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There was a construction company working on the main road in town (Illinois). The last state shutdown had them stop working... even though the road was 100% fed

There was a construction company working on the main road in town (Illinois). The last state shutdown had them stop working... even though the road was 100% federally funded AND they were paid upfront for 3 months of work. I suspect this was done to raise light to the situation (or they wanted time off). Similarly, I suspect running this website is mostly automated and likely being shut down to raise awareness

thefounder 8y ago
Maybe they need some stuff approved...surely they could take advantage of the shutdown if the contract allows it but usually government contracts, (especially the construction projects)need all kind of permissions/approvals.
tehlike 8y ago
Or most likely it needed government supervision which didnt have funding.
andy_ppp 8y ago
How do you know the servers aren't paid for monthly and would have been switched off in an uncontrolled way without this?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- NotAnEconomist 8y ago
  Also, just because the servers stay online cheaply don't mean that the operations and security teams work for free. If the government can't keep staffing those teams, the responsible thing is to pull the servers down on their way out -- rather than leaving a government asset unmonitored.
ethbro 8y ago
High traffic, high risk, high SLA websites typically don't run without support teams and 24/7 pager service. Just because it can run, for any sort of dynamic site, it'd be stupid and dangerous to keep it exposed to the internet without active monitoring. Can != Should
eddietejeda 8y ago
I work at 18F and can assure you that if data.gov was brought down, there is a good reason. I don't know the specifics for their team, but there are many factors that would warrant bringing down a site. For example: monthly billing, contract renewals, legal, security and compliance requirements, etc. This is not a side project that you can step away from and assume everything is okay because it's "on the cloud." It doesn't take much imagination to think of why: Let's say the site gets hacked, who would restore it? Would it remain hacked for weeks? months? How about contracts? Do we expect legal dept to just ignore expired contracts? It doesn't work that way. The thing about government is that there isn't much wiggle room to improvise on those kinds of issues. You are either following the law or you are not. Fortunately, the product I lead has not yet been affected, but the possibility of having to bring down sites looms.

thefounder 8y ago

Maybe they need some stuff approved...surely they could take advantage of the shutdown if the contract allows it but usually government contracts, (especially the construction projects)need all kind of permissions/approvals.

tehlike 8y ago

Or most likely it needed government supervision which didnt have funding.

andy_ppp 8y ago

How do you know the servers aren't paid for monthly and would have been switched off in an uncontrolled way without this?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
NotAnEconomist 8y ago
Also, just because the servers stay online cheaply don't mean that the operations and security teams work for free. If the government can't keep staffing those teams, the responsible thing is to pull the servers down on their way out -- rather than leaving a government asset unmonitored.

ethbro 8y ago

High traffic, high risk, high SLA websites typically don't run without support teams and 24/7 pager service. Just because it can run, for any sort of dynamic site, it'd be stupid and dangerous to keep it exposed to the internet without active monitoring. Can != Should

eddietejeda 8y ago

I work at 18F and can assure you that if data.gov was brought down, there is a good reason. I don't know the specifics for their team, but there are many factors that would warrant bringing down a site. For example: monthly billing, contract renewals, legal, security and compliance requirements, etc. This is not a side project that you can step away from and assume everything is okay because it's "on the cloud." It doesn't take much imagination to think of why: Let's say the site gets hacked, who would restore it? Would it remain hacked for weeks? months? How about contracts? Do we expect legal dept to just ignore expired contracts? It doesn't work that way. The thing about government is that there isn't much wiggle room to improvise on those kinds of issues. You are either following the law or you are not. Fortunately, the product I lead has not yet been affected, but the possibility of having to bring down sites looms.