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Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

londoncentric.media

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Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#21

Post by jll29 »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #8

Slightly OT, but really good to see London Centric on the front page of HN. Britain's local media has basically collapsed in recent years - it's now owned by three conglomerates (Reach, Gannett/Newsquest, National World) who are completely uninterested in any form of journalism, only in the sort of clickbait that would have embarrassed even Buzzfeed in its 2012 pomp. The London Evening Standard was one of the last re…

Are people really no longer interested in what happens locally?

I would pay for local news, even about places that I no longer live, but used to live and still have a passing interest in. But perhaps I would want to receive it as XML feed.

Even events (concerts, readings, exhibitions, screenings etc.) are typically scattered across many smaller lists or mailing lists, depending on location. For example, there is way more going on in London than what is listed by Time Out: https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/london-events-in... Local communities may have their own sites or still rely on paper flyers.

Some facts of communal interest are published in government outlets that are still mandatated in some jurisdictions.

It would be wonderful if more of "what's going on" could be made available in curated digital form, for us to use and enjoy, and also to preserve it for future generations so that they can see what was happening in our age.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#23

Post by [deleted] »

avianlyric wrote: post #15
bastard_op wrote: post #4

As soon as you read "outsourced their IT", one can always assume the aftermath would be a shitshow, as it is always done in response to the previous team not being able to run it, which means it is a goddamn mess. Having worked enough state and city government IT contracts in the past 25 years, you just assume the worst about everything and are often not disappointed. It's not a matter of if but when they'll be owned…

Where does it say they outsourced their IT? The article mentions city hall outsourcing their IT to TfL, but city hall is sister organisation to TfL, they’re both organs of London regional government. The London Mayor is the chairman of TfL and the head of London regional government. It’s not like they’re outsourcing to some private organisation, every single organisation is either a state organisation, or a state own…

[deleted]

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#24

Post by mellosouls »

bastard_op wrote: post #4

As soon as you read "outsourced their IT", one can always assume the aftermath would be a shitshow, as it is always done in response to the previous team not being able to run it, which means it is a goddamn mess. Having worked enough state and city government IT contracts in the past 25 years, you just assume the worst about everything and are often not disappointed. It's not a matter of if but when they'll be owned…

always done in response to the previous team not being able to run it, which means it is a goddamn mess.

:

This is your relative tax dollars hard at work.

I think you are underestimating the gross lack of realistic investment and corresponding demoralization and qualitative decline in some public services; which latter is then used by the decision-makers who've created the situation as justification for swashbuckling "transformation" projects - advised by and given to overpriced consultants - they can put on their CVs before hopping to the next gig.

That's your tax dollars at work.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#25

Post by Groxx »

avianlyric wrote: post #15
bastard_op wrote: post #4

As soon as you read "outsourced their IT", one can always assume the aftermath would be a shitshow, as it is always done in response to the previous team not being able to run it, which means it is a goddamn mess. Having worked enough state and city government IT contracts in the past 25 years, you just assume the worst about everything and are often not disappointed. It's not a matter of if but when they'll be owned…

Where does it say they outsourced their IT? The article mentions city hall outsourcing their IT to TfL, but city hall is sister organisation to TfL, they’re both organs of London regional government. The London Mayor is the chairman of TfL and the head of London regional government. It’s not like they’re outsourcing to some private organisation, every single organisation is either a state organisation, or a state own…

I think they just read it backwards. Near the beginning in the bulleted list is:

>Sadiq Khan’s office and the Greater London Authority outsourced their IT services to TfL this summer, meaning they were also badly impacted, paralysing services at the top of the capital’s devolved government.

Which means TfL is the one doing other people's IT in addition to its own, not the reverse.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#26

Post by KaiserPro »

truckerbill wrote: post #10
cdot2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this IT infrastructure exists to ensure the exact opposite of what you said. It ensures that rich people don't get to ride the bus for free.

The point is it’s easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train… It’s mostly people just going to work/school, makes sense to be free

> easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train

I mean its not. If it was, they would have done it.

Wealth taxes are really fucking hard to do equitably, at least at first.

For example OAPs tend to live in very expensive hosues. take rotherhithe for example one could have bought a house in the 90s for shit all, and now its worth the best part of 1.4 million.

so now you're levying a 5% tax on a pensioner, or worse still a young couple mortgaged to the fucker.

Now, but what about the super asset rich I hear you say?

Well, they'll transfer all they own into a corporation. They can't tax assets like that on business because it'll crash the economy super quick.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#27

Post by KaiserPro »

carapace wrote: post #14
bdndndndbve wrote: post #6

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experien…

> In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming [San Francisco] mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are fr…

YEs, but in london a large part of it's budget come from ticket sales.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#28

Post by rahimnathwani »

avianlyric wrote: post #17
kiba wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax cars further. They take up way more space than the average pedestrian and required more infrastructure to support and maintain.

Even that won’t get close. Existing London car taxes only raise around £0.2 billion annually. Not a chance in hell you can raise that by 3500% without either public unrest, or such a dramatic change in behaviour that tax collection amounts drop, instead of raise (although I would personally love a car free London).

Are you counting fuel duties here, or only road tax?

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#29

Post by aiiotnoodle »

bastard_op wrote: post #4

As soon as you read "outsourced their IT", one can always assume the aftermath would be a shitshow, as it is always done in response to the previous team not being able to run it, which means it is a goddamn mess. Having worked enough state and city government IT contracts in the past 25 years, you just assume the worst about everything and are often not disappointed. It's not a matter of if but when they'll be owned…

I agree. Public sector IT becomes a huge sprawl of technologies and cottage industry applications which makes administering these often rarely touched interfaces difficult to do properly when department budgets are tight and resources are busy fire fighting the processes that failed the night before.

It is also difficult to hire because wages are generally low compared to similar roles in private industry, yet they need skilled staff to manage these complex environments. A lot of services don't get the attention they need, not just patching and upgrades but development, requirements capture and usability all kept to a minimum cost to keep the sinking ship afloat.

All these constraints also lean to a culture of poor security, JFDI, rip and replace, insufficent hardware etc... just so the business can operate on whatever computer on wheels in the shipping depot or relatively expensive to replace electronic gate system with intergration to their custom fleet management software.

Government outsourcing to another related body has its cost advantages but the many domain administrator users, the huge flat VmWare estate and the hardware well beyond warranty doesn't dissapear.

Designed to serve immediate needs but without long-term maintenance or holistic design in mind. Outsourcing amplifies the issue.

Re: Inside the Transport for London cyberattack

#30

Post by chrisjj »

com wrote: post #2

Lots of people who should have been establishing effective security practices and monitoring and improving it were doing … something … but not that. Total failure of management and governance at TfL and the British Library (which even had a “private sector security leader” on its board of governors for a decade or more before their total shitshow of a breach last year) But as usual, there will be no consequences.

> no consequences.

I recommend "repercussions" ;)

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