Safe Speed Forums

As from 2005, All vehicles M.O.T test is recorded on a central database.

This means no more idiots, with dodgy M.O.T certificates.

Should have a positive impact with road safety.

Would like to see them do the same with Insurance, this really would be the icing on the cake, and remove the uninsured drivers, from our roads.

_________________
Steve

I thinnk the insurance CDB must exist already too. A friend of mine at work says it is now possible to apply for RFL on-line, based on your (CDB) record of MOT and insurance.

Not yet, they still have not completed the PC delivery to all M.O.T stations, which is being provided FREE by the DFT.

They have to get the Insurance procedures sorted out first, as we are still able to take out multi coverage Insurance cover.

_________________
Steve

Don't you believe it. Nothing to stop someone turning a blind eye to faults for a few quid. The MOT certificate says that it does not certify the roadworthyness of the car.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Oh yes!

Hang on...

What's that I see out of the window?

Is it a bird? is it a plane?

Nope it's a flying pig!

If it's on a database then it must be OK. I mean car cloning never happens does it because registrations are on a database..

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

whats to stop the software being leeched off the computers (lets be fair how many dodgy looking M.O.T centres have you been to in your time), network settings cloned (dial up number, password etc), and Joe Bloggs sticking on his PC at home whilst with a small bit of googling setting his internet connection up anonymously and running his own racketering setup, he would be even more likley to get away with it if he managed to get the username/passwords of say 10 different places and randomly abused each one periodicly.

You're right. They often tell us that these systems are "secure", but I've been past the security in 10 minutes flat on occasion.

One of my friends just had £7,000 fradulently removed from his Internet bank account. Computer security? There's ALWAYS a way around it.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The more "secure" a system is believed to be the more difficlult it will be to prove wrong doing. Wait till the first time you prove you did NOT make that chip and pin transaction...

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Are computer based systems a useless fad? Should we roll things back to the previous paper based systems because they were cheaper, easier to implement and offered better security? Why on earth would businesses spend millions on these things when they don’t work? Or are computer based systems immensely more efficient and more accurate and up to date than old paper based ones? Do they free up workers from repetitive, manual administration tasks, and do they make things that were previously impossible a simple reality, e.g. settling things over the Internet or making a mobile phone call?

_________________
I stole this .sig

No. None of the above.

But NEVER implement a new technical system because it will prevent fraud. It NEVER works.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Should the target be the total elimination of all fraud? That seems a difficult requirement to levy on any system, including computerised ones. Should we implement a new technical system if it prevents some fraud?

_________________
I stole this .sig

I think there are excellent reasons for new technical systems, like efficiency, service, and so on.

I think refining technical systems can reduce fraud.

But these leaps to new systems based on the idea of fraud prevention always seem to fail.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

One of the problems with IT solutions is the lack of faith many people still have in them. During the late 1980s the MOD began work on a new computer system that was to subsume all of its others and add more facilities to boot. It was the IT equivalent of trying to plan a manned lunar landing in the aftermath of WW1 - the task was just too enormous.
It was eventually slimmed down and rolled out in 1997, and dealt with aircraft maintenance records and asset tracking - in short, a large database.
It was at this point the second problem emerged - lack of ICT literacy amongst staff expected to use the blinkin' thing. The UNIX interface was a complete mystery to most computer sploobs, and even the front-end training did little to alleviate the situation. It was eventually ported to Windows NT.
The third, and possibly most crucial problem, was a lack of faith in the system. Everyone ended up keeping two sets of records, paper based ones as backups, and the IT based ones, doubling the workload.
But that was then. Now that the database is being populated with data, managers, faced with (say) an unusual fault, can query the database and extract useful pointers on previous occurences.
So, as basingwerk points out, eventually IT systems can be made to work, we just need to have a little faith in them.

Away back in the late '70's, one of the benefits touted by the developers of CD's to the record industry was that the high initial cost of setting up the disc production plants would be a deterrant to music piracy.

The problem is not usually technical ability. The main obstacles to success in a computerisation programme are political, i.e. poor understanding of requirements, and resistance to change. You identified both in the MOD project. Poor understanding of requirements is a particular problem in government programmes, because of their large scope and timescales, the propensity for budget holders to change their minds as the political landscape changes, and the lack of business imperatives in a public service environment. A project to hold centralised records for MOT tests has limited complexity because the requirements are quite well known. It has low impact if it fails, because a paper receipt could be generated and any judge would agree that the test itself is more important than the record keeping. It would also have a good social impact by reducing fraud and safety related benefits. I assume some cost benefits would result due to reduce administration, so the MOT process is a good candidate for computerisation. I’m surprised is hasn’t already been done.

_________________
I stole this .sig

Being a Computer Engineer I know what can be done to computer systems and what can`t, the problem with publicly funded and run computer systems is the fact that the software is made be the LOWEST BIDDER that can offer them what they need, this leads to old fashioned software, poorly programmed software and dubiously secured systems, updates of the software then cost money, as the lowest bidder milks the cash cow for all it can get, so more often than not what may be considererd minor bugs by one person will be overlooked.

If a company as large as Microsoft can`t stop, hackers, pirates, exploiters with there virtually unlimited budget then what hope does a public institution have when trying to implement security?

See why some of us have little or no faith in publicly funded computer systems?

The past problems were stolen M.O.T certifcates.

These may have been issued by the MOT station on a back hander.

However the new system will mean the M.O.T station will actually issue a certificate as a receipt and log the pass via the PC. This makes the M.O.T station liable.

Which M.O.T station in their right mind would supply an M.O.T cert for a vehicle not road worthy. A vehicle would only need to be in an accident and the garage responsible would be for the high jump.

I cannot see, that any garage would see it worth the risk at any price.

Government Web sites are alot more secure than people believe

_________________
Steve

Actually, you have mixed RigPig's response with mine. While you paint a pretty bleak picture of you own profession, it is not an unfamiliar one. Yet some publicly funded systems are the largest and best in the world. So what gives? There is a temptation to judge computer systems in the same way as traditional engineering, but that is almost fruitless because it always shows that the computer is crap yet invaluable!?! Something is clearly different. For one thing, a much larger degree of trust between stakeholders is required because of the shear complexity of the function points in a large system. And, of course, trust and security are not naturally complementary! A large computer system is the most complicated thing in the world that people can make, so it is no surprise that they often fail – hard things are hard to do. But the MOT project is not pushing any speed scalability frontiers, as there are only on average 40 tests per minute, but there would be copious amounts of data, I'll admit, probably in the terabyte range, so a good sized DBMS would be needed to store all that stuff, and a good backup robot as well. But that is not rocket science (any more). If the political will is there, it can be done.



That’s a good point. With all due respect to Microsoft (Bill Gates does much good work for charity), I would not be tempted to host such a system on a Microsoft server. This is a job for Unix, although the clients might work on MS PCs.

_________________
I stole this .sig

May be so but their databases are often full of errors.

I read a report following someone being refused credit because of a non-existant criminal record that 30% of criminal conviction data has errors on it...


Crap in = crap out

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills