Are you owed money by the IRS?

It would of been okay if it was a webpage on the user's side the looked up the information in a database and returned just the intended result.

This is really careless.
[text was edited by author 2003-10-30 19:08:44]

even a lookup is careless. I'd prefer a lookup and last 4 digits of your social or something, at least.

the govermment is online but is pretty far behind in many ways. The do not call registry was pretty awful in terms of security around adding oneself or removing oneself online as well.

I just hope no bright spark in government thinks that because these problems (of giving us access to our files online) are non-trivial to solve the easy solution is a national ID system. Banks seem to manage ok, take lessons from them.

said by justin:

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...bright spark in government...

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Whachu smokin', d00d?

Ain't no such thing!

said by CyberSchnook3:

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said by justin:

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...bright spark in government...

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Whachu smokin', d00d?

Ain't no such thing!

---

Bright spark, thats a joke!
You go to any gov't office in new york city and you got the most laziest, rudest people working behind the desk. Seems like the only way the gov't in nyc get things done is from the results of a death or tradegy and then the finger pointing starts. The list just shows how dumb people are in gov't,

1. There is no privacy.
2. There are thousands of "RODRIGUEZ" living in the city, causing tons of 311 calls to the city.
3. Most of people in nyc dont even read english.

This is where my tax money is going to incompetent lazy workers.

If govt didn't want to pay for MS SQL then just use a MYSQL dbase and have all the names in a db. I would just put in my name, last name and zipcode and if nothing came up then no biggie. Atleast i would require those info. Or even a phone #. Why so lame XLS file.

Dude apparently didn't want to put that much work into that. Easier for him just to put it on the server and then watch the sh*t hit the fan.

come on, it would of taken justin, me or any other experienced web developer 5 minute to code a look up.

That's you, justin, or another experienced developer, not the guy who said in his head, "I'll just upload it to my server, and then everybody can see it!"

What about privacy? Just common sense. Recall that person.

..We have some person just putting stuff "up there" without thinking twice about it. Whats next?

Although I don't see any other people doing the same, it does raise an interesting point about how "private" our information is and how the people handling such information can spill the beans without any repercussions internally(yet).

[text was edited by author 2003-10-30 19:23:08]

Hehe, uncle Joe owes $30 and cousin Tom owes $100!

A similar idea well implemented, can be found here www.cashdash.net. It is SQL and ASP, though.
/begin sarcasm
Why spend all that money when you can just put it in a "little" 'ol Excel file.
/end sarcasm

Clueless this boy.

No motorcycles on the street between 9 and 6? That means night workers who can not afford a car have to use public trans vice their MCs.

I am glad he is not my senator considering what his list of "accomplishments" are.

he apparently lives just a few street away from me in brooklyn! I had no clue, just saw that now in his "for kids" page. Whoops. Sorry Chuck.

said by RayW:

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Clueless this boy.

No motorcycles on the street between 9 and 6? That means night workers who can not afford a car have to use public trans vice their MCs.

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I don't want to paint with a broad brush, but everyone I know who has a motorcycle also has a car, albeit some beat up piece of trash cars.

The error you get when you visit this URL does not inspire confidence either:

»www.schumer.senate.gov/S ··· Website/

Awwww, come on - you said you wanted security - seems 500 is pretty secure
[text was edited by author 2003-10-30 20:20:25]

I don't get that.
I get "Server Error", and "This server has encountered an internal error which prevents it from fulfilling your request. The most likely cause is a misconfiguration. Please ask the administrator to look for messages in the server's error log."

Yep........same error message here!

The page cannot be displayed
There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

Open the www.schumer.senate.gov home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Refresh button, or try again later.

Click Search to look for information on the Internet.
You can also see a list of related sites.

HTTP 500 - Internal server error
Internet Explorer

Schumer is the same guy whose oblivious to the inherent problems and flaws in his "Do Not Spam" registry, so technical cluelessness I suppose doesn't surprise me.....

said by justin:

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The error you get when you visit this URL does not inspire confidence either:

»www.schumer.senate.gov/S ··· Website/

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Try this then:

»www.schumer.senate.gov/

I remember from doing volunteer work for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, I designed a very slick lookup database where you can search for Natural Areas by name or number.

