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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

#291

Post by DANmode »

vundercind wrote: post #263
dragonwriter wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Republic” (any system in which top-level government offices aren't personal property of the officeholder) and “Democracy” (any system in which government serves and is accountable to the general population—usually through voting on candidates and/or specific policies—rather than vice versa) are not mutually exclusive. It’s pretty common for modern Western governments to be both of (Democratic, often also Federal) Re…

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.

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

#292

Post by neilv »

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #216
neilv wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know of a developer who would've done responsible security, but was pushed to ship instead, against their protest, I'd be happy to hear that.

In my experience, Product is always the first one to suggest cutting corners.

Part of the job of Product is triage on all sorts of things.

But I don't think there's hardly any developers who would've done something securely but didn't because Product said no.

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

#293

Post by jballanc »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #102
n4r9 wrote: 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...

My entrepreneurial mind immediately thinks: Let's create a better solution to revolutionize this industry and make the old, expensive incumbents obsolete. We can drive to the affected car dealers and migrate them one by one. Of course, I'm not going to do it and it's probably extremely hard :)

It is extremely hard!

Dealerships don't make most of their money (or any money, really) selling cars. They make their money from service, and selling info to 3rd parties (ever notice when you buy a new car, you will receive mail from SirusXM for a year after). In order for this to work, their systems are all tightly integrated. When you buy a new car, the dealer will know when you're due for service. When you have your current car serviced more than a certain amount, the dealer will know you're in the market for a new car.

So, it's not possible to swap out only the service management piece of CDK or only the sales piece, or only the CRM piece. They all have to work together. The reason I know is I happened to contract with the IT department of a very large dealer network at the time they were undergoing a migration from Reynolds to CDK. A year into the migration process...they pulled the plug. Moving even from one large incumbent to another was too much work.

Good luck breaking in on that as a brand new baby startup! I think you'd probably have better luck completely disrupting the car sales process from the ground up.

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

#294

Post by somerandomqaguy »

lolinder wrote: post #214

I'm reminded of the opening line of the second Mistborn novel: > I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted. The digital world feels increasingly dangerous and ephemeral. If I have something written with ink on paper I have certain guarantees: I know that it's accessible even if the power is completely out. I know that it won't randomly get deleted if my hard drive suddenly dies. I…

>The digital world feels increasingly dangerous and ephemeral. If I have something written with ink on paper I have certain guarantees:

Fair but paper comes with a significant drawback of poor discoverability. I've had to dig through old aerial survey photographs taken before digital photography, and combing through the indexes to find what I looking for was an adventure unto itself. Never would've been able to do it without help from the librarians, and there's only one archive where that information is stored.

And digital format can be more readily altered, but it can also be more easily backed up or have redundancies. There's ways of managing digital's drawbacks, and ultimately I think we're probably better off having digital formats then just reverting to alternatives for the most part.

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

#295

Post by bee_rider »

riddlemethat wrote: post #279
bee_rider wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started last Wednesday, and the estimate for the fix is “several days” according to the AP. I think it will be difficult even to get somebody hired in time.

The paid internship... The true unicorn...

For a STEM student, in the US? I’ve never heard of an unpaid internship, sounds like a scam.

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

#296

Post by Scoundreller »

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.

Have yet to try to hand the gate agent my laptop screen to scan. Will try!

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

#297

Post by pjmorris »

sofixa wrote: post #231
pjmorris wrote: post #152

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.

> 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 groups working on smaller populations using fewer components.

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

#298

Post by vundercind »

DANmode wrote: post #291
vundercind wrote: post #263

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.

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 else, because it’s a very useful term to have. But everyone just uses “democracy” and that works great.

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

#299

Post by spamizbad »

gist wrote: post #235
spamizbad wrote: post #4

I know some (former) CDK alumni and I'm not surprised. Notorious for paying below market in engineering and IT. A place to cut your teeth but not to stay.

> Notorious for paying below market in engineering and IT Why assume that good people are only driven by money and pay? Further that good people know all the opportunities and can get a job paying better? Also there is no evidence that I have seen that the places that pay better don't suffer from cyber attacks or ransomware. A bigger part of the problem (maybe) is the fact that there is a vast amount of info publishe…

> Why assume that good people are only driven by money and pay?

Ah that's easy: Because CDK Global does not utilize the kinds of technologies or operate in a market where it would attract engineers who'd take the job out of passion or curiosity. It's a dime-a-dozen Enterprise Java shop that sells software to car dealerships. It is also not a startup that offers you equity upside.

If you want a job where you get to write Spring Boot Java that gets deployed to AWS for a "mature" employer you're spoiled for choice; and orgs with the same tech stack will pay 30+% more.

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

#300

Post by aquaticsunset »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #93
n4r9 wrote: 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...

why didn't Silicon Valley try to disrupt this market?

It's complicated. The amount of industry knowledge needed is huge - not something someone with good software expertise can just leave on the fly.

It's also been, traditionally, a crazy business with dozens and dozens of vendors that a dealership can choose from. CDK and Reynolds might have pretty big market share, but a lot of that is because they integrate with zillions of tiny vendors.

Lastly, I just don't think there's been enough money in it to try. The industry as a whole is lucrative but you're not gonna get rich trying to dominate a single aspect of it. COVID represented a permanent shift in how software was viewed in the industry. Dealerships have to spend more on higher quality software, because they simply can't afford to stay in business without it.

The closest company I can think of that's trying to disrupt this is Tekion.

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