Yeah, I noted that too (either the UK or the US versions of it, and probably any NATO force could have done the same[1]).
Different form of incompetence, though. Almost certainly ".ml" was (perhaps multuple times, but historically) typoed into contact lists/target address variables.
I'm going to hazard a guess that the PSNI error was one individual working with the private spreadsheet(s) on the internal opendata request handling system, totalled up the relevent subtotals in line with the request, assigned the task record to a colleague/superior with his "answer" and the documents attached with the comment suggesting it could be checked before release. Maybe it was checked, but it was certainly published without removing the "auxilliary" attachments. Really, should be set up with clear eventual-public and strictly role-based internal and private fields, in any such system, where the source data can be there for internal record/review but nevee in danger of being sent to whatever CMS front-end they must have sent both the "There are ### employees, of whom ### are officers, ### are administrative, ... etc" bit
and the 'internal evidence' for the figure. So easy to do, if you haven't (so easily... well, a SMOP) already anticipated the error. Which is essentially a human error, but should not be considered a
single human error, but a series of them because some form of answer-auditing surely takes place when an organisation such as them has an official information-passing department.
If it's just two, or one, person in a cubby-hole at the far end of some room with 'business centre' vibes, then they're probably overloaded with all the various disparatw data processing needs they must be lumbered with. If it was an intern, let loose on the request (and the means to publish it) to not bother more experienced workers, then it's a managerial failure through and through to not keep tabs on their ability to do it right.
My experience on the edge (supporting) a data-heavy business, and even modifying the databases (good old LotusNotes, practically vbScript+database... and the far more deadpan but internally powerful Statistical Analysis System software which I didn't use so much myself) suggests to me where a
proper setup should have been able to prevent this, but I imagine there was actually more emails being forwarded, replied to, CC:ed to those too much outside the internal processes to appreciate that "Yes, please publish this" didn't mean to include the attached document(s) as well as whatever summary temp.employee.number596
@psni.pol.uk had just compiled and had corrected for misused punctuation.
...I prevaricate. I can make errors as much as the next person. I could tell you tales of how I
lost (i.e. deleted/formatted) data, more than gave it away, so don't get me wrong. But this sort of thing is surely a very obvious lesson already prelearnt well before it became this total security breakdown. Even if only with easily available passwording of all spreadsheets by default. Which would have also helped with the 'lost' laptop, simultaneously mentioned, with much less data on it, but accompanied with a force-issue radio handset which I
hope was remotely scrambled or caused all other similar units to be re-encoded to make it useless.
(Me? Have a (semi-/previously-)professional opinion on any of this? ...what makes you think that?
I mean, technically I
was paid to think about such things. Though, in hindsight, not as much as I perhaps should have been. 'Nuff said. And now I'm imagining all the things everyone is imagining I just meant by that. And how you're then mostly wrong, or the wrong sort of mundane...
)
[1] Two letters==ccTLD per nation; three letters==gTLD by function[2]; more than three letters is the latest ICANN mess[3] in which Amazon (.amazon, .aws, .bot, .talk, and many others I can't remember) isn't even the biggest 'offender' in this regard. I know it could escape a glance/be easily typoed[5], but ".mus" could have handled ".museum" and ".xxx" means we (or at least those that may use it) don't need ".adult" as well to confuse matters.
[2] And, in .mil, .edu, .gov etc should perhaps be considered US (c.f. ".mod.uk", ".ac.uk"/".sch.uk" and ".gov.uk"), certainly the .mil and .gov[4] (supposedly) entirely restricted to US interests.
[3] I have no problem with internationalised versions into non-Latin codepages (perhaps with an equivalent (ab)brevity if possible) but... rampant commercialism has the tail wagging the dog, making a subtle system into a monstrous chimera. When's the last time you used (or saw) a .dating address. Or .mba. Or .ooo(
), .pink, .rodeo, .skin, ...? (Highly specific interests, especially if you decide you need to register beneath
all of those, for branding reasons.) Do we
really need a .vodka domain?
[4] Hmm, luckily safer as there's no .go, .gv or .ov; .gu is Guam (US), .gi Gibraltar (UK), but the likes of .gw/.gy could be missed by eye almost as easily as mil=>ml can be, with any additional transliteration on top of that adds to the tyop-induced error.
[5] If only they'd initially thought of "graycode-spacing" all the abbreviations in establishing or cribbing from the orignating ISO, so that a single error of
any kind never changes one valid thing into another valid thing. But you'd probably need to have started with 3+ letters to differentiate every nation (with compromises that some nations might be left with unintuitive .abbrvs (or dialect/local-lingo-based ones[6]) because of other nations - Niger and Nigeria for example (.ne and .ng, as is; .ni is nicuragua, of course)
[6] Ok, so we're all fairly familiar with .ch, .cz, .za, etc, and know why .ki cannot have been .ci like you'd perhaps guess.
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Topic: United Kingdom Bunker Thread - Politics & Economics (Read 47047 times)