4 ms·

Incompetent is a bit harsh. I think you need to be quite good to hit a home run with a new app/system that will be rolled out at an event to lots of users.

pessimizer 7y ago
The app's entire purpose is to allow 1700 people to type in 21 numbers, and to send those numbers to a database. I don't know how that's more than a week's work, with another month or two added to design the walkthrough.
- jbattle 7y ago
  A similar intuition may have led this team to skip spending the last few months on rollout / training / testing
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    There's no intuition that I've had that would involve not testing the app repeatedly, under load, not having a dry run, or not offering any training.
- riazrizvi 7y ago
  From a technical perspective where only informed and good actors are involved, I suspect many of us could code up a working website in less than an hour. But if you look at the issues reported on at the Des Moines Register [1] it seems the job was about creating a reporting system in an environment where people are actively trying to disrupt the system, possibly some of the reporters themselves cannot be trusted. I think you'd need to sit through a few meetings with the right people before you'd even understand what was required. You've got to find tech/security people from previous campaigns to understand what the dirty tricks are that people use to f with the results for example. [1] https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/03/election-2020-iowa-caucus-problems/4618371002/ https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presi...
  - derision 7y ago
    Sounds like you'd want DHS to review it then
    - saber6 7y ago
      Does anyone think DHS has the expertise on hand to review source code (and would it be cart blanche style)? When I think of DHS I think more of physical security measures. NSA is whom I think of when it comes to defensive cybersecurity measures.
      - Stranger43 7y ago
        They likely have a standby contract with someone like Accenture or Deloite for this kind of work. The reason for putting this under the DHS rather then just outsourcing it directly is that the DHS have some kind of credible neutrality where as nobody trusts the DNC to not censor/rewrite any report they publish on their own.
      - sdinsn 7y ago
        DHS has a Science and Technology Directorate.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- jandrese 7y ago
  I don't even know why it is an app. A simple web page would be perfect for this.
- smileysteve 7y ago
  From anecdote; I've seen a months old project go to internal alpha that crashed immediately because the lead developer didn't set rails to production mode. There are many web sites where a 1700 request burst would hurt.
  - sjm-lbm 7y ago
    To be fair, that's ~1700 requests over the course of an hour or more - it's not like every precinct finished at the exact same time.
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    Sleep, then try again. There are no websites that take more than 12 hours to handle 1700 requests.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Very wild guess: they did test it and maybe even stress tested it... with the phones they had in their office. Out in the field people were using different phones with various versions of the mobile OS. Not sure if this is an Android or iOS app but either way, it's possible there was something quirky in the implementation that didn't show up on the test phones or simulator. They may have even made a poor assumption such as there always being a network connection. That would be the case in their office but not guaranteed out in rural areas especially in rural areas with a sudden convergence of lots of people with cell phones in a confined space that doesn't usually have that much device density.
34679 7y ago
Definition of incompetent 1a : lacking the qualities needed for effective action b : unable to function properly

pessimizer 7y ago

The app's entire purpose is to allow 1700 people to type in 21 numbers, and to send those numbers to a database. I don't know how that's more than a week's work, with another month or two added to design the walkthrough.

jbattle 7y ago
A similar intuition may have led this team to skip spending the last few months on rollout / training / testing
- pessimizer 7y ago
  There's no intuition that I've had that would involve not testing the app repeatedly, under load, not having a dry run, or not offering any training.
riazrizvi 7y ago
From a technical perspective where only informed and good actors are involved, I suspect many of us could code up a working website in less than an hour. But if you look at the issues reported on at the Des Moines Register [1] it seems the job was about creating a reporting system in an environment where people are actively trying to disrupt the system, possibly some of the reporters themselves cannot be trusted. I think you'd need to sit through a few meetings with the right people before you'd even understand what was required. You've got to find tech/security people from previous campaigns to understand what the dirty tricks are that people use to f with the results for example. [1] https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/03/election-2020-iowa-caucus-problems/4618371002/ https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presi...
- derision 7y ago
  Sounds like you'd want DHS to review it then
  - saber6 7y ago
    Does anyone think DHS has the expertise on hand to review source code (and would it be cart blanche style)? When I think of DHS I think more of physical security measures. NSA is whom I think of when it comes to defensive cybersecurity measures.
    - Stranger43 7y ago
      They likely have a standby contract with someone like Accenture or Deloite for this kind of work. The reason for putting this under the DHS rather then just outsourcing it directly is that the DHS have some kind of credible neutrality where as nobody trusts the DNC to not censor/rewrite any report they publish on their own.
    - sdinsn 7y ago
      DHS has a Science and Technology Directorate.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jandrese 7y ago
I don't even know why it is an app. A simple web page would be perfect for this.
smileysteve 7y ago
From anecdote; I've seen a months old project go to internal alpha that crashed immediately because the lead developer didn't set rails to production mode. There are many web sites where a 1700 request burst would hurt.
- sjm-lbm 7y ago
  To be fair, that's ~1700 requests over the course of an hour or more - it's not like every precinct finished at the exact same time.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  Sleep, then try again. There are no websites that take more than 12 hours to handle 1700 requests.
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Very wild guess: they did test it and maybe even stress tested it... with the phones they had in their office. Out in the field people were using different phones with various versions of the mobile OS. Not sure if this is an Android or iOS app but either way, it's possible there was something quirky in the implementation that didn't show up on the test phones or simulator. They may have even made a poor assumption such as there always being a network connection. That would be the case in their office but not guaranteed out in rural areas especially in rural areas with a sudden convergence of lots of people with cell phones in a confined space that doesn't usually have that much device density.

34679 7y ago

Definition of incompetent 1a : lacking the qualities needed for effective action b : unable to function properly