Shutdown Illustrates How Fast US Gov't Can Update Its Websites 77
An anonymous reader writes "Despite what we hear about how much the U.S. government is struggling with a website, it is reassuring that most of government entities can update their websites within a day after they are asked to. This conclusion is the result of research done by the Networking Systems Laboratory at the Computer Science Department of the University of Houston. The research team tracked government websites and their update times, and found that 96% of the websites were updated within 24 hours after President Obama signed HR 2775 into law, ending the Government shutdown. Worth noting that two websites took 8 days to update. It is interesting that the team was able to use the shutdown as an opportunity to study the efficiency of the IT departments of various parts of Government."
It's easier . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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As the federal government well knows by now.
If you always keep your expectations low WRT government, you'll always be pleasantly surprised. Or screwed.
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Building it is a lot harder than taking it down or destroying it.
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Healthcare.gov isn't just a website. And these "glitches" aren't just some bugs in some code.
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Especially if that "something new" has to tie in to other existing sites they didn't do and get info from them.
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The quick response isn't a reflection of how easy it is to change a page. It's a reflection of the millions of dollars government agencies have spent preparing for every potential shutdown over the past few years.
Long before the shutdown happened, government agencies stopped doing the people's work and instead started to prepare for a lapse in funding. Government inefficiency caused by the same people who are tasked with oversight to prevent wasteful spending.
The web sites were able to be turned on quickly,
what's so hard about mod_rewrite? (Score:3, Interesting)
The shutdown had been threatened for weeks. (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't it make the assumption that there was no lead time? The shutdown had been threatened for weeks.
Did the IT departments wait for the order to be signed before beginning any work on the updated sites or did they start the updates before the order was signed and then just flip the site over to the update version once the shutdown was confirmed?
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Doesn't it make the assumption that there was no lead time? The shutdown had been threatened for weeks. /em>
They probably have pre-developed a site to be displayed during the government shutdown, and a site to display during normal operation.
Some secretary inserts a little key at their desk, turns it, and the website changes to the shutdown version.
It's not that hard. (Score:4, Insightful)
mv index.html old_index.html ; mv no_longer_block_access_to_static_data.html index.html
The sites that blocked by DNS wouldn't have much more to do.
Re:It's not that hard. (Score:4, Informative)
Except most did it via DNS redirects. Many actually turned off the servers, so they weren't serving a "Gone Fishin'" page. They changed DNS to point over to usa.gov, which remained open and hosted the static pages.
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Except most did it via DNS redirects.
Which I cleverly mentioned in the second line.
Probably 1/2 to 1/3 of the data I was looking for during the shutdown was on sites that appeared to be still up, but either simply warned about the freshness of the data, or actually blocked it because of the "shutdown," or more accurately "shutdown theater."
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The bastards at NIST actually took most of the data offline. :-) Good thing I had most of it in my own private stash, which I've since updated to have all of the SPs.
Watch This! (Score:2)
"Due to federal shutdown, the information on this government website is not being maintained and may be out of date"
..and now THIS ("Nuthin' up the sleeve..")
.
PRESTO! It has disappeared!
Depends on what you mean by "Update" (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah, a real non event. Coming up later, Congress hosts the first "bring your butler to work" day.
Re:Depends on what you mean by "Update" (Score:5, Informative)
Should we expect it to take much time to post a new notice or change some text on the front page of a website?
Exactly. I am one of the government workers who 'shut down' our website.
/* for you manager types, I cannot serve up a web page if I have shut my web server down */
All I did was replace the index page and altered the security program to prevent working even if you still had a valid cookie.
It took me 30 seconds to log in (from home) and undo the fixes (and most of that time was spent logging in).
Shutdown means different things to different people. For the last shutdown, we were given two conflicting orders:
1. Turn off the web servers
2. Display a web page to visitors announcing we are shut down.
That isn't a problem of government; it is a problem of non-techie managers freaking out and trying to one-up each other.
I have seen similar things happen in private industry.
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Was there any technical reason why your website needed to be taken down?
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At some point most sites have some contact with a human individual, or the site generates reports on who has and hasn't paid taxes, fines etc. Since the individuals aren't there to react, then it is probably much easier to pull down the whole site than chop down those bits which won't function during the shutdown.
Re:Depends on what you mean by "Update" (Score:4, Insightful)
Tea *Party* members wanted only to delay Obamacare for a year until it actually worked. Now they look like geniuses.