Everyone in the department loved it and thought it needed to be on the website asap for the public to enjoy, as it's public domain in paper form. However the state govt has a contract with Oracle and any database project must use Oracle. This required approving IT funding and blah blah.

Long story short, yes it was careless to post all this info in an Excel file but he may have been forced into such action as the only way to get the information published without going through 6 months of approval processes.

Government Bureaucracy @ work.

I worked for a member of the House of Representatives for more than six years (was webmaster for some period of that time including a buch of other titles as tends to be the case in D.C.) and this has been done EVERY YEAR since at least 1996. Why is it newsworthy now?

Here's how it happens. The Congressional liaison from the IRS sends an e-mail to the staffer handling tax issues for the Member of Congress or Senator with the information attached. As best I can remember, it has always come in a huge excel file. They ask that the Member/Senator distribute the information as they see fit and perhaps send out a press release (pre-prepared by the IRS, of course).

Don't blame Senator Schumer for this one . . . every Member of Congress gets the same stuff from the IRS with a polite request to post the info online. Some do, some choose not to. For what it's worth, the file I had to deal with was relatively small as the State was on the smaller side. I generally took the time to convert the info into a table or a text file.

Lastly, please keep in mind that these are people that the IRS cannot locate. Most state and local tax authorities do this as well except they publish it in the major local newspaper. For once, the IRS is trying to be proactive and let people know they are due money (generally small amounts, but not always).

FYI, very few Congressman/Senators have a professional webmaster. There really aren't any funds for it. Most dedicate a tech savvy staff member to do the web work or rely on the House or Senate Information Systems office to maintain the sites. Either way, there is no full-time webmaster handling any of these sites.

If you want to point fingers at anybody, blame the IRS for not sending the file over in something more acceptable for the web!!

[text was edited by author 2003-10-30 20:42:09]

well it is news now because e-privacy is a bit more of an issue than it was. That plus, who the hell wants to download a 1.5mb file just to check for one name? And, that they are doing it the same way for six years, if true, indicates to me that there has been zero progress in this area. Isn't that news?

Okay, I'll give you the progress point . . . they haven't made much in that area.

As for the e-privacy issue, I must disagree. It is no different than any PUBLIC listing printed in any newspaper. You haven't paid your property taxes?? It will be published in the newspaper along with the amount you owe, your home address, and your last name (in almost all states, that's the process). You are owed money from the state? It will be published in a local newspaper in a massive listing with a case number, your complete legal name, and (sometimes) last known address. Is that a violation of your privacy too? Is it okay to print it in the newspaper and not online?

I know it doesn't pass the current day smell test, but the government must make some effort to reach you.

If the government is prepared to make an effort to contact people they should be prepared to set an example in terms of privacy as well. A grad student could have written an interface to this data in about an hour that was decent enough (and saved a ridiculous download).

A company could easily take this list of names, match it to public databases, and spam tax prep services help, or who knows what else, to everyone on the list. How much credibility has the government when on the one hand it sues an e-commerce operation for leaking data, and on the other, provides a list of 17000 names in digital form (which is much easier to abuse than a newspaper listing of names) without a blink when it could so easily have been done better.

"this is the way it is always done" is not a good defense. If they can't write a website, don't, stick with advertising a toll free number at the IRS you can ring (there must BE one of those).

Lets see a list of those that OWE the government!

I don't know of a large enough hard drive for that...

said by bokamba:

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I don't know of a large enough hard drive for that...

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I do. Western Digital has some pretty large IDE hard drives now. Just get a hard drive array. You can easily own a few terabytes for under $3,000.

Wow! Can you provide a link? I'm quite curious to hear about those.

New Jersey has two lists available on its website. One corproate and one individual of the top 100 dead beat taxpayers in the state.

Most states' unclaimed property units publish lists of names and last known addresses in the newspaper. Also, you can search some state lists online.

There is the interesting issue of public records being too accessible online. For example, most court records are public. A state can legally post them all online, searchable by name, dob and social. Hours of entertainment reading up on your neighbor's divorce.

Technically the records were already public, but there is a difference between having to go to the courthouse and search and being able to look it up instantly on your PC.

For years, banks in New York State are required to place a public notice in the newspapers of the names of people who have unclaimed money. The only difference is that the good Senator is using the web.

OK, no one really believes Chucky did this on his own, do you? Surely he just told one of his staffers, "put this list on my web site."