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UK Benefits Claimants Must Use Windows XP, IE6
First time accepted submitter carlypage3 writes "Benefits claimants in the UK are being forced to use Microsoft's now obsolete Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 software. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) states that its online forms are not compatible with Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10, Safari, Google Chrome or Firefox. As if that wasn't unnerving enough, the Gov.UK website says that users cannot submit claims using Mac OS X or Linux operating systems, either."
(Note: as we noted not long ago, it's not just the DWP that's stuck using IE6.)
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This actually makes perfect sense. On a modern PC it will involve the user learning about virtualisation (to run XP) and then also learning how to configure windows (to not run updates). This is great way of preparing dole claimants for an IT job so by the time you have gained enough skills to claim any dole money you have enough skills to go straight into a job as and IT support worker for the dole office and their crappy old IT systems.
I dont read
It wants its software bundle back.
Seriously, I suspect this is probably a conservative scheme to make it very difficult to apply for benefits. Someone should bring legal action post haste - but, of course, poor people cannot afford to do this.
This is just something they have put online, the old method of claiming by post or going to the office like always is still there.
...we even still have this problem. Seriously, stop being short sighted fuckwits. Stop using vendor specific code. Start using shit that passes the W3C validator. Problem fucking solved. Imagine that! There is absolutely no excuse for any webpage out there to require a specific browser or browser version, short of being able to meet current web standards.
Not many years ago in Denmark, they had that issue as well.
Even with the banks you had to use IE(some version), otherwise you just couldn't pay your bills.
I'd say they did us a favor, because it taught a lot of people to get "off the system" instead of being dependent on it.
The narrower your choice as a citizen becomes, the more need for freedom you'll have (Geez, I might want to hold back on the booze, starting to sound like Yoda here)...;)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Clearly if you can afford a new computer or have the skills to run Linux, you should be able to fend for yourself.
Yes, it's crap that applying for these benefits requires ancient browser tech, but note that this is for three specific benefits which will affect hardly anyone. The most common of these benefits, Disability Living Allowance, is closed to new applicants because it has been replaced by Personal Independence Payments. And Attendance Allowance was long ago replaced by DLA, now replaced by PIP except for those over 65.
A latent existence
The contractor should be fired and billed for an HTML5 replacement.
Department of ;)
Work -> most businesses still stick with XP; unemployed people can't afford anything newer
and
Pensions -> old people use old PC's or none at all
I bet it's on purpose. Currently the applicants are pulling benefits. But the only way to deal with their godforsaken malware-ridden childporn-routing spam-sending virus-infected backdoored Windows machines, is to install Linux. It's a nefarious plot, but it's a bulletproof way to train their lazy-ass benefits claimants into true Linux Sysadmins.
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Luckily I still use Windows ME.
Doesn't the magic compatibility mode work? If not better use XP in a VM (VMs don't need Linux installed; still got a Win2k Image I sometimes start up to play some old games)
any parting shot, lead developers give other people own lube, beve8age, Mopen platform,
That way your payments you dole out will really drop fast.
Can I claim the license for MS OS for me to be able to submit my claims ? I sure as hell wouldn't be able to afford to buy a new OS if I were visiting the benefits claim site ...!
From the article, these are the following supported browsers:
Microsoft Windows XP: Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3, Mozilla 1.7.7."
Firefox is still available (Windows link) and is fairly independent from the underlying OS, so it would probably work on Vista+/Mac/Linux too (If you can find Mac/Linux links).
Still a pain to have to pick and choose browsers. It is easier for the average person to use the offline version.
Even easier for the hacker to compromise such an outdated website and input their benefits claim directly into the database tables
(and already approved for their 10 fake identities of course).
A plot to show people that libertarians are on to something.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
along with every other unmentioned browser...
I have no job because of being chronically ill, only really capable of casual or freelance work.
I could replace all these stupid systems easily, and would do it for cheap (minimum wage cheap). Would I get the job? Fuck no.
I don't know what to call this, but it is probably related to irony or something, I just woke up pretty much.
The fact that a job company set up to help those with job management is unwilling to give people jobs to replace their ancient pyramid systems to the new hotness.
It boggles the mind. I also had a friend who worked in HRMC, got let go, then got a chance to come back, they actually seriously asked if he had any experience in such work. It is so stupid that a government is so broken. How the hell does Britain even wor- oh wait it doesn't work!
This is totally wrong, I completely agree with the header of this /. story. People don't even have to stand in line and face anybody to get money stolen by government from hard working people and from future generations via debt and inflation to get their 'benefits'?
