Feds Accidentally Turn Off California Gov't Websites
from the sorry-about-that dept
Every once in a while you hear stories of companies having problems with their domain names, often because someone forgot to re-register the domain name or possibly because of a routing problem. However, you don't really expect that to happen to a government website. However, after a California county agency had its gov't website hacked, the feds back in Washington DC accidentally turned off all of the ca.gov domain, causing quite a bit of confusion among California state gov't employees. It gets even better. Apparently, it happened around noon Pacific Time which is 3pm back on the east coast. Yet, as the article notes: "Unfortunately that was about 3 in the afternoon and folks back East were already going home, so it took us some time to get hold of the right people in the General Service Administration to get this address reinstated." Sure, I can understand time zone differences... but 3pm isn't exactly quitting time. Must be great to be a government employee, huh? Shut down an entire state government's email and web domains without realizing it... and head out the door by 3pm.
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It looks like...
They got the note later and opened their center by 3pm PT.
This would already be late afternoon so understandably, people are already on their way out.
Just my 2 cents.
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Re: It looks like...
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Love it
Things like that happen where I work, and people panic. And that's no where near this scale.
Wonder how many jobs were lost?
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Government Employees
By the way, no, I do not work for the GSA.
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Re: Government Employees
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Government Employees
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DC Traffic
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Cali Gone?
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Re: Cali Gone?
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East Coast Hours
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Re: East Coast Hours
> customers nationwide, working 6am-3pm is
> selfish and lazy.
What an idiotic comment to make. According to your logic, a government employee on the East Coast should work seventeen-hour days-- from 6 AM all the way through 11 PM every day-- which would be when the government offices in Honolulu close. And if they don't put in those 17 hours, they're selfish and lazy, right?
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Re: Re: East Coast Hours
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Re: Re: Re: East Coast Hours
> things called 2nd and 3rd shifts
Yes, but that wasn't the claim being made. The original person stated that a government worker who only works 8 hours is being selfish and lazy.
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Govt Employees
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Re: Govt Employees
There should be support by telecommuters or the regular workers who are home already. Much of the work on these computer jobs can be done from anywhere with a fast connection and a computer.
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Re: Re: Govt Employees
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Government hours
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The funny part was, one of the 'LAN Admins' that worked for the government actually insisted she fix a problem on a workstation. After 15 minutes, she finally figured out the user couldn't print, because, well - no printers were set up on the machine. It took - and I kid you not - 30 minutes for her to figure out how to add a printer to the workstation from the Netware print queue.
I suspected all the workstation needed was a reboot, actually.. lol
But I do admit, some of them were really good at what they did, but I only mean *some*. The majority didn't have a clue.
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DC Traffic/culture
Think about it this way: There are four types of people in DC: 1. Those in power. 2. Those who want to be in power. 3. Those who have been forgotten by those in power. 4. Everyone else
Those in #1 are what we see on TV. This is where the "Government workers are lazy" come from. As these people realize that now that they are in power - they are powerless.
Those who fall in #2 bring a no-holds-bar work ethic that is basically 24-hour "life is work" mentality. It is a young crowd, they tend to get paid a lot of money (The DC area pays quite well), they are transients (they are only in the DC area for 2-8 years of their life) are often lawyers, business analysts, and technology workers, and they are competing to be the next leaders of their (government, business, industry, etc). They also tend to wear a lot ties (even the tech workers). To a certain extent, regardless of political association, the image of "young republicans" fits them well. We're not talking 90's play-money of the dot-com era, we're talking the excess of the 80's "Wallstreet".
#3 Are the permanent residence of DC. The irony is that the belt-way that all of this country's social leadership uses to get to work by-passes some of the most horrific slums in America. It is not uncommon to see burned-out row houses just block away from the White House. And if you plan your route right - you never have to acknowledge their existence.
#4 Makes up everyone else. Those that support #1 and #2. Some are a bit of #2 and some are a bit of #3. It is #2 and #4 that clog the beltway.
Like Las Vegas, DC never sleeps. But unlike Las Vegas it's all about work rather than all about play. Most cities take a breather on the weekends. Even New York City obeys the laws of rush "hour". But on a Saturday afternoon in Washington DC you will encounter bumper-to-bumper, stop and go traffic (though to be honest, the downtown area at 8am on a Saturday morning will be like a ghost town).
It's a sight to behold. If you lived it, you to would flex your time to get out of Dodge by 4pm.
-CF
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Re: DC Traffic/culture
> houses just block away from the White House.
Actually it's not only uncommon, it doesn't exist. There are no burned-out row houses or burned-out anything else just a block away from the White House. The blocks surrounding the White House are prime real estate and anything that isn't already held by the government is home to very well-heeled law firms and lobbying firms.
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HA HA
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Read the original
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Re:
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7 years ago when I worked in state government
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dumb
"It must be nice to go home at 3pm".
3PM PST is 6PM EST.
DUH
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oh come on...
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Very very interesting
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>> customers nationwide, working 6am-3pm is
>> selfish and lazy.
>What an idiotic comment to make. According to your logic, a government >employee on the East Coast should work seventeen-hour days-- from 6 AM >all the way through 11 PM every day-- which would be when the >government offices in Honolulu close. And if they don't put in those 17 >hours, they're selfish and lazy, right?
Hah it's a joke BTR1701! Maybe what he meant to say is when you are working for people 3 hrs behind your time zone, starting work at 6am isn't really necessary. But what do I know, I don't work for the gov't.
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Government I.T. Security Procedures
The Fed employee evidently did not know one of those rules since the reason it took 7 hours to recover, because it happened at the end of a work day, it took that long to find someone who knew how to recover from the error.
Last week, in response to news of Chinese hackers had broken into Defense Department computers, I said:
The U.S. Government needs to wakeup the severity of the security problems we are currently having and be made aware just how terrible they could get. Then government needs to get serious in mandating information security protocols on sensitive material both public and private.
Until they do, I know I'm going to sleep a little less secure at night, how about you?
How much worse to these accidents need to get, than taking down all the governments websites of the countries largest state, and no, I'm still not sleeping very well.
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The problem IS location
When I worked for the government many quality people did not want to advance because they did not want to put up with the DC area nonsense as detailed above. Now that I am in the public sector I understand that a raise is not a right, that performance has to be measured by the bottom line, and that from time to time we have to tighten our belts to meet the budget. My first year working for the feds we were faced with having to spend additional money in order to ensure our budget for the following year even if it meant breaking stuff.(no kidding) My hesitation at playing the 'game' probably lost me my job even though I had high performance reviews- I was told to seek employment elsewhere without any explanation by Office of Personnel Management... I was unsuccessful at trying to whistle blow because my congressman and woman each from a different party both told me that the other party was responsible for the way things work in government.
In the private sector it is all about making stuff last as long as possible in order to not have stuff impact the budget and possibly our jobs or salaries. Government is completely oblivious of that- I believe you could cut our government in half and it would probably improve response, effectiveness, and taxes.
Most people have no idea how much of government exists just to manage itself soaking up tax dollars that never reach the intended purpose. They also have no idea that many of the people employed by government are there because they could not qualify for a job in the private sector. It is a horrible place for a motivated person to try and work...when everyone gets the same raise regardless of how hard they work. Why even bother to try any harder when the guy in the cube over leaves 2 hours early every day and gets the same raise and pay as you do?
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