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In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

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Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#171

Post by nix23 »

cromka wrote: post #51

"The city's local government, @Stockholmsstad, spent 1 billion Swedish crowns (100 million dollars)" "@Stockholmsstad are now acting like angry toddlers." I'd read between the lines. I don't think it's a hurt ego, not with these numbers. Someone is (continued) to be paid for this to be happening. This reeks corruption.

>This reeks corruption.

Absolutely correct, it's smells exactly like the kill-LiMux "Project" from Munich.

But Sweden has a pretty big history being corrupt, just think about Assange, Olof Palme...and the bad russian sub story.

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#172

Post by tephra »

progre wrote: post #69
T-A wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where is juicy details like who did it? Oracle? IBM? ..? According to [1], no less than four contractors: Tieto, Ping Pong (apparently responsible for security), Unikum and Nova Software. [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=https:/...

Tieto, Nova Software and Unikum are well known players in the edu-it space with Tieto beeing the big one (they are in a lot of other industries as well). Normally they are in direct competition with each other.

The best quote pertaining to Tieto that I'll never forget is when they one the contract to build a new system dealing with something around people with cancer in Luleå. One person on IRC simply stated: "Well now I'm really glad that I don't have cancer _and_ lives in Luleå".

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#173

Post by thrower123 »

drno123 wrote: post #152

It is fascinating how those expensive IT companies that get enormous government contracts, with huge profit margins, always hire shitty programmers.

Typically the way this works is that the A-listers are trotted out for the initial dog-and-pony show and prototype, then they move on to the next boondoggle and are backfilled by a rotating cast of Elbonians billing the same rate to flesh out the details.

And that's where things go sideways.

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#174

Post by utrechtsouth »

urvader wrote: post #166
utrechtsouth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

urvader, While there is a technical issue here, there is also a legal issue and a PR issue. Government institutions have a duty of care and a duty to help to private individuals. Since they are apparently working _against_ people in this case, they are probably in breach of the law. Description of relevant rules here (in Swedish). https://www.mfd.se/verktyg/lagar-och-regler-om-tillganglighe... I strongly suggest that…

Thanks! Yes, we are investigating our legal options. We just recently filed an appeal regarding getting access to the API documentation. We have gotten a lot of PR in Sweden from the major news papers and tech press. So I think the pressure is building but if it is one thing Swedes are worried about is the appearance internationally. So help us getting this story to Wired, TechCrunch etc - that will make them crazy.…

Sounds great!

Also keep in mind that the legal options and PR options are tightly coupled. Regardless of the outcome of any legal option (e.g. "JO anmälan"), the PR generated around it may itself lead to a change if it gets enough attention (e.g., Anna König Jerlmyr seems to be in charge of Stockholm municipality at the moment). Make it easy for them to get good PR and make it clear the other option is to get bad PR.

These questions are larger than this project. This is about how the government itself builds API:s. That's big.

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#176

Post by Covenant71 »

cromka wrote: post #51

"The city's local government, @Stockholmsstad, spent 1 billion Swedish crowns (100 million dollars)" "@Stockholmsstad are now acting like angry toddlers." I'd read between the lines. I don't think it's a hurt ego, not with these numbers. Someone is (continued) to be paid for this to be happening. This reeks corruption.

Most of the people responsible for starting the journey have left the local government. I think the big problems are - the fact that they have been fined for not handling personal information in a correct way combined with - not enough technical knowledge to know what their current solution enables - the scope of the problems with the system are so big that they do not know what to do and they feel like they get attacked from everywhere and do not have the professionalism to see the bigger picture - they can't afford to scrap the project and start from the beginning

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#177

Post by ptr »

nix23 wrote: post #171
cromka wrote: post #51

"The city's local government, @Stockholmsstad, spent 1 billion Swedish crowns (100 million dollars)" "@Stockholmsstad are now acting like angry toddlers." I'd read between the lines. I don't think it's a hurt ego, not with these numbers. Someone is (continued) to be paid for this to be happening. This reeks corruption.

>This reeks corruption. Absolutely correct, it's smells exactly like the kill-LiMux "Project" from Munich. But Sweden has a pretty big history being corrupt, just think about Assange, Olof Palme...and the bad russian sub story.

OK, I'll bite. I'm thinking about those, but I don't see the corruption. Care to elaborate?

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#178

Post by FDSGSG »

zdkl wrote: post #170
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried letting users extract the token themselves, when your code can't find it?

It's my (uneducated) understanding that legally, this makes you cross a boundary. You're no longer ~"circumventing security measures" on your own, you're inciting and enabling an end user to. One could easily argue it's on the darker side of the grey area.

This doesn't make any sense at all.

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#179

Post by anvemaha »

johngalt wrote: post #7

It's amazing how often giant IT projects like these go off the rails. Exploding costs and garbage implementations. If you start the sentence with: "A 5+ year government IT project that cost over 100 million-" I already know how the story ends. How do we improve this common scenario? What are the root causes? The common themes are: 1. Lack of technical project competence at the decision maker level. 2. Scope creep. Wh…

In case anyone wants to read some research on the success rate of IT projects Standish Group's Chaos Reports are a good place to start.

I read the 2014 one as a part of our project management uni course, but couldn't find it with a simple Google search so here's the 2015 one:

[pdf] https://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research_files/CHAOSRep...

Re: In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway

#180

Post by pjc50 »

Hallucinaut wrote: post #161
lostlogin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a pub with a relative, and we got chatting to another random patron. The relative was asked about his CS job, and at some point details were being discussed. The relative said something like “we have made what was asked for but because we have run out of time, that’s what the customer is getting. We know what they actually want and need, but that’s not in the contract”. The person we were talking to was the…

Sounds like a good way to get sued for breach of confidentiality clauses

People talk about disastrous contracts in the pub all the time. Actually getting sued is very rare.
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