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Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

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Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#301

Post by DANmode »

vundercind wrote: post #298
DANmode wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debate whatever you want, we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy". It's Representative Democracy. Supposedly.

That isn’t what most people think of when they hear “democracy” in the context of describing countries like the US as a democracy. Lay-usage and expert usage are in accord here. It means more-or-less liberal and with voting that significantly affects how the state runs and/or who runs it. That’s all, and that usage doesn’t confuse anyone. If we didn’t use “democracy” for that we’d just have to come up with something…

It's what a nonzero number of Americans hear.

You're talking to one, who knows others.

Democracy as defined is a goal we have. Not something all (maybe most!) Americans would claim to enjoy.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#302

Post by snotrockets »

akira2501 wrote: post #283
mywittyname wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a quiet irony in car dealership networks being fucked like this. They spend so much money ensuring their government-mandated monopoly, only to fall victim to a different kind of monopoly.

> their government-mandated monopoly Anyone can open a dealership, except manufacturers, and it looks to be a reasonable and non discriminatory process. Critically, the government does not mandate the minimum or maximum number of dealerships in an area, so competition is not harmed in any way. This really does not seem like a monopoly issue.

Good luck trying. Dealerships hold municipal governments by the balls.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#303

Post by vundercind »

DANmode wrote: post #301
vundercind wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t what most people think of when they hear “democracy” in the context of describing countries like the US as a democracy. Lay-usage and expert usage are in accord here. It means more-or-less liberal and with voting that significantly affects how the state runs and/or who runs it. That’s all, and that usage doesn’t confuse anyone. If we didn’t use “democracy” for that we’d just have to come up with something…

It's what a nonzero number of Americans hear. You're talking to one, who knows others. Democracy as defined is a goal we have. Not something all (maybe most!) Americans would claim to enjoy.

You mean you thought tejohnso believes the US is a direct democracy, because of that post?

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#304

Post by anthomtb »

This explains so much.

I am in the market for a new vehicle and did multiple test drives this weekend. One salesperson casually mentioned "our software is down and things are a little crazy". But other than a lot of waiting, things proceeded as I expected.

I figured that by 1000 this (Monday) morning I'd be fending off follow up texts and calls. Yet its now 1430 and not one outreach has appeared on my phone. This is not a complaint but it is a surprise compared with past buying experiences.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#305

Post by parpfish »

spurgu wrote: post #289
parpfish wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thats why i always print my airlines tickets instead of trusting eTickets on my phone

I never trust e-tickets either but I save mine as photos. Quick and easy to access. Photo gallery works without an internet connection. Plus photos are synced to the cloud so this way if I have a phone emergency I would also be able access the ticket from my laptop.

that doesn't help my main worry of the battery dying.

nightmare scenario: your flight is delayed on the runway, so you end up watching a bunch of videos and draining the device battery. once you land, you sprint to catch your connecting flight following the delay. but just as you get to the gate to board, your phone dies and you can't prove you have a ticket before they close the door.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#306

Post by DANmode »

vundercind wrote: post #303
DANmode wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's what a nonzero number of Americans hear. You're talking to one, who knows others. Democracy as defined is a goal we have. Not something all (maybe most!) Americans would claim to enjoy.

You mean you thought tejohnso believes the US is a direct democracy, because of that post?

They, like many others, probably have a somewhat fuzzy grasp on what the meaning of word democracy is, due to the way it's used.

Honestly, I can't even think of an alternate(, but still charitable,) interpretation of:

"Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?"

Suggest one, if you can?

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#307

Post by gwbas1c »

bombcar wrote: post #285
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the car listed on the web site does not exist Sure. And I get that some of the walking around is probably a ruse. But we're talking about their internal records.

The thing is the car does probably exist somewhere - but it may be in their system, but allocated to someone (on paper only, because if they allocate it in the system it disappears from the website, but they want you to come in), or in transit (they appear on the website the moment the factory assigns a VIN build to the dealer, etc. And sometimes I swear it's just a glitch and they don't really care.

In my case it wasn't that: The dealer straight up imagined a sale they wanted to have, and were quite rude to me.

Me: "I want to buy one of the cars you advertised in the newspaper." (It was 2003)

Them: "We don't have those cars."

Me: "But you're advertising this sale."

Them: Poker face.

It wasn't like they said, "Oh, yeah, that was a popular sale and they sold out." It was very clear they advertised cars they didn't have so they could divert me to a more expensive model, and it wasn't like they offered to call another dealer to ask if they still had inventory.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#308

Post by tonymet »

metadat wrote: post #107
tonymet wrote: post #79

In studying voting systems I’ve come to respect paper-based logs along the same quality parameters as databases. Resiliency, scalability, backup, readability, schema-flexibility , onboarding, power-efficiency are all very good with paper. So many of us were quick to move paper-based systems (voting, orders, kiosks, parking meters, journals, requests, etc) over to computers – without accounting for the e2e cost and fl…

How does the backup aspect work for paper? Scanning? Otherwise paper is quite fragile and susceptible to combustion. What if voting was all done via paper and you could later view the scan of your ballot as it existed at the time of count? Unfortunately there could still be funny business on the backend.

xerox

fire protection is easier than data retention

no perfect solutions, only tradeoffs

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#309

Post by sofixa »

pjmorris wrote: post #297
sofixa wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For about ten years, I've theorized that we will see the rise of 'boutique' doctor, dentist, and law offices that keep only paper records for the sake of the privacy of their clients. "Privacy" until a disgruntled staffer copies or takes a picture or just takes the pieces of paper and publishes them. With digital systems, this can be mitigated (rate limiting, encryption and least privilege information sharing, audi…

> With digital systems, this can be mitigated (rate limiting, encryption and least privilege information sharing, audit logs etc.) to an extent. None of those measures do anything to prevent someone from taking a picture of the screen, which is the same sinking boat you describe. I think you are insightful in identifying care as the key principle. My argument would be that care is more easily achieved by smaller grou…

> None of those measures do anything to prevent someone from taking a picture of the screen, which is the same sinking boat you describe.

But it's relatively easy to only have the people that need specific information to have it. Receptionist only has your names and contact information; doctor only has your relevant medical information; etc etc.

With paper, either everything will be together in a big file, or it would be very impractical to manage.

> My argument would be that care is more easily achieved by smaller groups working on smaller populations using fewer components.

Potentially. Or they'll improvise because they're a small operation and there's trust. Many a small company has been caught with terrible physical or digital security, because nobody cares and at their scale dedicated people to care don't make sense.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#310

Post by tonymet »

pyrale wrote: post #128
tonymet wrote: post #79

In studying voting systems I’ve come to respect paper-based logs along the same quality parameters as databases. Resiliency, scalability, backup, readability, schema-flexibility , onboarding, power-efficiency are all very good with paper. So many of us were quick to move paper-based systems (voting, orders, kiosks, parking meters, journals, requests, etc) over to computers – without accounting for the e2e cost and fl…

The part I love about paper-bases voting is the ability for anyone to visit the polling station and understand from A to Z how it works and how security is graranteed. If you have doubts about the system, you can just come and see.

indeed. paper-based systems are truly transparent in that you can walk through the entire operation shoulder-to-shoulder to perform the audit.

A software system, even when reading the code, is much more difficult to see the chain of custody and workflow

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