SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the time-to-stash-some-cash-and-buy-extra-popcorn dept.
Six of the eight border IT systems viewed as critical for a no-deal Brexit are at risk of failure, compounded by their reliance on each other and the fact delivery partners aren't ready.
[...] The report, prepared before Prime Minister Theresa May said she would allow Parliament to vote on a possible delay, treats 29 March 2019 as Brexit day – but it is clear some of the issues won't be resolved by a delay of just weeks.
The NAO said that six of the eight IT systems ranked as most critical for no deal by the cross-government Border Delivery Group are "at risk of not being delivered to time and to acceptable quality".
These include Defra's Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System (IPAFFS) and Automatic Licence Verification System (ALVS), both of which have their IT components listed as amber-red, and HMRC's CHIEF (Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight), which is ranked as amber.
[*] Linked story was dated 2019-02-28, so it's this month. --Ed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:07PM (3 children)
Things would go smoother if England just invaded and subjugated Europe. Rommel did it once, just follow his example. DO NOT follow Hitler's example, and invade Russia!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:15PM
He invaded Russia too.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:21PM
Sounds suspiciously like what a paid Russian shill would say on SoylentNews!!
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Monday March 04 2019, @12:27AM
It was Rome that invaded England, not Rommel. Might work though, the Italians could come in and offer decent cooking instead of meat-and-three-veg and mushy peas, build a wall up north to keep the Caledonians out, and Bob's your uncle. Or at least Berto's your uncle after the invasion.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:15PM (2 children)
That was my original understanding of what a "cluster fuck" was:
Octel had at first three Sun 3/280 servers, then I installed a fourth. For the truly ignorant reason that the build tools didn't know to check for read()/write() error codes all three then four boxes were hard mounted on each other.
Hilarity Ensued on a Damn near continuous basis.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:19PM (1 child)
And nobody under 60 has any idea why this is funny.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:09PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:21PM (22 children)
And even then, the chance of a second referendum threatens to nix it altogether.
The people voted wrong.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:50PM
The people have changed their mind having seen how shit brexit really is.
If the people haven't changed their mind, then the result will be the same as before - 17 million will vote to remove the rights of 65 million.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:51PM (10 children)
That's what the rulers say when people decide against rulers' plans. Then the referendum is tried again, until the desired result is achieved.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:00PM (9 children)
It's the traditional rulers of the UK who are pushing so hard for Brexit, as it suits their needs.
With the help of Rupert Murdoch, and his upper class Tory friends, Brexit is being imposed on the UK, despite it being a disaster.
Do you wonder why some many of the hard-line Brexiteers are moving their principle residence to France? (Or Monaco where the taxes are so low). Or, of course doing what Mr. Dyson has done, and moved their entire business to Singapore after telling everyone how great Brexit would be for Britain.
Has anyone figured out where that extra £245 per week is coming from yet?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:09PM
Whoops, I meant £245 million per week.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 04 2019, @11:36PM (7 children)
And those "traditional rulers" would be? Are the lizard people becoming disenchanted with the EU?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 05 2019, @12:22AM (6 children)
The ruling class. Take a quick look at the backgrounds of the typical Tory cabinet member.
They went to a prep school, a public school, and Oxbridge, just like their father, and his father before him.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 05 2019, @06:21PM (5 children)
I also took a look at previous Brexit-opposed ministries. They were "ruling class"-heavy too.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 05 2019, @07:51PM (4 children)
You've misunderstood what ministry means in terms of the UK government then.
Yeah, well, that's kind of what ruling class means.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 05 2019, @08:11PM (2 children)
Of course, I though you were referring to the cabinet. But what do the actual, real-world ministries have to do with your entertaining story? I'm not seeing a lot of evidence to support the claim that they backed Brexit.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 05 2019, @09:49PM (1 child)
In the UK a Ministry is the politically neutral government department, staffed by career public servants.
I checked my previous comments, and can see no point where I asserted the civil service have been pro or anti brexit.
Several cabinet members however have resigned due to their views on brexit, for various reasons. Google Jacob Reese-Mogg for example.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 05 2019, @11:44PM
[...]
[...]
[...]
Whatever. Most ministers in the previous administration were anti-Brexit and they were ruling class as well. And most ministries have stayed the same no matter what talking heads are around.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 05 2019, @08:11PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:55PM (7 children)
The people always vote wrong:
- The choices of society presented to them always end up profiting megarich tax evader fuckers.
- The candidates they get to vote for are always the same critters, whose sole real job it is to do the bidding of the aforementioned megarich tax evading fuckers - and get high on power while they're at it.
