[lurking_swe]

> The civil servant developers working on them do what they can, but they have been warming management, who have warned government, that they systems are insecure, but govt won't spend money on updating them.

Makes sense. So if i’m understanding this right, the fault basically lies with the decision maker(s) in government who said “nope, not worth paying $x to secure/maintain our systems”

Sounds to me like they shouldn’t be allowed to create these public facing systems in the first place if they can’t afford (or don’t want to) maintain them. no?

That would be like paying someone to build a bridge for you and then deciding to purposely ignore maintenance on the bridge when the experts warn you it needs maintenance.

[netdevphoenix]

> Sounds to me like they shouldn’t be allowed to create these public facing systems in the first place if they can’t afford (or don’t want to) maintain them. no?

Have you ever worked in a government job? This is a common reality in those kind of roles. Reality doesn't neatly fit into: "I have enough money to build this thing I desperately need" and "I have enough money to maintain this properly" and "I have enough budget to run the country well enough not to get kicked out of the job"

[lurking_swe]

i have not worked a government job. My father did, in civil engineering in NYC.

In his discipline at least, the government _certainly__ found the money to maintain critical infrastructure. Bridges were routinely painted. Inspected for cracks. The works.

When NYC’s aging water tunnels (providing tap water from upstate NY) were in major disrepair and engineers warned of the damage, guess what happened? They got the funding to build a replacement bypass tunnel to ensure NYC was not impacted. A multi-decade project scheduled to be completed very shortly. They planned ahead. They didn’t ignore the issue and then pretend they couldn’t have predicted this would happen (lol).

From what I can tell, the ONLY reason the same care isn’t given to our IT systems is because the decision makers in charge don’t care. Am i wrong?

I agree that reality is not simple. It’s unfortunate. :(