Grrr!

[altivo]

So today, back with the Windows vs. Linux stuff. New director presents me with a printed page of the IRS' requirements for online filing of tax returns. Incredible. It says you must have Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6, Adobe reader 7, or Netscape 7. These have all been dead and unsupported for years now. They explicitly say that Firefox won't work, and Macintoshes are not allowed. How can they get away with this crap? So once again I explained that I can't put Internet Explorer on Linux systems. Also that we have always discouraged people from filing their taxes on library computers. They run out of time trying to do it, and the whole business just isn't secure enough.

I countered with the Cisco report on the latest ZeuS trojan exploit, all those fake LinkedIn messages that some of us are seeing. Apparently none of the antivirus or network filter software stops the malicious web site in the message from infecting you, as long as you are running Internet Explorer and Windows. Once infected, antivirus programs can't find it, and it starts collecting keystrokes from password fields, mailing your accounts and passwords back to some creep on the net somewhere. If our public access computers were running IE and Windows, I'm sure some would already be infected, with naive users logging into their bank accounts, credit cards, and other sensitive sites on them. So far, Linux and Firefox are reported to be immune to this one.

No hummingbirds sighted this week, so we've probably seen the last of them for this year. Sure enough, Sept. 25 was our last sighting again.

Gary did not bring home the puppy he went to see yesterday. He thought she was too young and hyperactive for him. Now he has second thoughts, and says if she's still there be next Tuesday he will go back and he wants me to go with him. Dunno what I think of that. I talked him into taking two of our previous rescues and both turned out to be wonderful. But I also talked him into getting our first sheep, and they've been quite a mixed bag of something ever since.

Rug is completely woven, but still on loom. Probably tomorrow I can get it off there and do the hems on the ends.

Comments

[hrrunka]

always discouraged people from filing their taxes on library computers

Using public computers for potentially sensitive financial stuff does sound like a very bad idea. One would hope that government agencies would be, if anything, more aware than most of the possible perils and pitfalls...

must have Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6, Adobe reader 7, or Netscape 7

...but that suggests a serious case of head-in-the-sand complacency somewhere.

There're a bunch of folk in the dock somewhere over here this week, charged with using a virus to steal on-line banking credentials and then stealing from the compromised accounts.

[altivo]

There're a bunch of folk in the dock somewhere over here this week, charged with using a virus to steal on-line banking credentials and then stealing from the compromised accounts.

Yup. And they used the ZeuS trojan to do it. I saw that news item too. Apparently you can buy it as a prepackaged thing for about $700. It comes with instructions on how to set it up to fake the originating site you want to imitate, and set the target for delivery of the stolen IDs. Identity theft goes commercial.

Government agencies are run by politicians, and it's my observation that there is no one more ignorant or ostrich-like about these things. I suspect that those "system requirements" are long obsolete, though. I know that people were filing their taxes against our advice and using Firefox last year.

[hrrunka]

My ex-employer's personnel appraisals website suffered the same "long-obsolete systems requirements" for several years. The original had been written with a particular "company standard" version of Netscape as its target, with some code so specific that it only worked on one particular browser version with one particular Java runtime library installed. Consequently the company's standard Windows image had that particular combination installed for years after it should have been consigned to the bit-bucket. They only did something about it after a particularly nasty old exploit got in and ran riot...

[altivo]

I always find it absolutely incredible how people think they can dictate this sort of thing to their customers or potential users. "If you want to use our website, you must use Internet Explorer 6" long after Microsoft has dropped support for it and at least 20% of the world doesn't even run Windows. It's clear that they have no conception of what this is doing to them. It's not like it's that difficult to create browser independent code. But some of them seem to have the impression that limiting support to just one version of one browser makes them more secure. Simply unbelievable.

I'm still seeing things with warnings like "Internet Explorer 8 is not recommended for this site." Why don't they fix their code? I guess the answer is that the guy who knew how it works is gone because they drove him stark raving mad. Now no one knows enough to be able to pick up the pieces.

[hrrunka]

the guy who knew how it works is gone

...or they got the job done by a contractor and never thought about maintenance. That sort of thing happens quite a bit when non-technical accountants and managers make technical decisions without taking any notice of technical advice.

[altivo]

Yes, and the contractor deliberately wrote code that would require maintenance in order to make sure he would have future paid work. Of course, he went out of business or disappeared in the meantime. I've seen that before.

Back in 1989 when I went to work for NOTIS Systems (now understandably defunct) they had hired out some mailing list work to an outside contractor. To my absolute astonishment, their customer database was written in (you won't believe this) dBase II. Running on MS-DOS. NOTIS was a library software house, producing integrated library systems that ran on CICS under VM, MVS, or DOS/VSE. Yet they didn't have the competency to create a customer database? Or to make sure they were getting something maintainable that would run on their normal equipment? Apparently not.

Even more incredibly, we were expected to write documentation (massive 400 page manuals) on an antiquated mainframe word processing system, using 3278 terminals.

I guess the fear of change can literally paralyze anyone, even the managers of corporations with multi-million dollar budgets.

[shadow_stallion]

We're the government, we don't have to care if you life our policy or not.

*laughs* You know as well as I do that is probably just exactly how some people look at it. You gotta conform to our way of doing things or else. :P

I was going to ask about last year or years before that but I think you already touched on it. Initially I was surprised to see this since I would have assumed you had to deal with something like this for several years or at least several years ago.

