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If I just learned that a government spent time and resources to tap my fiber-optic network and record the internal operations of my company, I'd be damned if I

If I just learned that a government spent time and resources to tap my fiber-optic network and record the internal operations of my company, I'd be damned if I would then lend said government some of my prized technicians to pull their asses out of a fire of their own making. But that's just me. I wonder what the end-result of this "surge" will be, besides the obvious (a website that is declared "working" whether or not the processes behind it are): will we start to hear horror stories of the mess behind the scenes of healthcare.gov, after real professionals get to see the sausage factory in operation?

objclxt 13y ago
> will we start to hear horror stories of the mess behind the scenes of healthcare.gov, after real professionals get to see the sausage factory in operation? I strongly suspect - guarantee, even - that there are parts of Google and Oracle (...along with everywhere else) where the codebases are god-awful messes, or 'sausage factories'. It comes with the territory. If anything does come out it will probably be after the fact, and anonymized in some way (so, on TheDailyWTF). True professionals tend not to go around telling everyone about how awful the previous contractor was - that's why they're professionals.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  No disagreement there: every company has their own pile of technical dirt swept under the rug.
jmduke 13y ago
Alternatively, if I just learned that a government did something that I strongly disagreed with, I'd probably be able to internalize the reality that the government is pretty big and that its probably better to vocally critique some aspects of it rather than refuse to help people get the medical care they need.
jim-greer 13y ago
Saying you won't help the Department of Health and Human Services because you don't like the NSA is about like saying you won't buy a Ford because your last Chrysler was a lemon. The government is not a single entity. There's a single chain of command, but there are thousands of different cultures.
adventured 13y ago
It's a combination of fake outrage and compartmentalization. Does Larry Page blame Obama for what is going on regarding the NSA? Probably not, if I had to guess, much like a lot of his supporters don't. For Google, it's likely they're perfectly happy to separate the healthcare initiative off from the espionage scandal. Th US Government is, after all, truly massive in scope, with many fiefdoms the size of small countries economically. Oracle does a lucrative government business. The CIA project that helped them get off the ground is even where they got their name. So if, for example, the NSA were spying on Oracle, they might be miffed, but they're not about to do anything to harm those big juicy government contracts.
jaibot 13y ago
It's not about helping "the government", it's about fixing a problem which is going to keep millions of people from getting decent healthcare.
tptacek 13y ago
The idea that someone would refuse to help get more people insured in a country where health care financing will for at least the next 10 years depend entirely on insurance because of something the NSA did is emblematic of how annoying nerds like us are when it comes to public policy. That'll show 'em! All 10-15 people in the government who might get fired over Obamacare, along with the 10 MILLION people who will spend even more time uninsured. You get 'em!
- revelation 13y ago
  So it's perfectly okay for the government to play the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" and other nonsense games, but here it is "emblematic of how annoying nerds like us are when it comes to public policy"? I also really don't think a goddamn website stands in the way of affordable universal health care. Implement a Weberian bureaucracy and have it run on good old paper and mail, that is how its done everywhere else, and by the looks of this IT disaster we'd come out on top, jobs and everything!
  - tptacek 13y ago
    No, and yes.
  - magicalist 13y ago
    Are you going to be paying taxes this year? I don't know who people think pays for the NSA, but its the money we pay in taxes every year. I encourage all americans on here who will owe taxes for 2013 to take a stand and stop paying taxes until the FISC is dissolved as a matter of principle. It's ridiculous the number of HN members ready to cast the first stone because they judge someone else's leverage to be sufficient that they should be taking a stand. It's the exact same phenomenon that gives us zero approval for congress yet astronomical rates of incumbency every election. If you aren't willing to withhold tax payments, clearly you at least recognize there is some line at which you can actively support a government that is engaged in something very wrong because the benefit of not doing so would be tiny compared to the harm. Now imagine that instead of funding a tiny, tiny portion of the government, your support would instead be helping millions of people to find insurance coverage. - We cannot allow our rights to be ignored. - There are millions of people forgoing medical treatment every day because they don't have insurance. - There are thousands of people going into personal bankruptcy every day because they don't have insurance. Luckily we can work on fixing more than one thing at once. The idea that we should ignore one until the other is fixed is ludicrous, and I would argue a net immoral act if put into practice.
ImprovedSilence 13y ago
The "government" is very large, and should really rather be though of as many big companies. This health care work is really zero percent related to anything any DOD entity touches. Besides, just because a government can do some bad, doesn't mean it can't be doing good somewhere else at the same time...

