SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the put-it-in-the-cloud-what-could-go-wrong dept.
For a long time in Australia when you purchased property you had to visit the local Land Titles office or local equivalent to pay your stamp duty and get paperwork done. Recently several state governments decided to outsource this critical function to a private company, the Property Exchange Australia - PEXA. It was seen as a win-win with a private company taking over storing and maintaining land titles and the State Governments getting a kick back for it. Until it all went wrong recently when $250,000 was stolen from a PEXA conveyancer's account.
The victim of the hack was Dani Venn, who is well known for being on the local version of Masterchef. PEXA has claimed no responsibility for the loss and with the PEXA system soon to be made mandatory in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, many people are concerned that the system is not secure and should not be used for title or money transfers. While the Commonwealth Bank was able to freeze and recover 138K of the funds, 110K is still missing leaving Ms Venn in the lurch. PEXA has claimed to be taking action to secure the service.
While PEXA has claimed that their online system will be of benefit to lawyers, sellers, buyers and real estate agents, the reality of moving data out of offline systems to internet based servers may very well have just created the sweetest honeypot ever seen online in Australia.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:03AM (11 children)
The benefits of government outsourcing critical activities to a private company!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:08AM (10 children)
Private companies can do very good work, or very shoddy work. The difference is often in the contract.
If the aussies outsourced this WITHOUT an ironclad contract to prevent this sort of thing from happening, and to permit the contract to simply be cancelled outright should they fail to perform properly, then they should have expected this.
Unfortunately all too often these sorts of contracts are handed out as political plums and are intended to enrich the recipient rather than discharge the public interest.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:19AM (3 children)
I thought one would typically pick a company based on reputation, which seems like it shouldn't make a difference what the contract itself says. I've been under the impression that if you have to resort to examining the contract, both sides have already lost.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:26AM
Of course it's only due diligence to examine reputation and bear it in mind. But that's not enough. Reputation is a record of the past. You've heard of pump and dump? It's not just for stocks, it happens with reputation all the time. It's so common the accountants have a special name for it, it's called 'Goodwill' and you'll find it right there on the ledgers at most companies.
So the company that has no reputation may be looking to build goodwill, the company with a great reputation might just be ready to cash some in. Caveat emptor.
Regardless of the reputation, you always want an iron-clad contract spelling out what you require and giving you a viable path forward in the event the other party fails to deliver what is promised.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:41AM (1 child)
As someone who has negotiated contracts in past jobs (but I am not a lawyer), I take the view that contracts should be viewed primarily as the document that defines what happens when things go wrong. When two companies have an agreement on working together and things are going smoothly, no one really cares about what the contract says. It's only when there is a disagreement that the contract becomes important. Unfortunately, too many authors of contracts really don't understand this simple concept.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @07:28AM
Waiting. Watching. Waiting. Watching. Waiting. Watching. Waiting. Watching. Waiting. Watching. Grinning. The man got up.
***
Little Bobby happily waved goodbye to his friends and began walking home from school. As the boy was going home, he couldn't help but notice a creepy obese man sitting on a park bench; it seemed as though the man was staring at him intently. Bobby's fear of the man caused him to unconsciously walk faster, even as he tried to tell himself that it was all in his imagination. In fact, the boy was so anxious that he couldn't even look back to check if the man was still there. Bobby hurriedly got away from the park and out of the man's line of sight. Then, once he realized how far he had traveled, he sighed; finally, he could calm down. Just then, Bobby felt a pair of hands grab him. As the child looked up to see who it was, he saw the creepy man's face staring down at him; the word "abomination" came to mind. The last thing that little Bobby ever heard was the man screaming, "Galoop!"
***
"Junk. Junk. Junk. Oh, this looks interesting!" A man was pulling something out from the depths of a dumpster. While some would find it strange to see someone riffling through garbage, others would realize that many valuable treasures are discarded and waiting to be found by those who are bold enough to seek them out. This was the man's - Wilham the Adventurer's - favorite hobby: Dumpster diving. He just never knew what he would find next, which kept things exciting. Then, it came out.
Wilham had finally managed to pull out the object and began inspecting it. "Hm." the man muttered to himself. It appeared to be the brutalized corpse of a naked little boy. While this by itself was fairly mundane, Wilham decided to ascertain whether or not it could still be utilized. The man closely examined the body's anus and genitals for several seconds and appeared to be deep in thought. Suddenly, and without any warning, the man exclaimed, "Warped!" Following this, and while the taste still remained in his mouth, Wilham tossed the irreparable garbage aside and continued his search for usable treasure.
Little Bobby eventually rotted away and was all but forgotten, but at least he had been fully utilized.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:35AM (4 children)
I wish it would be that simple.
Being awarded a digital services contract by a government is a dangerous proposition most of the time - it creates a "de facto monopoly" commercial entity.
Someone says "commercial monopoly"? Where's the interest to give more than mediocre services, the money come anyway?
The money don't come because the contract is broken? Heh, they fill for liquidation and still keep your data captive (if you are lucky not to be wiped out in the process).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:12AM (3 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:22AM (2 children)
... or else?
Objectively, what can you do to them once they file for bankruptcy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Thursday July 05 2018, @07:10AM (1 child)
Accenture are the "Business Partner" running the Australian Electronic Health Record. Luckily, the data is (contractually required) to be held in Australian, on-shore data centres (main and back ups)
Property data has no such protection:
PEXA has moved their data onto AWS... techworld.com.au/article/643399/pexa-ascends-cloud
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @02:43PM
They are? OMFG Accidenture really suck. We are screwed :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @02:41AM
I work to support similar systems (in WA, rather than Vic) but this wasn't a PEXA or Government outsourcing issue; from TFA:
Basically PEXA did exactly what it's meant to do; it brokered the transfer of money from one account to another. The issue was that the Conveyancer (the company who organises the settlement and does the paperwork and running around on the buyers behalf) had weak email security, and their account was compromised. Imagine if someone had the keys to your GMail account and how many different things they could reset the password of?
This is shitty, celeb-world problems journalism; whilst the government is moving to more automation, what it means is that transfers, which used to take up to 30 days to occur, are now able to be processed in as little as 2, and at greatly reduced cost.