Santa and Obamacare

They are both fairy tales. The difference being that one is slightly believable and the other is a government program that never had a chance of working.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing.
Tim

For more good stuff visit my primary website.

Follow Tim on twitter @tl1000rzx2

How a few geeks showed the government how to build a website.

One of the biggest problems with the healthcare.gov site has been the fact that folks need to sign-up, sign-in and fill out a long form before they can view the healthcare plans available. The complete failure of anyone involved in the government project to understand how to create a website is beyond belief. After spending more than $640 million taxpayer dollars we are still stuck with a flaming pile of dog excrement.

Of course the job could have been done better by someone with some true website savvy and a little bit of common sense. I am sure more than one computer geek out there has thought to themselves that they could have done a better job. It turns out that if you were one of those thinking those thoughts, you were absolutely right. You see, a few guys in California decided to do just that. Attention Kathleen Sibelius, someone has gone ahead and built a site that does what your government site should have done.

The folks who built the healthsherpa.com website did it in a matter of months not years. Sure it doesn’t have all the state exchange information on it (yet), but it does work for anyone normally using healthcare.gov. It gives you information on all the plans and the subsidies you may qualify for. In short, it shows you what you need to know, without requiring any personal information, before deciding on a healthcare plan. I tried the site using a zip code in a state where the Federal exchange site would be required and I got my information in about 30 seconds or less. It took only a few minutes to find a  plan and choose one. It appears that if you don’t qualify for any subsidies that you can just click the links and buy your insurance. I am not 100% certain that is the case because I didn’t go as far as purchasing a plan. If however that is the case, then you can avoid using the security hole riddled healthcare.gov website and you need not give the feds all your personal data. I intend to check on that with the website operators but even if you do have to use the healthcare.gov site in the end you would already be done with your shopping.

If you want to see how badly you are going to get screwed by the new Obamacare law I highly suggest you do your shopping on healthsherpa.com today. Then patiently wait for those morons in Washington, DC to fix the aforementioned flaming pile of dog excrement known as healthcare.gov.

I still recommend that no one use healthcare.gov for anything until such time as a third-party security firm checks the website front to back for security holes. I can’t imagine giving so many different agencies my personal information all through one transaction without a guarantee of proper security and a statement from the government telling me exactly how long and by who my data will remain stored.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing.

Tim

For more great stuff visit my primary website.

Follow Tim on twitter @tl1000rzx2

Thinking of signing up for Obamacare? Think again, security is a major issue.

If you have finally resigned yourself to signing up for the Affordable Healthcare Act via healthcare.gov, please think twice before you apply. Recent testimony in Congress has clearly pointed out the fact that security testing has either been non-existent or minimal at best. The folks who put this mess together can’t get the basics to work and they have shown little interest in protecting your security.

I have done a little research on this today and these are just a few excerpts from various sources on internet security. Lets start with what John McAfee had to say about healthcare.gov:

“Oh, it’s seriously bad. Somebody made a grave error, not in designing the program but in simply implementing the web aspect of it. For example, anybody can put up a web page and claim to be a broker for this system. There is no central place where I can go and say, OK, here are all the legitimate brokers, the examiners for all of the states, and pick and choose one. Instead, any hacker can put a website up, make it look extremely competitive, and because of the nature of the system — this is health care, after all — they can ask you the most intimate questions, and you’re freely going to answer them. What’s my Social Security number? My birth date? … Here’s the problem. It’s not something software can solve. I mean, what idiot put this system out there and did not create a central depository? There should be one website, run by the government, you go to that website and then you can click on all of the agencies. This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities… read more.

An article on healthcareitnews.com points out some valid concerns:

“Fred Chang, computer science professor at Southern Methodist University and former national security agency research director, was next to weigh in, emphasizing the fact that we can’t underestimate our cyber adversaries. 

Chang said within the first few weeks of launching HealthCare.gov, more than 700 mimic websites were set up. Hackers and cybercriminals will take advantage of the users who will undoubtedly mistype the website name or find it from a search engine. One of the biggest risks, he said, is from bogus websites. These criminals, he said, “will find seams in the system, will attack you in ways you won’t expect.” …read more.

Has the system already been hacked? It probably has, if not it soon will be. This following is from nakedsecurity.sophos.com:

Hackers have thrown about 16 attacks at the US’s HealthCare.gov website, a top US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official says.

According to CNN, Acting Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Roberta Stempfley of the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications says that the attacks, now under investigation, all failed.

Ms. Stempfley testified at a hearing of the House Homeland Security (HHS) Committee, saying that the attempts were made between 6 and 8 November, but that none were successful. …read more.

Reason.com also had some information on security issues related to the healthcare.gov website:

The first major issue is the lack of, and inability to conduct, an end to end security test on the production system. The number of contractors and absence of an apparent overall security lead indicates no one was in possession of a comprehensive, top down view of the full security posture. 3For a system dealing with what will be one of the largest collections of PII, and certain to be the target of malicious attacks and intrusions, the lack of a clearly defined and qualified security lead is inconsistent with accepted practices.

