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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

#311
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I know I'm being that guy, but if making my tight flight connection depends on saving my phone battery, I just wouldn't watch a bunch of videos and would instead turn it off until my flight lands?

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I know I'm being that guy , but if making my tight flight connection depends on saving my phone battery, I just wouldn't watch a bunch of videos and would instead turn it off until my flight lands?

What happens if your phone dies? Now you have to go to a counter to get help. That won’t happen with printed tickets.

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

#313
post #172

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. There are a bunch of problems that connection and automation bring with them, the rise of digital monocultures seems to be one of them.

Interested in hearing more. I've heard the same sentiment from not just old (~30 yr old) practices but just-starting ones. Like any non-technical market, they just bought what was pitched, and there's often more gripes than complains. One example: When a patient transfers to another dental office, their records need to follow. Before you "had to" fax or snail-mail them. The software/cloud solutions promised streamlin…

I work in infrastructure for an EHR provider, so interoperability isn't really my area, but I do work with devs who must do this.

I'd say the problem is approximately zero to do with HIPAA; we almost never even talk about it in my experience. It's just a lack of standards, and poor implementations of what standards do exist - every once in awhile something will crash because of a weird escape character or something in an HL7 message (though that could be on us no doubt).

I believe last year was the first time that there was a mandated standard to export EHR data and one of the devs was complaining that it didn't even say if units should be imperial or metric.

I'm told the labs are a complete mess and have no federally mandated standards; I know they've written code because doctor X wants to use lab Y. Obviously the big national labs win because you only have to write code for them once and all customers can use them.

It's just another aspect of a broken American healthcare "system" - there's no incentive for anyone to interoperate in the best case, and in the worst case it allows you to create lock-in for your product.

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

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put a finer point on it: actual experts in the study of government routinely refer to the US as a democracy. It’s absolutely not a sign of better familiarity with the topic to “correct” that usage—it’s a sign of low side of middling familiarity, specifically.

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.

> we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy".

That hasn't been the dominant use of the term for centuries, but, sure, you keep pretending.

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

#315

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.

Goalposts shift from

> most people

to

> a nonzero number of Americans

Holy motte and bailey, Batman.

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

#316

Crazy how we are talking about this like a weather event, like it's just an unfortunate outage. Cyberattacked by whom? How? What vulnerabilities allowed the intrusion and what organizational processes created those vulnerabilities? Naturally the people who know these answers are very busy today but hopefully we will hear more soon.

> Cyberattacked by whom?

Whoever is politically convenient

> How?

Probably social engineering but possibly poor security practices

> What vulnerabilities allowed the intrusion

Probably poor security training on employees and poor safeguards, but possibly also poor security practices in software engineering

> what organizational processes created those vulnerabilities?

Leadership with poor priorities and shortsightedness for the sake of short-term profit

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> direct manufacturer auto sales are prohibited in many states by franchise laws requiring that new cars be sold only by independent dealers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes not a monopoly per se, but "forced demand"

Doesn't just about everyone hate dealing with a dealership? Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?

If voting could change anything it’d be illegal.

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

#318
post #112

I'm trying to buy two cars right now, and this has put a big wrench in the process. The dealership can't tell me what's on their lot compared to what's on their Website, except by going out and searching.

Sounds like the average dealership experience.

but but we have to make sure manufacturer direct sales are banned, because they don't know how to sell cars

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well.. where I live.. most municipal governments tax car dealerships to the point where they all exist mostly in one county that doesn't tax them as much. In the county that does, they have every incentive to open more, and dealerships have healthy competition and turnover.

It doesn't seem like there are any 800lb gorillas in the market where I live.

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

#320
post #13

This is what happens when a single player (CDK Global) has massive market share (90% when measured by number of vehicles sold [0] --- EDIT: this is actually the combined market share of CDK + Reynolds, who have a non-compete agreement ---). The entire industry becomes fragile to product issues and/or malicious attacks. Anti-trust is important. [0] https://casetext.com/case/loop-llc-v-cdk-global-llc-in-re-de...

>EDIT: this is actually the combined market share of CDK + Reynolds, who have a non-compete agreement

I would bet money they have non-competes and no-hire agreements with more companies than that - the entire industry is full of it

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