It always amuses me to see posts like this where people say such and such OS just is not compatible with X product. It's the same with the Apple people who claim 'It just works'. Well the truth of the matter is that it doesn't. They all have their good and bad sides and none of them (no matter what the fanboys tell you) are perfect or work perfectly in every scenario.

[altivo]

Sure we've dealt with it before. Different director, though. In past years we have put up signs saying that we don't recommend filing taxes or doing financial deals over the public computers because they are not secure enough and the software may not be compatible. Some people still try, and apparently some get away with it. But then we have idiots who have their financial reports and loan applications faxed to the library desk and then pay us $1 a page to pick them up. Usually they leave them lying here in the pickup tray for days before they come for them. How dumb can you get?

My previous director agreed with me that there are limits on what can be expected from public access computers, and that we are allowed to state those limits and stick by them. New director thinks we have to give everyone whatever they want whenever they want it. She even seemed to hesitate a couple of days ago when I told her that someone wanted to know how to bypass our firewall and I told them they couldn't.

As for Apple and "it just works" yes, I agree. It doesn't. Unless you think like an Apple user, which can't always be called thinking, alas. I don't like black boxes myself, and Apple solutions are invariably black boxes with magic secret demons inside to make them work.

[corelog.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I mean, Win XP is still mostly the standard for desktops (though that is switching to 7 gradually), and IE6SP1 is still standard on XP. I never installed IE7 or 8 on my XP desktop, because the new HTML renderer is slower (supposedly compensated by faster hardware).

Even on my Win7 machine, I still have IE6, albeit in Win XP Mode--which I doubt they're expecting. I'm just saying. :P

Still, that's ridiculous. CRA doesn't require any of that junk. CRA NETFILE is a simple web form that accepts your .tax file as an upload, along with your four-digit access code and SIN. Thank you, have a nice day. Even my online tax-preparation provider (uFile.ca) doesn't have such onerous requirements. And Firefox works just fine.

Silly outdated IRS! :D

[altivo]

Microsoft no longer supports or patches IE6. That seems clear enough to me, given the number of security holes that turn up in all versions of IE.

Last time I checked, in the US, about 10% of desktop systems were Macintosh. Another 10% were Linux or "Other," so that makes 20% that don't meet the IRS' ridiculous requirements. Given that almost everyone over 18 or so is required to file, and the IRS is doing its best to make filing on paper difficult now, refusing to recognize that there are other browsers than IE and other operating systems than Windows is sheer hubris. Trying to require IE6 when Microsoft itself is doing its best to get all users to move to IE8 is even dumber. For at least a year now, Windows Update has been pushing to get IE8 onto XP systems. Do you think most users resist, and pick and choose? If they run Update, they have IE8 now. The ones with 6 are the ones who never run Update at all, plus a few stubborn holdouts like yourself. I never allowed IE7 onto library systems, but after looking at IE8 I let our few Windows machines switch to it.

As for the IRS vs. CRA, I think you probably have no idea how complex the US tax codes and forms are. I have no stock market investments, no pension or annuity income, run no businesses, and my only income is my library paycheck plus some paltry interest from savings (VERY paltry these days.) My annual tax filing still requires four or five sheets of paper, at least four different forms. Preparing it manually with a calculator would take 2-3 hours I think. Even with specialized tax software, it takes an hour or so to answer all the questions.

This gets criticized every so often, and Congress tries to make the IRS "reform" and "simplify." The last "simplification" actually made my tax filings longer, not shorter.

[moonhare]

I may still have Netscape 1.1 on my elder pc, the Win95 one.

Our ref librarian tells me that the IRS won't supply forms this year but suggests they go to the library to print them, for free?? It's going to get bad...

[altivo]

"For free?"

They're making awfully free with funds that are not theirs to spend, aren't they? We offer no free printing here. Everything costs 10 cents a page. That applies to tax forms too.

And of course the government nerts ignore the large percentage of the population that still doesn't use computers at all and hasn't the foggiest idea where to begin. So they figure to save their time by using our time to make us do all of it for people.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Horrid, even the libraries here don't use those browsers, most here seem to use opensource browsers and have rather big signs saying do not carryout financial transactions on these machines plus the disclaimer.

Also to file online tax returns here you have to use the free online tax agent called E-tax, it's not supported for Apple or linux but it's been reported to work on linux with windows translation layers and OS-X with VMWare Fusion 3, Parallels Desktop 5 and Boot Camp software, running a recommended Windows operating system.

Puppies can be quite a handful that do need more attention.

[altivo]

The revenue service here is made up of a lot of bureaucrats and idiots. They are also getting lazy as possible. They have the power to make anyone's life hell if they don't like you or you don't go along with their requirements.

I consider government requirements that depend on citizens having access to specific commercial products of any sort to be major violations of freedom and very likely illegal because they constitute a sort of corporate favoritism. This is the same as if they put up traffic signals that only let Fords through and made it illegal for any other make of vehicle to pass the intersection. No one would put up with that, so why are we willing to let them dictate the type of computer and operating system that can be used to get access to essential government services?

Writing platform independent web sites and code is really not any more difficult than writing crap that only works on Micro$oft products.