This is completely unacceptable from an industry perspective, and is in extreme contravention of security best practices. Only in the government could such a gaping hole be allowed to exist without fear of consequence. This shows a lack of understanding for the consequences to consumers and the protection of also creates massive opportunity for fraud, scams, deceptive trade practices, identity theft and more. Much of this is playing out right now. …read more.

It is ultimately up to you, the consumer to make a decision on your healthcare insurance. But if you value your personal information, the government’s flaming pile of dog excrement known as healthcare.gov is not the place that you should be sharing your personal information. Forget the politics, forget the costs, just concentrate on the fact that the government has built one of the least secure web sites on earth and that in all likelihood you will end up sharing all your information with someone who will not be looking out for your best interests.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing.

Tim

For more good stuff visit my primary website.

Follow Tim on twitter @tl1000rzx2

Spanish not spoken here (or please learn the damned language).

Sometimes it is the little things that bother me. Today it was just the thought of US Government and State government agencies insisting on putting documents in Spanish. I realize we have a rather large Spanish speaking population here in the USA but why does this particular group of immigrants get treated any differently than previously large groups of immigrants? I have no problem with folks speaking their native language but I also expect them to have the decency to at least attempt to learn the language of the country they have come to live in.

When the Italians and Germans and French came to the USA they learned English. Why? Because that was the language of their new home. The Romanians, Hungarians, Czechoslovakians and Polish all learned English. They didn’t ask to be treated differently and they certainly were not treated as special. That is not to say that local merchants and such shouldn’t cater to the population in their area but I draw the line at the government coddling new immigrants of one particular group who simply need to learn the language of the country in which they live.

If you were to move to Germany would you expect them to learn English, provide paperwork in english, etc. Of course you wouldn’t, you would learn the local language. The only paperwork our government should provide to aliens in their native language is a list of places where they can learn English. There should be no phone answering systems that say “press 2 for español”.

I would like to point out that I have absolutely nothing against anyone speaking Spanish or being an immigrant. I simply think that if you make a decision to move to another country you need to be willing to become a fully participating member of the local community and that includes speaking the language.

I have no intention of learning to speak Spanish, unless I decide to take a trip where it is spoken. In that case I will do the folks I am visiting the courtesy of at least attempting to learn the language. But until that time I can say for certain that there is no Spanish spoken here.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing.
Tim

For more good stuff check out my primary website.

Follow Tim on twitter @tl1000rzx2

How wacko conspiracy theories make us all look silly. FEMA Camps aren't real.

In today’s world of scandals and the government being totally out of control we sometimes get carried away with all sorts of stuff that just damages our cause of cutting big government down to size. Sure, we know that the NSA and CIA have consistently and probably illegally invade our privacy by monitoring a whole lot more than they should be. They are probably saving data for longer than they are supposed to and quite possibly violating the 4th amendment on a daily basis. So we know that stuff and while we are angry about it, we will simply have to wait until someone in Congress says that enough is enough. These are the type of things that we know are wrong and we can email and call our representatives and eventually get something done about it.

The problem occurs when folks start spouting about secret conspiracies that we really just don’t have any evidence of or that common sense and a bit of research tells us they are unlikely, we all look like a bunch of wackos. It only takes a single post or picture with a rumor about some agency being up to no good for the internet to explode with twitter, Facebook and Google+ traffic repeating the rumor.

Take for instance the supposed FEMA detention camps. Let us break down the rumor to what we really know. A logical place to start is with FEMA itself. The agency has about 7500 employees. Hardly enough to guard more than a few thousand folks. Besides that, most of those are desk-bound pencil pushers who make plans and write policy.  You can also check out their blog where you will find such interesting subjects as; Fires ,Floods, Preparedness, Tsunamis. Sorry, but not a single mention of detention camps. Now of course that is the public blog, perhaps they have a secret one for employees only. Although you really have a lot of faith in humanity if you believe that 7500 people can keep a secret.

Now moving on to other things we should investigate is where are these secret camps located? It is sort of difficult to hide a detention facility considering that no matter how many trees are about you still need roads and construction workers to build these things, not to mention the fact that you can pretty much view the entire country from satellite images. For those about to say, well they don’t let Google show those images, I would like to point out that you can look at Area 51 all day long and zoom in and get a very nice view of the facilities. You can also see the government’s secret (not so secret) communications facility in Pennsylvania at the Raven Rock location. Before I would start believing this stuff I would need to see images (pictures) of these places with some map locations.