In the end, the people always lose. It's just that for some reason, they never seem to realize it: they keep hoping, believing, voting, getting disappointed, then hoping again, believing again, and voting again for the same sumbitches who disappointed them before.
I'll never understand why people think voting is so important. Voting is exactly like pushing those fake crosswalk and elevator buttons [nytimes.com]: you think you've done something, but the outcome has nothing to do with it. Voting is part of the theater that keeps the populace from revolting against the megarich fuckers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:04PM (3 children)
The history of human civilization is a millenia long struggle of ordinary people trying to escape subjugation by powerful people. It's the eternal struggle - the 2 political sides broadly represent the two forces. Go back to every point in history and rulers are crushing little people. In the long game, things have improved for the little people. Government itself is a taming of the absolute power of monarchs. Some want to get rid of govt. I wonder who?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:03PM
Libertarians?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @12:02PM
If you think there's only two sides in politics you've already been subjugated, and it's best if you not vote at all. Please?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 04 2019, @11:38PM
Except when it isn't, of course. For a notable historical example, the government of Joseph Stalin did a remarkably poor job of taming Uncle Joe's homicidal paranoia.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Monday March 04 2019, @11:21AM
> The people always vote wrong:
Speak for yourself...
Study history some. Try wikipedia for "Glorious Revolution", "Great Reform Act", "Suffragettes Movement", "Great Strike" for a mix of democratic and non-democratic reform in UK. If the current generations are too indolent to manage the powers that be, then they deserve the powers that be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @07:10PM
income taxes are for idiots, cowards, traitors and sellouts. which are you?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 05 2019, @11:46PM
Yes, it's too bad that being wealthier, longer lived, freer, etc world-wide doesn't count as winning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:56PM
Br-egg-sit now! [sky.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:59PM
Maybe the people were 'voting' under the mis-influence of gleeful state players.....
The sh!t flieth in close formation over England. Shall Arthur arise, or turn back ridiculed by the general populace?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fennec on Sunday March 03 2019, @09:57PM (3 children)
If Brexit happens and those systems are not ready, what will happen? Things will continue as usual for a while as it was before Brexit and maybe some tax money won't be collected? Looks like Y2K...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:06PM
Past March 29, brexit will be renamed broverstayingyourwelcome.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:11PM
If the sensitively-tuned border protection systems malfunction, millions more jihadi Muslims will enter Britain and the whole country will become a no-go zone like Burmingham.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:58PM
The former means the UK has a transition period, so it's business as usual for a while to allow for "proper" trade deals to be hammered out. In otherwords, for the UK to get screwed over by the larger economic powers of the EU et al, as is normal for trade agreements unless you happen to have that special detachment from the way things work many Brexiteers seem to suffer from. viz. the US' great deal [cnn.com] of "accept our chlorinated chicken, hormone fed beef, and don't do a deal with China, or else!"
In the event of hard exit, e.g. to WTO defaults, the UK would be required to use these systems to control the import/export of goods, people, and services. If they can't do that, then (in theory at least) the goods, people, and services involved should not cross the border - in either direction. In practice, there's likely to be a fudge and some of the old systems will be forced to meet the new requirements, albeit probably with extensive delays due to having to undertake additional manual checks and paperwork. I'd expect a lot of lorries parked up around ports like Dover and Calais, and at least some shortages of goods, especially perishables that are not going to be fit for sale when they finally make it to market.
In practice though, it's almost certainly not going to matter because that rattling sound you can hear is the Brexit can being kicked down the road by the Conservative government by just enough additional months to hopefully allow those systems to be ready. Can't be too long a delay though, because that might allow Labour, the rest of the opposition, and at least some of the Tory Remainers to get a successful vote for a second referendum, now that Corbyn has finally decided to stop kicking his can down the road.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:23PM
Found on the net, a brexit sum up.
and the king said to their servant: this wood for warming up the castle costs too much, next year we burn our own instead, we got enough in our territory, so get it cut.
and the servant, who had been given some extra money from the wood seller to burn more than necessary, was sad, but smart, so he told the wood seller that the contract was over, but it would probably be renewed and secured some wood at a good price
so as the new winter approached the servant gave incoherent instructions to the workers, so that some wood was cut, and then left in the rain, and then cut some more, and so on
so winter came and servant said: we couldn't raise wood because your workers are inept and our wood is not very good, are you sure you want to try warming up the castle with that?