Of-course there shouldn't be such a concept as government 'benefits' in the first place, but allowing the recipients just to claim this on line without having to come to any specific location, then using various high tech solutions to streamline using of the said benefits, so in USA the food stamps are now known as 'snap' and they are just a credit card, not actual stamps that one would have to take out of their pocket and have everybody in line know that they are being subsidized via government theft........ well, all I can say is that the sooner all of this socialism ends, the better. Why the fuck are the children and the unborn are forced to bear the weight of the economic destruction that their ridiculous ancestors place upon them? Why the fuck does any working individual, who is getting robbed by the mob this way, why is even one of them is still left in these socialist nightmares of countries? It's changing of-course.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
I went to the website using the Safari browser on MacOS X, and without any problems opened the PDF form (which supposedly cannot be opened), started filling it in, and printed it (to a PDF file to avoid wasting paper, but that's the same thing). So this works absolutely fine if you have a modern Mac running MacOS X 10.8 (I didn't try older versions), and you either have a printer, or you have the e-mail address of a friend who has a printer (on a Mac, the "Print" function lets you print to your own printer, to a PDF file, to a PDF file stored in "Web receipts" which is quite handy, or to a PDF file that is mailed somewhere). You put the paper into an envelope and mail it in. That's it. So if you want to get these benefits, there is absolutely no need to use Windows, Windows XP, or Internet Explorer 6.
Being in the UK and working in IT, I actually for once RTFA and visited the site. To start with I must admit I was flabbergasted. However, looking at it more closely, it is clear that what we are looking at here is a web-site that was created when the latest OSes and web browsers just didn't exist. Clearly someone has thought to insert the statement that you may have problems with these later OSes and web-browsers, so the site content can be tweaked, but the actual site itself (and the underlying architecture) was probably written years ago and left unchanged.
One give-away is that the site uses ASP (rather than ASP.NET). I doubt any new site has been written using ASP for over ten years! (ASP.NET came out in 2002).
So there we have it, an antique, a living fossil. Enjoy it while it is still up.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Customers didn't expect it, never wanted it. The upper management did. Bling. Makes them look like "their team" does great work because of their great leadership.
And Tony Blair not only had his nose up GWB's anus, but also was busy chowing down on the arse of Bill Gates. The dude was seriously star-struck.
If your computer is not ancient enough to have IE6/XP, you've obviously got too much money and must be a scrounger.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 is only just now obsolete? No, it has been obsolete since sometime around 2003 when Microsoft let it stagnate.
This is what happens when you put something "on the web" that doesn't need to be on it. It sounds like the user base for this is now small enough the people who need this should just contact them in person, or by telephone, or perhaps just good old pencil and paper.
But no, it has got to be "on the web", in a database, on a computer, with XML, and object oriented. And then they won't spend any money to update it to the constantly evolving/devolving changing rearranging web "standards", and then it just sits out there and rots.
There is still the option to send the forms by mail.
If you can afford a Mac, or a computer newer than XP, you don't need to be sucking off the public teat.
And if you're running Linux, you're probably living with your parents, anyway.
(*ducks*)
The website might say that Windows XP- and IE6- is required, but I successfully filled out a claim for my partner yesterday on Linux Mint 14 and the latest Chrome developer channel build.
The thing that amazes me is that the DWP has spent many millions on its IT system, yet:
- the benefit dispatch system is based on an ancient text-based terminal system dating as far back as at least 2000, if not earlier. I spoke to another engineer who worked on it some time ago, who said that the system is based on a combination of DOS and Netware. /8 - that they barely use a fraction of - at a time IPv4 addresses are scarce.
- the LMS front end is a completely seperate Delphi based system that has not been updated in at least a decade
- all their IT systems are completely seperate - updating the mainframe does not update LMS and vice versa
- last time I worked with the DWP, they sent updates between branches *by snail mail*, although I think this is no longer true
- it was one of the few parts of the GOV.UK overhaul left untouched, and
- they own a whole
That said I'm not at all surprised by this, seeing as much of the DWP is stuck in the Stone Age as far as computing is concerned. Many of the staff have no idea LibreOffice and Linux even exist. I'm not even going to go into the major clusterf**k that the Universal Credit system is inevitably going to end up being.
Let him hit you, then sue for everything he has.
Then add "pain and suffering" on top.
The corollary to Hanlon's razor is that stupidity and malice are indistinguishable -that's real life.
has anyone tried to use it? i just did im on Linux using firefox its just warns you it might not work but it does.
