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posted by janrinok on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-happens-to-the-best-of-us dept.

Millions are hit by a mysterious bug at US passport and Visa reports International Business Times

From the Article:

Millions of people awaiting US travel documents have been left in limbo, as a major computer glitch crashed the United States global system for passport and visa services.

US State Department Spokeswoman, Marie Harf, says the glitch, which was first discovered on 19 July, has stalled the issuance of US passports and visas.

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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Horse With Stripes on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:38PM

    by Horse With Stripes (577) on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:38PM (#74196)

    Did they try rebooting the system? That almost always fixes everything. And if that doesn't do it look up the error code from the BSOD to see if it's a driver. it's almost always a driver ;-)

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by doublerot13 on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:45PM

      by doublerot13 (4497) on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:45PM (#74199)
      I'm gonna guess this is the culprit. https://i.imgur.com/ckYNn7g.png [imgur.com]
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by davester666 on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:30PM

      by davester666 (155) on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:30PM (#74230)

      No, everybody was "accidentally" added to the terrorist watch list, because one guy importing their data into the passport application database forgot to uncheck the "mark imported data as terrorists" checkbox [which is checked by default].

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by tftp on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:14PM

        by tftp (806) on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:14PM (#74244) Homepage

        I don't understand why such a checkbox is needed. Since everyone who ever travels outside of the USA is, obviously, a terrorist, all you need is a trigger on insert, update - and delete, for a good measure - that sets this flag automatically.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by davester666 on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:47PM

          by davester666 (155) on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:47PM (#74252)

          they need the checkbox because politicians, members of the military, defense contractors and their families also need passports

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:53PM

        by Bot (3902) on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:53PM (#74256) Journal

        I came here to make an "A certain Mr. DROP ALL TABLES; got on board" hypothesis, but yours is more likely.

        --
        Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:54PM

    by Hawkwind (3531) on Saturday July 26 2014, @04:54PM (#74201)

    The article is short on information and a search isn't turning up much more. Does anyone have a link to at least a decent article?

    On the positive side if there really is a story here then we should hear more about it and we'll be able to say we heard it on Soylent first!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:12PM (#74205)
      • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:21PM

        by Hawkwind (3531) on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:21PM (#74207)

        Thanks but these are good examples of the not much better stories out there. There seems to be a very short version, and a rather short version.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:05PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:05PM (#74242)

          I guess I was pointing out that this story is at least 2 days old, so "read it here first" isn't necessarily true. It wasn't for me.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by N3Roaster on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:29PM

    by N3Roaster (3860) <roaster@wilsonscoffee.com> on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:29PM (#74209) Homepage Journal

    The number millions keeps surfacing, but that number doesn't really seem to stand up to scrutiny. The number that keeps coming up in the stories is 50K for one country. Normally a quote like that would be picking out a country with a particularly large number of cases and not an average so it's probably safe to assume that most countries for which the US requires visa applications have far fewer cases. Another article claims that what's currently typical is 35K cases per day, which puts the expected number well below 1M. There are some more details in an article at http://www.pcworld.com/article/2458180/state-department-computer-crash-slows-visa-passport-applications-worldwide.html [pcworld.com] which seems to be pinning the blame on botched Oracle maintenance.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Leebert on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:33PM

      by Leebert (3511) on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:33PM (#74212)

      which seems to be pinning the blame on botched Oracle maintenance.

      Is there any other kind of Oracle maintenance? ;)

    • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:57PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday July 26 2014, @05:57PM (#74222)

      Personally, I'd bet IBM mainframes are involved.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:25PM

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:25PM (#74228) Journal

        Maybe, but Oracle is the likely culprit. Most IBM mainframes aproach five nines, (as long as you factor out scheduled maintenance), or they did 20 years ago when I last dealt with them.

        Besides you don't need really big iron to have problems. Even here on SN I see the announcement:

        Due to filesystem corruption, SN has been experiencing some problems; all issues appear to be resolved without loss of data for now. We're currently looking into the root cause

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by present_arms on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:47PM

          by present_arms (4392) on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:47PM (#74238) Homepage Journal

          If i remember right IBM Mainframes run several instances so if one instance falls over one of the others pick it up with hardly a glitch being noticed.

          --
          http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:00PM

            by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:00PM (#74258)

            That's all very nice for the hardware. It's software or human factors that are almost *always* the problem.

            • (Score: 2) by present_arms on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:09PM

              by present_arms (4392) on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:09PM (#74262) Homepage Journal

              Amen to that

              --
              http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
              • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:14PM

                by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:14PM (#74266)

                IBM software, especially that related to its mainframes makes it very easy to cause problems, and very difficult fix problems. It is however, very good for consulting profit margins.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:34PM (#74248)

      If the system is down, they will most likely not be able to verify if someone has a valid visa in their passport. Hence the number could well exceed the number of applications they've been unable to process in the last week or so.