The Republicans passed a number of budgets, any of which Democrats could have signed to avoid shutdown. So it's hardly the Tea Party having caused the shutdown; it was the vanity of Democrats insisting Obamacare not be touched even though it wasn't ready to launch anyway. If the Democrats had not been stuck on that one issue there would have been no shutdown.
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Tea *Party* members wanted only to delay Obamacare for a year until it actually worked. Now they look like geniuses.
Hmm... Define the word work please...
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You mean the thing they've been trying to destroy they honestly wanted to work? They were just looking out for Obama's best interests?
You do understand that implementing it NOW is getting the website in working order and the delay would have pushed the non-working website issue down the line? A very complex system that didn't go right is a separate issue -- and since Republicans and Tea Party members have not created anything in recent memory, I'm wondering why they think anyone believes that they pretended
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You mean the thing they've been trying to destroy they honestly wanted to work? They were just looking out for Obama's best interests?
Of course not - they wanted the delay to get more time to shut it down. Some of them even wanted the delay to protect the people who would lose insurance...
But the point is that the Democrats were so vain they were willing to shut down the government EVEN THOUGH IT WOULD HAVE HELPED OBAMACARE.
You do understand that implementing it NOW is getting the website in working order
W
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Wow, teabagger?! Where did you come up with something so original and creative! And my, such a mature thing to say! Boy, I wish I was even half as clever as you! My, you witty bastard! What's it like to be so clever! And it really is good that you can make such intelligent remarks without having to lower yourself so much as to making immature childish remarks!
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Wow, teabagger?! Where did you come up with something so original and creative!
Odd that you'd say that. "Teabagger" is distinctly not creative, and not original. It is the name of the members of the Tea Party. It is no more original than "Republican" or "Democrat"
Definitive or descriptive terms are seldom original. That'ts why they are definitive or descriptive terms. They've become an accepted part of the lexicon.
So ya done good - you realized that it was neither original or creative.
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Thought so. A big argument back then on Slashdot from those arguing it made sense to shut down government websites was that the servers were being actually powered down to conserve power - I knew that was bullshit.
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Didn't you read? The servers were *NOT* shut down. That's what the admin said - he just rendered the website unavailable. If the servers were down it wouldn't have been able to forward...
People on Slashdot claimed that's why the servers had to be shut down. Like so many other things liberals say, they were lying or totally wrong. But it doesn't matter what they said, only if they were believed at the time... it apparently worked on you.
you mean "shutdown" ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not hard to redirect to a static page. It's equivalent to turning out the lights before leaving the building.
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Oh, wait... what you said didnt actually respond to his point? Yeah.
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You realize that they set up the redirect pages ahead of time, right? Just like the guy who turns off the lights does it while still on the clock, before actually punching out.
It's kind of funny that you right-wingers were DEMANDING that we not pay our bills, but are simultaneously outraged that we would shut off some government services.
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You realize that they set up the redirect pages ahead of time, right? Just like the guy who turns off the lights does it while still on the clock, before actually punching out.
It's kind of funny that you right-wingers were DEMANDING that we not pay our bills, but are simultaneously outraged that we would shut off some government services.
Well you do have to kind of do some fancy maneuvering to never be wrong about anything.
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You seem to be missing the point. Nothing was shut off. For web pages, some pages were changed. Thats not shutting them off. For parks, people were hired to erect barriers to entry and thats not shutting them off either. So the bills keep coming in for a services that are only down "in spirit"
We could go on and on about this, with you continually needing to be intentionally vague and launching personal attacks....
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Were servers actually shut off? Domain names allowed to lapse? Anybody laid off? Bandwidth drastically reduced?
No? Then it was just shutdown theater, not shutdown.
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I think what he said did respond to the point. It's like turning out the lights on the way out.
Then again, maybe I'm just misunderstanding what GGP meant by a "real" shutdown, and I'm hoping he wasn't making a no true Scotsman fallacy.
Now, if the building were under attack from military hardware or in the direct path of an F5 tornado, then yes, I might raise an eyebrow at spending the time to put up a page that says, "Our building is about to be destroyed and has shut down."
It's just... you know... when yo
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Exactly.
The websites were intentionally changed to display a notice they had been "shutdown" . If they had been shutdown, no one would have seen a notice.