When Mosaic first came out with audio plugins... They explained quite clearly that you didn't want to define a "shell" program as a plugin --- as I recall "... you don't want to execute a script from just anybody..."
And Active X is just that.
I've worked in local government IT in the UK, it is a world of pain. My machine is a 1gb Pentium 4, it takes me 15 minutes to get to my e-mail from a cold boot. I mentioned why we are still using XP since it is EOL next year, I got the feeling it hadn't crossed anyone's mind. There are lot of old hats in UK government who are still working the same way they did 15 years ago.
In my current place I was shocked they don't use source control, and roll their own logging routines when there are better free libraries already out there. Everyone seems to do "daily checks" as if monitoring software hasn't been invented yet. The software that is bought in is even worse, it's tragic.
... and give people a vpc with ie6. Done.
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With the Opera web browser. Funny how many government websites tell me my browser is not support (Canada for exemple) and yet everything works perfectly fine. If your staff is too damn lazy to test their shits correctly instead of putting a useless message, you may need a new IT staff.
Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 purposefully comes with IE6 so you can use it for situations just like this if you need to. You can of course upgrade it to IE7/8 if you want to.
Also, All IEs after 6 can switch to 6's rendering engine using the IIE Dev Tools (IE7 requires them to be installed, IE8 and up bundles them) which may be sufficient to use the site.
Microsoft isn't even going to be supporting ie6 and winxp after this year.
IE 6 was designed to be unmigratable. No one disputes it, not even Microsoft. So the resulting years of monopolistic profit taking should be used to help develop software tools to migrate old html. If Microsoft did it on their own, everyone would praise them and say "it's the right thing to do".
Somebody should open an online virtualization service. It emulators XP/IE6 for you.
It's actually not that new hearing how an online submission / program can't be ran on Linux or Mac and needs IE to run. When I was in school there was this online software called "Angel", to spite the fact it was a horrible pile of a software to begin with, the company wouldn't even talk with you if weren't using Windows. You can tell a lot about a developer simply by looking at how the software they develop, web and desktop, works across all the major platforms, including the kind of support they deliver. Any company who makes a web based product and wants to tell me it needs browser X on OS Y to run gives me the vibe that they have some pretty junior developers on staff or some really lazy and brain dead ones. I don't think it's acceptable to in this day and age segment programs and the Operating Systems they run on.
We don't want to spend money of effort. YOU do all the work, and pay all the money, users.
The article and summary ignore the fact that the systems is obviously older than Windows XP at the least. They cannot guarantee it will work on anything newer. Like any website or system designed for an older system... This is not news.
It's amazing how in every country, governments are just a bunch of slackers. Get companies in to privatize them, make them profitable with a constrained set of products they can make money on to pay for their administration and weapons etc. They shouldn't even need taxes. They should have a free monopoly on a countries industrial raw materials only - oil natural gas,steel. For everything else they should have zero involvement in it. i.e:
Nothing gets made if the government doesn't allow companies to profit from making things, so the raw materials can't be too expensive.
The government itself isn't allowed to make anything.
The government should be forced to offer raw materials to all citizens in it's country for the same rate they have to pay themselves for them. If it's expensive for everyone else it's expensive for them too. If they pay themselves too far over the cost, the surplus money must go to the people (not just government). For countries that have no resources, they could have a monopoly over something else, like imported resources.
It was made with Siebel.
You know, the crap company that has kept all its customers back for a decade...
There's no reason you can't submit this stuff using 1999 style CGI with a handful of tags on the screen. A government benefits form does *NOT* have to look pretty. That's where all the incompatibility comes from. I bet I could solve their front-end problems very easily, and I don't really do web stuff. Would it look pretty? HELL NO! But it'd get the job done. For cryin' out loud, the DMV don't look pretty. If we took this mentality and lifted into "meat space", the DMV would have a frickin' koi pond, a fountain, a coffee shop with live jazz, and a buffet but you could only get your license if you drove in backwards.
In the oubliette.
Extra twist that I learned with the IRS' W-9 form. You fill that out on the version of Acrobat running on OS X you can't read all fields when viewed on the Acrobat version of Windows. Duh. So now I keep to versions of the W-9 now, one for Mac OS X (latest version) and one for Windows (XP, incidentally)
The whole site is built on Siebel E-Systems, an old CRM system, which generates the pages. Seibel is more or less defunct, having been acquired by Oracle.
