upon declaring a protest unlawful, the police could simply scan all the RFID-enabled ID cards in the area and issue everyone a court summons.

Not carrying an ID card? No access to anything - public transportation, payments, and can’t even authorize your car to start. Also, it’s a felony to do so intentionally and with intent to evade law enforcement monitoring.

State wants to search your laptop? Your 2FA and disk encryption is mandatorily tied to your ID card, and the state holds keys in escrow.

Some things should be onerous for the state and decentralized. This is absolutely one of those things.

Post reply on HN