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Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

karlsnotes.com

41–50 of 230 posts

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#41
post #34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought is that adversarial state actors are the biggest threat. Didn't Russia interfere with some of their services at one point?

Yes, considering they're on the doorstep of Russia and Belarus this is a fairly likely scenario. If their power utilities were targeted the way Ukraine's have been how many of these systems are still going to be able to run? That said if you've imposed martial law and men aren't allowed to leave the country because they've got to stay and fight then at least demand for your online passport service will have dropped b…

If things get targeted with physical attacks like that, you won't be getting a passport internet or no internet, in impacted areas. It will be the least of your concerns.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black swan events affect non-digital information as well. How many paper records have been lost to fire, floods and simple decay over the millennia? At least with digital records there's the chance that they're backed up offsite somewhere

Personally I think the ideal system would include both. Maybe a digital system that is periodically (say once a year) transferred to tape and stored in a secure facility like the Svalbard Seed Vault.

> Maybe a digital system that is periodically (say once a year) transferred to tape and stored in a secure facility

This has been standard procedure (not at Svalbard, obviously, but at one or more secure offsite facilities) for every critical data system I’ve ever personally encountered in regulated industry, though rotations are usually weekly/monthly rather than yearly.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#43
post #13

I wonder how many years the US could save its citizens by modernizing and digitizing the IRS, DMV, etc. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?

I recently discovered that the U.S. Social Security Administration has business hours ... for their website. They operate a website that is closed at night and on weekends. One is hard-pressed to imagine the level of IT dysfunction necessary to reach this point.

Probably so that there's no backlog buildup over the weekend?

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#44
post #40

Did they somehow figure out online voting or are they courting disaster here?

Multiple independent studies show there are vulnerabilities in their system.

Not to say everything is perfect, but I'd like to see those credible studies.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#47
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will they even allow that for REAL ID now?

Yes, I renewed my REAL ID earlier this year entirely online. It's possible that it would have been more complicated if I had changed my address or needed to change any other information.

Seems odd they don't want an up to date photo.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#48
post #8

Until there's a solar flare and instead it's just cost them 1640 years. Or a catastrophic computer virus. Or any number of black swan disaster scenarios. I'm a tech guy and I do think that this is good news. I just hope that the people in charge of designing these systems have also thought about what happens if these systems catastrophically fail. And that measuring things like '820 years saved' are only really claim…

This highlights one of the things I've recognized, for a long time the digital existed beside the paper, the computer often had problems and people knew things would have problems so they would always have a manual paper backup. "The HR computer is on the fritz and can get paychecks out, well wheel out the file folders, and get everyone in HR some ballpoint pens because they're here until midnight", but nowadays digital first really means digital only, and we see the consequences of that when people are no longer able to do rational or reasonable things because the computer won't allow it.

"Sorry I know this document has to have your legal name, but unfortunately the system can't handle a character with an accent have you thought about changing your name instead?"

I mean I am starting to see more and more places, that don't have a til or register, just a tablet and an app which sure saves you some overhead, but if a backhoe decides to dig through the fiber line, congratulations your shop just got shut down until it works agian.

Now people will say "bad things could happen in the old days to!" That is true, but the difference was if bad things happened you generally had some measure of control and ability to effect change and at least find some temporary stop gap, the problem is now we have lost all autonomy because the shift to digital has also meant loss of control and locality.

Back in the day if the power went out you could open up a receipt book and a ledger and keep taking payments until it came back on, now you can sit and twiddle your thumbs.

My point is if you are "digital first" that means you are "digital only" and you sure as hell need to figure out a backup quick because it turns out shooting magic beams of light, across continents, has many more failure cases than a locked file folder.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#49
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewing online sure takes a lot of the burden out of the regular renewals. Of course, I'm now 33 and still using a picture of 21yo me on my license which gets me second glances from bar tenders, TSA, etc. But if it keeps me from having to go in to the DMV...

I think the point was not to renew online, but renew less often.

REAL ID requires renewal every 8 years or less.

Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

#50
post #6

Even without changing processes, hundreds of years of time could be saved by reducing the frequency we have to interact with government at all For example, almost 20 American states require license renewal every 4 years or more frequently: https://ballotpedia.org/Driver%27s_license_costs_by_state,_2... When I renew, there's no test (not even vision), and they don't even retake my picture or let me update my height. T…

Arizona driver license don't expire until you are 65. The linked website is innaccurate.

They do if they're REAL ID. By law they can only be valid up to 8 years.
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