The code is spectacularly version-specific. The error messages in Javascript code on the site indicate how tightly coupled this code is to very specific quirks of older software:
In the current stage of pushed cyberwar, to use and force to use such insecure systems (that even Microsoft recognizes it should give a hint) is so cute, just asking everyone to be part of something bigger ...like a botnet. That it be in a government site on which depends (and must visit) a lot of people makes it a nice target.
Doing it in a country where you can be sued for running a proxy adds a little spice.
Seriously, the ability to make a web form that only works in ancient technology must take more effort than to do it correctly.
Which is not going to stand you in good stead.
What if you only have an iPhone or an Android phone?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Seriously, I saw this last week, before the Inquirer got their mitts on it. It was debunked in the first comment.
"...you insensitive clod!"
Until only a couple of years ago, Workcover payments here in South Australia required IE5 on a Mac. When I had a bit of a crack at them over it the response was "for security and compatibility". Bah! Funnily enough, changing the user agent setting in Safari to fake IE5 got you through the whole system without any issues.
At my place of work, there was a months long requirements gathering stage in a project to build a one-size-fits-all knowledge base platform to replace the various ones that smaller groups were running and had been running for over a decade. When you look at the whole department we're probably 50% (and decreasing) Windows of various versions and 50% (and increasing) Mac and Linux on the desktop and laptop, not to mention the massive flood of various iOS and Android tablets and phones coming in through the doors.
... Sharepoint.
So, after carefully writing out some *mandatory* technical requirements, like:
- must be supported in popular browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE8+, Safari) running natively on Linux, Mac and Windows
- must support phones and tablets running iOS and Android.
- must not require the use of browser plugins
The project team went away and we got
I've never completed the training, because after the initial conversation that went:
project: "now, open up Internet Explorer"
me: "can I use Firefox or Chrome instead?"
project: "no, you must use Internet Explorer, it only works in that, is there a problem?"
me: closes up MacBook and walks out never to return
Needless to say, none of my team (0% Windows) and most other teams in the very areas where they want to gain the knowledge from (10% Windows) are able to store any kind of documentation in the new KB.
This should cut down on claims payouts.
Have gnu, will travel.
https://www.explore.ms
The http://www.dwp.gov.uk/eservice/ website appears to be way old! The source code says it was built 13 March 2006.
Did anyone check? I went to the DWP site using Windows 7 and Opera. The form comes up as a pdf and is easy to enter. Admittedly mine was only a trial and I did not complete it, but since it is a pdf one could always download it and complete it manually or using free software, if the online version really is limited.
What an incredibly inventive way of lowering the cost of the welfare state. Years ago, they just used to make the forms (that were printed on paper and available from post offices) so mind-numbingly tiresome to fill out (with a pen), that most people gave up half way through and embarked on a career of burglary instead.
This complaint is similar to what I discovered this week trying to get topographic map data on-line! The U.S. Geological Survey does allow the public to get topographic map data, which we are entitled to as taxpayers, but they are in a closed source format that is mostly only usable on Windows. There are non-opensource readers, but the format itself and most of its readers are not open source. So data that was paid for by taxpayers is not available unless you use a proprietary platform. I have written e-mail to the national HG in Reston Va., asking for JPG images of the sheets, come to think of it, they could probably supply decent reproductions in ghostscript. If that turns out to be possible. I will make a request to the Interior Committee of Congress to force USGS to publish its on-line versions of maps in ghostscript.
Again blame Penny-Wise but Pound Foolish in legislatures the world over for cumbersome procurement processes that are intended to prevent fraud but result in leaving most government agencies left in the dust as technology passes them by, often leaving critical operations reliant on broken or unsupportable platforms.
I worked for USGS from 1976 to 1983 and left primarily because I was tired to asking the agency, the Geologic Division, to adopt UNIX. When I started there they had a Honeywell mainframe running Multics, so I learned about regular expressions and what would become ex inside vi before I had access to UNIX, so that wasn't a total loss. The earthquake research people were getting UNIX by 1980, but the rest of the agency was resisting.
In Argentina, if you have to do taxes, you have to download a VB6 application for windows only, and use that to prepare a file. At least now you can upload the file to a site, but before (I mean just a few years ago) the way to go was write that file to a couple of 3.5" floppies and take it to kiosk in a bank to do the presentation.
This is because they are on Siebel 7.8.2.3. If they just installed the patch for 7.8.2.16, which includes support for all of this, then there would be no issue. The patch would only take a few hours of downtime so there's no excuse for this. These patches have been available for many years.
-CowboyNick