Right wing cyber attacks on Healthcare.gov website confirmed

[jtuck004]

12. What a waste of time, for more than one reason. First, you can't put a computer on the Internet

today without it being immediately scanned and/or attacked. What is in that article is a very minimal portion of what goes on out there every single day, and any site not designed to account for it would have to be running on a site like "JImmy Joe's Web Hosting and Bait Sales", or at least by people completely ignorant of computer work in this decade. The stuff above is mostly for show, busy work for politicians and others who know nothing about how things really work. The odds that it has any effect on the site at all is probably nill. (Just FYI, there is a whole secret network, classified, behind doors you will never see behind, run by the military, that routes the government stuff, staffed by some of the best network security folks in the world, and they are VERY, VERY good at what they do. The people discussed in this article would have no chance of having the slightest impact on the network they protect, one which is hit by hundreds of attacks from sophisticated, intelligent criminals and curiosity seekers EVERY DAY.) In other words the coverage in the article is mostly sensationalist b.s. Those packets would have been dropped before they ever got there, because it would not have been left up to the project managers responsible for this screwed up implementation. And if they aren't protecting this one, one would have to ask why not?).

Note that any computer on the will see a scan, likely in less than a minute from the time they first hook to the Internet. Leave it on unprotected a few hours and it is almost certain that, if it is a Windows machine, it will be not only compromised but probably used to take part in attacks on others. (Not something you want to test without experience and precautions, btw. Because YOU might be held liable for putting an unprotected machine out there). The majority of the attacks come from overseas, a bit from inside the country. Anyone stupid enough to pick up these alleged tools and run them probably doesn't have the sophistication to realize they are committing a Federal offense, and nowhere near the knowledge to hide their attack, so they might as well put a big sign on their door saying "come arrest me, I'm a big dumbass".

Second, the site is a big pile of steaming shit, so what's the point? It doesn't work without their "attacks", laughable as they are, so why risk committing Federal crimes?

Third, unless things change, it appears that 5 times as many people who were previously uninsurable or are elderly are signing up, and unless that trend undergoes a real and sudden reversal, we should remember that the rates are based on a completely opposite prediction of many more younger, healthier people paying in. If this group, which happens to be suffering from some real unemployment issues - among others at the moment - doesn't jump up and start signing up in droves by the deadline, (which may happen, sure, but the preliminary numbers say it hasn't so far) then those who have already signed up will find their premiums increasing, perhaps a lot. (This possibility was foreseen, which is why there is no upper cap on premiums, just a 10% cap on the amount they can be raised in a year without asking permission. Then again, who is going to deny them permission when they say they will have to close their doors and go bankrupt because the costs are too high?)

If that happens it might just might push us into Medicare for all. With any luck.