The next item is where is the proof of these policies? Let us assume for a minute that such policies exist. The question that then comes to mind is how would they going about rounding folks up? The local police don’t have the manpower for such an effort and neither does the military for that matter. Both are ill-equipped to be in the detention business and once again where are the memos and policy notes on how this would be accomplished? It is far too easy to copy a memo or simply scan it to PDF and email it or remove it from the office via usb thumb-drive in today’s world (ask Edward Snowden if you need to know how easy it is). To believe that such a policy exists and that so many of your fellow countrymen would be complicit in its execution and secrecy is simply being naive about human nature and the general American contempt for authority.

The last item is transportation. To round-up thousands of folks and ship them off would demand the use of railroads. Trucks and buses would take a lifetime to move large numbers of people long distances. That of course would mean that these camps would have to be near a railroad line. That means… you guessed it, they would be easy to find.  So we are back to that question about where are these supposed camps?

In ending I can imagine some hard-core believers will say, “well don’t forget Nazi Germany and the Jews”. Well folks, that wasn’t a secret in Germany. People knew it was happening and because it wasn’t happening to the “germans” they just didn’t give a damn. Sure a few fought the system, but, by and large they lived in a 100% dictatorship where fighting the system was difficult because the citizenry wasn’t armed so they just looked the other way.

Lets concentrate on reducing the size of government and removing the long-term Washington, DC corruption club members of Congress. Lets keep better track of what our Congress is doing and stop them from doing anything that violates our rights. Lets shrink government and until the government starts passing laws to confiscate guns lets not waste our time on the detention camp myth.

For those who are still believers here is a site typical of those I looked at, along with the incorrect information they have published:

This one is called “The Location of Concentration Camps in America” Pretty scary title, but full of incorrect information such as;

• EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.  Simply not true, Executive order 10990 was signed by John F. Kennedy in February of 1962 and pertains to Reestablishment of the Federal Safety Council. Click here to read it.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.  Not at all true. This order, signed by John F. Kennedy in February 1962 pertains to assigning frequencies , “ which will satisfactorily serve the national security; sustain and contribute to the full development of world trade and commerce; strengthen the position and serve the best interests of the United States in negotiations with foreign nations; and permit maximum use of resources through better frequency management”. Click here to read it.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons. This one was signed by JFK also.While the title is accurate, the order itself isn’t very sinister. It has to do with the Postmaster being able to get your mail to you when you are relocated due to a disaster or a war. There isn’t anything scary about this one. Click here to read it.
• EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency….blah,blah (it goes on forever). Signed by Gerald Ford in June 1976 and none of what is stated previously is true. The order doesn’t even mention FEMA. Click here to read it.

I won’t even bother with the rest. Suffice to say that if you need to look up an executive order you can check it at the American Presidency Project. Virtually every site I looked up had similar information and links to other sites where the the information was just as incorrect.  I was unable to find any current images or exact locations of these mythical camps. (the one at the head of this article is a Japanese-American Internment camp from WWII).

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing.

Tim

For more good stuff visit my primary website.

Follow Tim on twitter @tl1000rzx2

It’s Sunday, time for a security check.

So here it is another Sunday morning and it is time to do those security log reviews. As usual I found a few folks attempting to do evil upon the server here. The list is about the same as usual. Most of the attacks come from China, but there are a few coming from Kansas and California. Most of these were folks or bots, attempting to run scripts to gain access to the WordPress blog here. A few were just repeated attempts to access the machine itself.

These are not a big deal to me, but they do point out the fact that I run a very small and not well-known server and yet there are still folks trying to break in. So that being said, can you imagine the number of hacks being attempted right now on healthcare.gov? We have heard that their security wasn’t tested and now we must all wonder what information is being compromised on a daily basis. A huge site like that will be a target for scammers looking for email addresses, financial data and information that most folks would rather not have sent out to the world.

Based on what I see looking at my logs on a daily basis, I wouldn’t register, log in to or give any information to the government at this stage. I strongly discourage everyone from signing up, lest they become a victim of what will probably become the biggest security breach in the history of the internet. Most folks don’t review their log files on their PC’s or tablets, mainly because their just isn’t a whole lot of logging on Windows computers and Android tablets. Their are of course firewalls but you can’t simply turn off all connections or the device becomes rather useless. The folks working on the healthcare website can’t even get us statistics on visitors and registrations, so how thorough do you think they are on security? They might get it fixed someday, but until they publish the results of some independent security testing I would suggest avoiding the site entirely.

And now without further interruption, here is the list of bad apples for this week, by IP and location.
36.248.47.164 China
218.6.70.198 China
142.54.184.142 Kansas, USA
220.250.61.231 China
216.99.159.114 Calif, USA
210.245.52.33 Vietnam
192.151.155.114 Kansas, USA
218.6.70.198 China
192.74.250.4 Calif, USA
192.187.109.90 Kansas, USA
110.86.69.79 China
120.37.230.57 China

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing,
Tim

For more good stuff visit my primary website.

follow Tim on twitter @tl1000rzx2