What's more, many important sites with automated data feeds that I access stayed up and pumping out data, meaning someone was still taking a measurement too as the process is not automated.
It was nothing more than both fracking parties trying to make the other guy look like an asshole at OUR expense and frustration.
Vote every single one of those pricks ou
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Vote every single one of those pricks out of office over the next two elections. The next president should meet a house and senate with no incumbents at all.
It feels good to say that but unless you force all of the lobbyists to be just as inexperienced as the incoming Congresspeople it could be a disaster.
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The real trick is to find people who can't be bought and convince them to run for office. Most Americans know that it's a thankless job in a corrupt culture where little can actually be accomplished. And anyone who is qualified for the job is smart enough to know that they don't want the job.
We could use a few more of those who, despite not wanting the job, are willing to take a term out of their private life for the greater good.
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Sometimes I think we'd be better off if Congress was selected by lottery from a list of registered voters. Yeah, we'd get some duds but at least they wouldn't be tied to their big campaign donors.
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Hunger Games: Congress Edition. Probably a good idea, actually. Until that one catastrophic group of complete idiots gets bamboozled by one powerful individual.
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Yeah, it's like lights out when the last employee leaves for the shutdown and to be surprised they all managed to switch the lights back on when they returned to work. Well, almost all.
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Not surprising. (Score:2)
Is it really all that surprising that well established web sites with well established update procedures are easily updated? A lot of it probably consists of collecting any updated information and running some script to update the web site. Someone is no doubt tasked with doing this as regular part of their job.
The private sector can do it faster (Score:4, Funny)
I noticed that within hours after the shutdown ended, foxnews.com was featuring stories about Benghazi again ("the questions Americans STILL want answers for!") using their rather large top headline font.
Stories about the shutdown/re-opening/GOP infighting were completely buried for days afterwards.
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Cause we all know the government would never ever lie to us about anything. Anyone who doubts this must have a low IQ.
Re:The private sector can do it faster (Score:4, Insightful)
Who said anything about this being unique to Obama? I think it is everyone's patriotic duty to question the "official" story being told by the Administration. If the Democrats had a little more testicular fortitude, maybe they would have questioned Bush administration's "intelligence" about WMDs in Iraq.
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This. So much this. Posting anonymously to vote up.
dumb comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a ridiculous comparison. The data are from two completely different proceedures, from a technical perspective.
Taking a functional government website, like say Astronomy Picture of the Day [nasa.gov]
To make it 'not work' all they have to do is whip up a basic "this site shutdown due to..." with a few HTML tags and its is "taken down due to the shutdown"
That's all...a few lines of HTML and a redirect!
Second, the criticism of the Obamacare website in the media is not representative of the ***ACTUALL*** technical problems.
Politics aside, the website problems were **routine IT work**...its not an excuse, but **management** is to blame for not scheduling testing with enough time before rollout...
So, this data is doubly unusuable...but it makes sense...
**of course** sites like Astronomy Picture of the Day were up in 24 hrs after the shutdown lifted!!!!! It just took a few lines of code!
thnx (Score:2)
glad you posted that...I'm a fan of APOD and I remember seeing that but couldn't locate it
It isn't a technical question (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a great misunderstanding in all these comments. The question isn't "How long does it take to change 3 lines of code", of course that only takes a few minutes. The question is: "How long does permission to change 3 lines of code take to wend its way through the agency from the Secretary to the contractor?" That typically takes weeks or months, but in this case was done quickly because no one between the Secretary and the coder thought to interfere. That is very unusual. Another question (not answered) is how long does it take for a request from the coder to the Secretary? Typically that would be "forever", which is why most things never get done. It would help if someone below the secretary were authorized to make a decision, but typically that isn't the case.
Bookmark this story to expose private sector lies (Score:2, Interesting)
A year ago we learned that a private company like Apple "for technical reasons" [slashdot.org] needed 14 days to update a page with a simple text message. They sought to delay complying with the UK court order that would expose lies that had hurt Samsung.
Government websites, despite exhibiting worst-of-the-worst bureaucracy known to all of us, now show a tangible "worst case" upper bound. Great! now we can point all private companies' lying lawyers to that and ask why the private sector is suddenly 7 times slower.
Silly study (Score:1)
All the had to do is do a redirect from all to a "sorry charlie" page via their load balancer or Akamai. Then simply undo it later. Why it's so easy EVEN a Windows guy could have done it.