objclxt 13y ago

> will we start to hear horror stories of the mess behind the scenes of healthcare.gov, after real professionals get to see the sausage factory in operation? I strongly suspect - guarantee, even - that there are parts of Google and Oracle (...along with everywhere else) where the codebases are god-awful messes, or 'sausage factories'. It comes with the territory. If anything does come out it will probably be after the fact, and anonymized in some way (so, on TheDailyWTF). True professionals tend not to go around telling everyone about how awful the previous contractor was - that's why they're professionals.

MrZongle2 13y ago
No disagreement there: every company has their own pile of technical dirt swept under the rug.

jmduke 13y ago

Alternatively, if I just learned that a government did something that I strongly disagreed with, I'd probably be able to internalize the reality that the government is pretty big and that its probably better to vocally critique some aspects of it rather than refuse to help people get the medical care they need.

jim-greer 13y ago

Saying you won't help the Department of Health and Human Services because you don't like the NSA is about like saying you won't buy a Ford because your last Chrysler was a lemon. The government is not a single entity. There's a single chain of command, but there are thousands of different cultures.

adventured 13y ago

It's a combination of fake outrage and compartmentalization. Does Larry Page blame Obama for what is going on regarding the NSA? Probably not, if I had to guess, much like a lot of his supporters don't. For Google, it's likely they're perfectly happy to separate the healthcare initiative off from the espionage scandal. Th US Government is, after all, truly massive in scope, with many fiefdoms the size of small countries economically. Oracle does a lucrative government business. The CIA project that helped them get off the ground is even where they got their name. So if, for example, the NSA were spying on Oracle, they might be miffed, but they're not about to do anything to harm those big juicy government contracts.

jaibot 13y ago

It's not about helping "the government", it's about fixing a problem which is going to keep millions of people from getting decent healthcare.

tptacek 13y ago

The idea that someone would refuse to help get more people insured in a country where health care financing will for at least the next 10 years depend entirely on insurance because of something the NSA did is emblematic of how annoying nerds like us are when it comes to public policy. That'll show 'em! All 10-15 people in the government who might get fired over Obamacare, along with the 10 MILLION people who will spend even more time uninsured. You get 'em!

revelation 13y ago
So it's perfectly okay for the government to play the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" and other nonsense games, but here it is "emblematic of how annoying nerds like us are when it comes to public policy"? I also really don't think a goddamn website stands in the way of affordable universal health care. Implement a Weberian bureaucracy and have it run on good old paper and mail, that is how its done everywhere else, and by the looks of this IT disaster we'd come out on top, jobs and everything!
- tptacek 13y ago
  No, and yes.
- magicalist 13y ago
  Are you going to be paying taxes this year? I don't know who people think pays for the NSA, but its the money we pay in taxes every year. I encourage all americans on here who will owe taxes for 2013 to take a stand and stop paying taxes until the FISC is dissolved as a matter of principle. It's ridiculous the number of HN members ready to cast the first stone because they judge someone else's leverage to be sufficient that they should be taking a stand. It's the exact same phenomenon that gives us zero approval for congress yet astronomical rates of incumbency every election. If you aren't willing to withhold tax payments, clearly you at least recognize there is some line at which you can actively support a government that is engaged in something very wrong because the benefit of not doing so would be tiny compared to the harm. Now imagine that instead of funding a tiny, tiny portion of the government, your support would instead be helping millions of people to find insurance coverage. - We cannot allow our rights to be ignored. - There are millions of people forgoing medical treatment every day because they don't have insurance. - There are thousands of people going into personal bankruptcy every day because they don't have insurance. Luckily we can work on fixing more than one thing at once. The idea that we should ignore one until the other is fixed is ludicrous, and I would argue a net immoral act if put into practice.

ImprovedSilence 13y ago

The "government" is very large, and should really rather be though of as many big companies. This health care work is really zero percent related to anything any DOD entity touches. Besides, just because a government can do some bad, doesn't mean it can't be doing good somewhere else at the same time...