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We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

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11–20 of 83 posts

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#11
post #6
post #2

Completely shambolic schoolboy errors!

[flagged]

Nothing much to do with government: organisations of all types regularly screw up in similar ways. Probably some over-promoted growling manager insisting "Do it now!" without listening to the "but ... but ... but" caveats. But maybe also an undereducated and oblivious techie.

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competence and professionalism.

If not '/s'...might we ask what country you live in, and how much experience you have with government?

In America you get accused of crime for this type of activity. Seriously: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2022/02/journalist-wo...

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#14
post #4

The sad thing is I don't see the public sector getting any better at this anytime soon.

Also sad: the (terrible) response times and efforts detailed here exceed what many organizations, private and public, have shown in their situations.

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#15
post #2

Completely shambolic schoolboy errors!

Large, state-backed, entities that predate the internet seem to get away with stuff of this kind all the time.

The other day my mother tried to buy a train ticket. The payment went through, but something went wrong on the site and the ticket was not issued.

If this were just some e-commerce site, the payment provider would have had their head on a spike.

In this case she had to go through the usual return process.

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#17

Stuff like this is why I prefer to take a bus in Germany. Trains are overbooked with free tickets and promotions (free pass for entire summer for 50 euro). While underlying infrastructure is not ready for such load. It leads to delays and mistakes. Plus railway stations in Germany look like homeless shelters! On other side Germany has excellent motorway network. Flixbus is very cheap, quite comfortable, goes all the…

Let's see. Cologne to Berlin takes ~4:40 hours by train. Flixbus takes 9-10 hours, not counting the time it takes to get to their departure station which would involve a train journey as it's not actually in the city centre.

Flixbus is 50€ cheaper when traveling that route tomorrow but that's about all it has going for it.

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#18
> This project was implemented by the same agencies - MCI together with Caracal.

I suspect that this is the root cause of this and for many other systems failing. When a project is created by the lowest bidder, as a one time effort with fluffy requirements why would they invest in proper architecture, planning or testing? Why would they invest in securing resources when they are paid anyway?

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#19
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competence and professionalism.

If not '/s'...might we ask what country you live in, and how much experience you have with government?

Expect has 2 meanings:

A standard —-or—- a prediction.

I expect my child to behave well at school but I expect my child will not.

Re: We tried to book a train ticket and ended up with a 245k records data breach

#20
post #18

> This project was implemented by the same agencies - MCI together with Caracal. I suspect that this is the root cause of this and for many other systems failing. When a project is created by the lowest bidder, as a one time effort with fluffy requirements why would they invest in proper architecture, planning or testing? Why would they invest in securing resources when they are paid anyway?

This is where quite a lot of people would insert a rant about "state capacity": the ability of the state to actually do things it wants and intends to do. Which requires people to do those things, trained with appropriate skills.

The peak of "state capacity" was undoubtedly WW2, when governments bypassed market mechanisms and became command economies. Out of necessity - war is the one venture in which failed state capacity can end the state itself, and the personal privileges of those running it and the elite around them.

It's not a coincidence that the centralized socialist institutions of the UK, the NHS and state education, date from that period. Heck, the state commissioned the invention and building of cutting-edge computer technology! But since that no longer matters, there's little to no will to build state capacity in computing.

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