Computer Viruses Cripple Colorado DMV

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "The Denver Post has written the last three days (Tue, Wed, Thu) about how computer viruses have crippled the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicle's computers since last Friday. This has prevented them from issuing new/renewed licenses, so they are providing 30-day extension stickers. The 'dozen experts' have decided that 'fresh software' is the best way to remedy it - probably means re-installing Windows, but have they considered Linux? Colorado seems to be having its share of problems - today's article mentions the Zinc Whiskers issue several months ago that knocked the the Colorado secretary of state offline for a couple of weeks. And it could only get worse as the JPEG exploit starts showing up in the wild."

Comments

As a Coloradoan...

[Chagatai]

I've been listening to local radio where they have been talking about this issue for the past couple of days. Apparently, according to the talk show hosts and call-in experts, the real issue is in the system that transfers the licenses to a company in Oregon for print out. Up until a few years ago, Colorado was one of those states that would laminate driver's licenses on the spot, much like a high school ID. Somewhere along the line they decided that these cards could easily be faked, so they started sending them to a company in another part of the country to be produced a la credit cards with "more robust security". Data currently cannot make it to this production company, so the production of cards has been backlogged by as much as 30 days in some cases. Local law enforcement has been told to be lenient on people with expired licenses in recent days due to these problems.

Me? I'm just happy seeing my Colorado tax dollars at work.