COMMUTER COMPUTER GAMES

As the new Development Services Coordinator climbs behind the wheel of their fully serviced, mid-range shire vehicle they will have the absolute latest advance in in-car infotainment- the use of their own personal commuter. 

It is a must have- to go with the Bose speakers, leather trim and hands- free mobile phone.

Hang on! Let us rewind here. Commuter means someone who travels to and from a destination, usually from home to their place of work and back, by plane, train and automobile which can include bus, taxi and Uber.

The Development Services Coordinator will already be a commuter as soon as he or she starts to drive so they already have commuter use- so the vehicle comes with commuter use anyway.

Now you would think that senior Shire of York management, who are paid a fortune to get things right when they write anything would actually know the difference between a commuter and a computer.

You would also think if a mistake has been made in an official advertisement, featuring the shire insignia, for and on behalf of the Shire of York ratepayers, they would have enough pride in themselves to rectify that mistake?

No- not yet.

Maybe it would cost too much to change a word, maybe they just do not care when they make even small mistakes on your behalf or maybe they are going to use the vehicle as a Taxi after office hours

& HACKING.

However- the Shire of York may have a far larger problem on their hands than typographical errors.

It appears that a Confidential- Review Remittance document, flagged as being For Your Eyes only, has been transmitted to an unknown number of recipients, delivered from the Shire of York’s computer system, complete with a memorandum apparently sourced from Carly Rundle -Senior Planning Officer from planning@york.wa.gov.au

The text says ‘Carly Rundle has sent you a Remittance to review and sign’.

Remittance means sending money in payment or as a gift.

If you are game enough to try and open the Docsigned PDF to collect or send your remittance- it is 114.44 Kilobytes, which is reasonably large when you consider that the average email is just 10 Kilobytes.

Given that this remittance could be regarding an unknown number of private business planning proposals there is the potential for a shitstorm of private and confidential, commercially sensitive information to be bobbing around in the ether.

The Review Document tells the viewer “not to share this email, link or access code with others” yet the Shire of York may well have no-idea to whom and how many times it has been sent.

It gets worse- with a promotional blurb saying that the Digital Transaction Management platform apparently used by the shire is safe, secure and legally binding- and used across the globe’.

It would be hard to argue that it is safe and secure and legally binding is a real worry.

So you have a commuter that is actually a computer and a private & confidential local government computer system holding the important records of numerous ratepayers which appears to have been hacked. And, unfortunately, the number of recipients certainly does not appear to be confined to the Shire of York Planning Department’s email list.

In a recent article in the Sunday Times the Shire of York was described as an ‘often troubled organization’.  Maybe they got that right.

David Taylor.