The Government said it would be too difficult and expensive to upgrade its software and departments from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 to a more sophisticated and secure web browser.
The admission came after more than 6,000 people signed up to a online petition on a government website urging the Prime Minister to encourage government departments to upgrade from IE6.
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And you wonder why there are so many losses of personal data????
The UK Government is looking at reducing the cost of the public sector, I think maybe their IT staff who give this sort of advice could be a good starting point!! To not update the security of government held data by not securing your browser, on a dumbness scale is really up there with the best..or worst of them. What do they pay their IT staff, for if not to look after assets in the best way possible?
Installing and setting up IE8 on a 6 year old XP computer takes about thirty minutes. I'll agree it could take some time and money to do on every government computer in the country, but it shouldn't be that hard to do over a six month period.
I think what they're getting at is their custom applications and sites and such that are designed with IE 6 in mind and break when used in newer browsers. However, they have to upgrade eventually because they can't stay on the same thing forever and ever. Internet Explorer 6 was fine when it was released in 2001 but this is 2010, it's time to move on. When even Microsoft is telling you to move on from its own old browser, that should signal something.
There is a cost and in fact, some companies we support here at work require IE 6 for some of their Oracle processing but the fact is, an upgrade needs to be made eventually. As XP and IE 6 get older and older, they're going to become more and more vulnerable and upgrades need to be made sooner rather than later to avoid data loss and corruption. But alas, it's like talking to deaf ears when dealing with these type of people as it's mostly bean counters that make these decisions.
Well Consider that in Washington of all places, there were a ton of open WIFI connections all over the place.
When it comes to Gov. of any kind, nothing surprises me. Nothing.
What am I missing in the "too expensive" part of this?
Are the newer browsers not all free? (IE8,Chrome, Firefox take your pick)
Not only that but less than a minute to DL and install.
I understand the cost of an IT, but this doesn't seem needed. I mean, is this not something any user could easily do at any time.
I'm obviously missing something here.
How hard is it do click Down Load now, and then Run the app.