and the king sighed and said no, let's use the normal wood
the day after, after they unloaded the wood, the servant told the king "unfortunately the price has doubled because the seller had not any wood prepared for us"
and they all lived happily ever after
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:38PM (1 child)
"A country that cannot control it's border IT is no country at all!! Build the Firewall! Winter is coming!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:46PM
Pictures or it didn't happen [foxnews.com] and then he went on to water the gate.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:08PM (2 children)
More sats, woooooohoooooo
UK ends Galileo talks, says it will explore a homegrown alternative [spacenews.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday March 04 2019, @04:46AM (1 child)
well, there go most of those theoretical savings..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday March 04 2019, @08:56AM
It does, however, go onto a steadily growing list of other costs to the economy that will be incurred because of Brexit. Last time I totted all those up that I was already aware of and could find with a few simple Google searches (I'm sure there are lots of others I missed) it came to about 15 years of the money we pay into the EU taking the subsidy into account, but not including what we get back in project funding and other benefits, tangible or otherwise. That was several months ago though, and I'm sure the list is considerably longer now more things have had time to creep out of the woodwork. That tally also did not even attempt to take into account and gains/losses individual businesses might see from Brexit either as those are likely to remain unknowable until they actually bite, even if we did know what the exit terms are going to be. At this point it feels like Brexit is not so much "Give me liberty, or give me death!" as "Give me liberty (from Brussels/Strasbourg, not from Westminster) and decades of austerity!"
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by jb on Monday March 04 2019, @03:28AM (1 child)
This seems like a complete non-problem.
If "hard Brexit' means revert all customs & immigration regulation to its pre-1979 state, with no new concessions (which is what I *think* it means), why not just resurrect all the relevant systems that HMG were running in '79?
As an added bonus, just about all 70s (and earlier) vintage mainframes & minis on which that lot ran can now be emulated accurately (and faster than the original big iron) on cheap commodity hardware, consuming only a tiny fraction of the electricity. That should represent a substantial cost saving.
These of course are all systems that should be totally isolated from the Internet (if GB doesn't want EU compromising its borders, then surely it doesn't want J. Random Hacker doing so either?), so of course there'll be a capital cost in re-establishing all the private WANs that got torn down over the last couple of decades, but that should be a drop in the ocean compared to the cost savings in operations.
As a further bonus, bringing all the surviving systems managers, operators & maintenance programmers of that era out of retirement to run the resurrected systems would help solve the pension crisis and bring in a bunch of extra income tax revenue too.
Why pass up such a golden opportunity?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday March 04 2019, @05:02AM
except even countries with 'hard' borders have IT links to other countries. Without these links, all the stuff that happens at borders (good an bad) gets far far slower..
Interpol alerts, revoked passports, visa validation..etc etc.
Your gift christmas cake may go off before you make it through Customs and Immigration..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday March 04 2019, @11:41AM (1 child)
While many intelligent commentators are bemoaning the woeful state of British politics with regard to the Brexit issue, few are pointing out that in a representative democracy such as the UK, the electorate are responsible for putting the politicians in power. Leaving the EU will have consequences for the UK, some bad, and no doubt some good, that will be felt for several generations.
I can't think, offhand, of any world-dominating powers that have had two bites of the cherry (feel free to give examples), so I am resigned to the likelihood of the future history of the UK resembling more and more that of Portugal (a country with which the UK (as successor to England) has what could well be the oldest alliance still in force in the world [wikipedia.org]). Portugal went from having a huge empire [wikipedia.org] to being one of the poorer countries in Europe in 1960 (Portuguese GDP per capita was at 38% of the average of Northern and Central European countries in 1960 [1] [wikipedia.org]). The UK has a way yet to drop, but with the electorate choosing the governments they do, I am sure a similarly poor GDP per capita compared to the European average can be achieved.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 04 2019, @11:59PM
China, Egypt, and India have historically. France had a couple chances in recent centuries (king of France almost inherited the crown of Spain at the beginning of the 18th century), and a century later under Napoleon.
My view is that a better goal would be a strong economic and democratic system which encourages entrepreneurship and business creation and growth. The EU did some things right, but it's really a lost opportunity right now.
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday March 04 2019, @02:42PM
So many Dems said, "oh, we don't need Wall -- put in camera, put in Drone, put in the modern digital." And some of them, incredibly, said Wall is IMMORAL! Well, walls work. And walls never ever fail. Cyber, you look at it funny and it stops working. You call the repair guy, guy shows up, the cyber is working again. He pushes the buttons, he does the spray, you pay him, he drives off in the little van. And your cyber is kaput again. Failing. It's no way to run a Border. Because it doesn't keep out the drug "mules." Doesn't keep out the human traffickers. And doesn't keep out the terrorists (Irish). Barrier does. We're building ours very quickly. But, very strong and beautiful!!! pic.twitter.com/TYkj3KRdOC [t.co]