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The Government Shutdown on the Web

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Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#31

Post by jbooth »

zenocon wrote: post #29
adelevie wrote: post #8

The author seems to take a one-dimensional approach to these determinations. There's much more at play than raw dollar amounts for running servers. While some commenters might see these web shutdowns as part of a larger strategy to win a political fight, they're overlooking some very basic and practical reasons. Agencies are responsible for the content of their websites. If the agency is shut down, there is legally-s…

And that's all well and good, but the OP also points out the inconsistency in policy -- e.g. front page shutdown but many other subdomain sites still running. I guess in the end one may chalk it up to pure inefficiency. I'm sure there are probably multiple groups of people responsible for multiple servers under one domain, but still, it seems a little childish at this point to shut down one server if you're doing it…

Hanlon's razor seems to be knocking on the door here. They made their best effort to shut down the sites they're supposed to shut down, by law, whether it's good business or not. They were doing this in a bit of a challenging situation, with a skeleton crew and a lot of legal uncertainty, plus the individuals in charge were probably operating at pretty low morale. Some broken eggs and spilled milk (in the ironic form of better-functioning-than-expected sites) are to be expected.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#32

Post by nikatwork »

altoz wrote: post #9
nikatwork wrote: post #6

This article and the many others like it are missing the point. The purpose of the shutdown is not just to save money, it's also to force a break in the stalemate. In fact, I'd argue that breaking the stalemate is the primary purpose. > That doesn’t seem to account for some of the weird patterns we see, however. The author is overthinking it. The most likely scenario is that an official email went out to all webmaste…

> The purpose of the shutdown is not just to save money You write like there's some grand unified purpose to this whole thing. There isn't. This is the natural consequence of not setting a budget, which many different sides had different purposes to not set. Ostensibly, the consequences of a government shutdown are, supposedly, lower FUNDING to pay for some government service. Given this, it would seem that HIGHER sp…

> You write like there's some grand unified purpose to this whole thing.

I'd say there's a grand unified purpose at the upper govt level to make the shutdown hurt as much as possible, as alluded to by those mentioning Washington Monument Syndrome. At the lower levels, it's probably more a diffused feeling of "fvck 'em, now we're not getting paid, let's shut it all down". And you've raised a very good point about liability elsewhere - why take chances?

Nobody is going to analyze the most fiscally effective website shutdown configuration and enforce it. It's not in anyone's interest, which is why I find these articles a bit silly; it's just another excuse to spout anti-gubmint rhetoric.

A much more interesting angle is, "how can we alter our two-party system to prevent these kind of Red vs Blue stalemates"?

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#33

Post by tlrobinson »

darkstar999 wrote: post #27
rietta wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an idea! It would be fun to run SSH over packet radio while no one is around to enforce Part 97!

Off topic, but what's the reasoning behind the rule against encrypted traffic on amateur bands?

Presumably to keep people from using the frequency for commercial purposes.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#34

Post by gizmo686 »

darkstar999 wrote: post #27
rietta wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an idea! It would be fun to run SSH over packet radio while no one is around to enforce Part 97!

Off topic, but what's the reasoning behind the rule against encrypted traffic on amateur bands?

I have no experience with amateur radio, but from a quick google search, it looks like the relevent regulation is:

(a) No amateur station shall transmit: ... (4)...messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein

If you read through the rest of the restrictions, it looks like they are trying to setup a fairly specific environment on amateur radio, and encrypted traffic is inconsistent with that environment.

http://www.hallikainen.com/FccRules/2013/97/113/index.php

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#35

Post by johnpmayer »

tlrobinson wrote: post #33
darkstar999 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but what's the reasoning behind the rule against encrypted traffic on amateur bands?

Presumably to keep people from using the frequency for commercial purposes.

Also paramilitary purposes

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#37

Post by BrandonMarc »

adelevie wrote: post #15
runamok wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Bosses in the government are not any more amused by these legislative shenanigans than we the people are. The more things that are broken, the louder people will complain and the quicker the bosses will get their funding back.

This is a rather simplistic view of "bosses in the government." Sure agency heads and managing directors might have their own opinions on the shutdown, especially since they were nominated by President Obama (or appointed by someone who was). But they have their own responsibilities as stewards of an agency. One responsibility is ensuring the agency acts within the law and shields itself from liability. Shutting down…

With all this talk o liability, would it not be cheaper to simply add a disclaimer to every homepage, etc, saying "due to the shut down some info may be inaccurate"?

I imagine that might be even easier than going through the steps to ensure a website goes offline. But, that would avoid spreading panic and pain, which is what the powers that be want in order to score points.

It's like the April sequestration all over again.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#38

Post by BrandonMarc »

badman_ting wrote: post #5

Silly, but a good way to avoid this would be not shutting down the government.

A better way would be:

* pass a budget, as is required by law anyway

* spend no more than what was budgeted in the first place

* formulate the budget to be at or below revenue

It's not rocket surgery. Yet all of the above are heresy in DC.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#39

Post by BrandonMarc »

warmfuzzykitten wrote: post #17

The point is, it costs something, as a recurring cost, to keep them up. In a shutdown, the only costs you can justify are the costs of shutting down. It is easy to project that the long-term costs of keeping almost anything running will exceed the cost of closing the doors. The author wants to treat the shutdown as though it is temporary, while the executive is required to treat it as though it is permanent.

If it costs more to bring the website down (and then back up, later) than it does to simply leave the website up with a disclaimer, that means someone will get paid more money for doing it this way.

In a way, they have a financial incentive to go the more costly route.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#40

Post by haspoken »

The sites have not been shutdown, rather they are hosting a shutdown message. They are still incurring the costs of running the sites: power, bandwidth, cooling, and whatever else is used to keep the sites up and running serving up pages.
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