The trouble with transparency - CADO version #nlpoli

"How do you deal with a government computer system that is hopelessly out of date it wants you to 'update' your Internet browser to a version that is actually three version older than the one you are using?"

That would be the online search for the government registry of deeds, companies, and lobbyists.  The thing was already ancient in 2009 when SRBP first wrote about it. The thing was nine years old then. These days it is around 16 years old and is still chugging along.

Someone else took a poke at the database by asking for an electronic copy of the record through the access to information law. In addition to requesting the data,  the person offered an observation that the database wasn't truly access as required under the access law because the software was so old:  "I am of the opinion that these records are not truly available to the public. Currently a user must access this database online using Internet Explorer 7, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, and leaves the end user vulnerable to malware spyware. I doubt Ministers would be permitted to use IE7 at Confederation Building due to the threat of digital exploits. The CADO system built by x-wave is incredibly outdated."

Government website still POS

It’s July 19, 2010 and while the Department of Government Services has updated its website design, the whole thing is still aimed at browsers which no longer exist.

Now if you manage to find a browser that this antiquated website will recognise, stand by for an even bigger yuck.  The site was designed to work best with Internet Explorer 5.5 set to a screen resolution of 800 X 600.

Your humble e-scribbler last pointed this embarrassment out in July 2009.

- srbp -

Another OCIO triumph

How do you deal with a government computer system that is hopelessly out of date it wants you to “update” your Internet browser to a version that is actually three version older than the one you are using?

You don’t really.

You just shake your head and laugh.

This picture is the screen that appears when you try and access some provincial government websites.  In this case, it’s the lobbyist registry set up after 2004.

Note the dates:

“Copyright 2000”

“Last updated January 12, 2003”… that is the year before the lobbyist registry bill passed the House of Assembly and long before the bill was even thought of.

The version of Firefox that screen appeared on is 3.0.12.

The government computer won’t let that higher version to access the registry because supposedly it doesn’t meet the minimum “security and compatibility requirements.”

The truth is the Firefox version currently in use by your humble e-scribbler exceeds the security requirements but in order to use it, the version it will accept is two full iterations old.

The alternatives are no better. 

There are still lots of people out there using Internet Explorer 6, but more and more of us users have upgraded to version 8.

Netscape Navigator was last updated in 2007.  The only thing you can get these days is an archive for it. That last iteration was version 9 which, as you can see, is two full iterations beyond the current government-supported version.

What about Chrome?

You get the same silly blocking screen recommending you use antiquated software.

The Office of the Chief Information Officer is the giant bureaucracy created by the current administration to manage all provincial government computing services.  The thing has been a pretty spectacular  - and expensive - failure, at least when it comes to ensuring the public face of government is functioning at something reasonably approaching modernity. 

This mess at the lobbyist registry website is a case in point. Incidentally, the companies registry is no better.  The only thing it will accept is IE.

So what’s a body to do? 

Try Internet Explorer.  For some inexplicable reason, the OCIO system still supports IE no matter version you are using.

One suspects, therefore, that security isn’t really the issue.  Rather the issue is likely that giant , expensive unwieldy bureaucracy cannot deliver what it should be delivering to government and especially to the public.

Running into this little annoyance time and again makes you wonder, though, if the current hardware standard throughout government is a 286 hooked to a dot matrix printer.

Oh.

One last thing.

That contact link at the top of the page people are supposed to use if you download the old browsers and still can’t get through?  it takes you to a list of telephone numbers that are only available during government working hours.

There’s no e-mail contact address at all, anywhere.

Welcome to the 21st century, courtesy of the provincial government.

-srbp-