Morph3ous’s Weblog

This is old news. The only reason that I am posting it is because it has to do with the contractor who is handling the improperly programmed People First Employment Portal.

Offshore outsourcing cited in Florida data leak
Employees who worked for the state during the 18-month period between Jan. 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004, may be affected, according to an e-mail message sent to all state employees on March 16. The state’s Department of Management Services (DMS), which oversees the People First system, estimates that 108,000 current and former state employees may be affected by the data breach, although that estimate could change as the department’s investigation into the matter continues.

The e-mail was sent after a subcontractor of outsourcing service provider Convergys Corp. improperly allowed subcontractors in India to index state personnel files, said DMS spokeswoman Tiffany Koenigkramer. The offshoring was done as part of Convergys’s nine-year, $350 million contract to manage the state’s personnel work.

This looks not to be Convergys Corp’s fault. The simple to remedy problem with the People First Portal; however, is their fault. I emailed them to no avail.

Tropical Storm Ernesto spared us. I think that this is partially due to the mountainous regions of Cuba. Regardless, things worked out for the best. This was a test of my hurricane preparedness. How would I rate my preparedness?

Food and Water: 10
Flood-proofing: 6
Deep Cycle Battery / Solar Supplemental Power System: 5
Generator Supplies: 8
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Today I have spent most of the day making preparations for Tropical Storm Ernesto, and the unlikely possibility that it becomes a hurricane.

To find out more about the storm visit the National Hurricane Center (NHC) part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

If you live in the state of Florida, it is best to be prepared for the storm even if it turns out to be a minor one. Your preparations should definitely be done by 5PM EST on this Tuesday, August 9th of 2006.

I had come to the conclusion that pirating software was not at all in my best interests quite some time ago. I just found Vixenk.net’s post
Why Should I Use Free Software as Opposed to Pirating Non-free Software. The author lays down the argument against pirating software far more eloquently than I could have. She also provides a list to some free programs that are very useful.

This site got dugg yesterday in response to my post about the State of Florida’s People First job portal shutting out alternate browsers. The post rose to the front page of Digg and remained there for several hours. It continued to be included in the rss feed after it was no longer on the front page.

The changes that I implemented in my SuEXEC, Fastcgi and cPanel post handled the high traffic generated by Digg with ease and the site remained pretty responsive throughout.

I hope that the 8,000+ people who read the post , and the many who were kind enough to leave comments will show the State that it is indeed an important issue. It is an issue easily fixed.

Thank you Digg users for helping to bring this issue to the public light.

I followed the the advice of a user of digg, Sillywampa, on Digg’s entry about my earlier post on Florida’s People First Job Portal and emailled PeopleFirst@dms.myflorida.com about this issue. Here is what I wrote:
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Hans Verkuil, the developer behind ivtv, thinks that he may have found the source of the DMA problems that some have been experiencing. From the mailing list:
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Found this from:Hugg / The American Voting System: HACKED

Watch this video, and I think that you too will be convinced that we need to have a paper trail in our elections. Not even just a paper trail that is printed out at the end of the day at each polling station. We need to have each voting machine print our vote in front of our very own eyes. We then need to be able to confirm that the information is indeed correct, and then place it in a locked ballot box.

I remember the first time that I used one of those machines I remarked to one of my friends how I did not trust them. This is coming from someone who has been working in IT all my life. Now my friend knows that I was not just being paranoid!

Update: I wrote a post about an email I sent to the State of Florida and the response I received. This was suggested by Sillywampa on Digg. Thanks Sillywampa for the email address.

The State of Florida’s People First job portal is still running an outdated script that locks out users of alternative browsers from applying to state jobs. The only supported browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
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I just found the solution for a problem that I have been having. When visiting Youtube, I was not getting sound on any of the videos. The Flash video and no sound on OSX at fredericiana had the solution.

Thanks fredericiana!