Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
evatr.bff-online.de
evatr.bff-online.de
For a government-to-business service, the overwhelming majority of legitimate transactions will occur during office hours and few people will be significantly inconvenienced by closing overnight. The risk of an attacker gaining even a few hours of brute-force insight is great, but the rewards from operating 24/7 slight.
While I'd like to be able to do my Companies House filings at 4am, I'm more keen to see my data protected.
The online interface to the Delaware Division of Corporations, for example, only processes certain filings during business hours.
Computer software can be pretty good at flagging activity that falls outside certain parameters, but it still isn't generally good at figuring out what the do about that.
Or maybe it's an instance of the "12:01" effect where they're scared to do anything too close to midnight. :-)
[0] In Boston proper, our street sweeping signs now say "12:01-2:00" or "2:01-4:00".
A lot of people in high school probably ignored their math teacher when he explained open/closed intervals.
Public services either close much earlier, or are 24/7.
Now that I consider this again, I was thinking of the wireless signal. I'll have to check whether the functionality also applies to the wired connections.
Here is another example from Germany: Certain TV shows are deemed not appropriate for kids of a certain age. This results in all broadcasters only being allowed to show them on TV at certain times. If a TV show is, for example, not appropriate for kids younger than twelve it can only be shown between 8pm and 6am.
The consortium of public broadcasters puts much of their content online, including TV shows with age limits. You can only watch those at certain times. Here is an example: http://mediathek.daserste.de/sendungen_a-z/602916_tatort/746... (the video should be blocked for another four hours and forty minutes after this link has been posted).
I’m not sure why the public broadcasters do that. The private broadcasters don’t seem to but maybe they just don’t put any content with age limits online.
Unfortunately, only between 2am and 12am, because not the entire world is in the CET timezone. 8-/
It’s still slightly funny that most kids in the world are theoretically able to view the videos at non-approved times. Will nobody think of the (non-CET) children!
Supposedly, because just having the server up does not require any manual labor, but accepting a payments constitutes trade, which is forbidden during Sabbath.
(Nevermind the fact that an institution which entire purpose is to assist those in need is the most non-accessible organization ever - from not having accessible entrances to buildings, to their payments gateway which supports IE only. Yes, IE is the ONLY browser officially supported).
To accept a payment from a Jew on sabbath would definitely be wrong. So an Israeli site, which can expect that Jews will use it, must shut down on the Sabbath.
Leaving the site running, but not accepting money is probably the compromise they made because a lot of Israelis are secular.
A human is not allowed to work on the sabbath, but your machines can, as long as they run automatically.
Interestingly work animals are also required to be given the day off.
The main thing that is not in the spirit of the sabbath is accepting payments, even if by the letter of the law it's allowed.
For example, even though you could leave a physical shop open and unstaffed, and let people (non-jews) buy using the honor system, it's not the right thing to do.
However, leaving the shop open, so people can take things without money, and then they settle later is OK.
Important Note:
With this interface you can confirm the validity of a foreign tax identification number (VAT) between 05:00 and 23:00 daily.
I think Companies House in the UK also does office hours for some of their databases.
As someone who sleeps weirdly it has annoyed me once or twice, though.
Maybe this is in fact an API that requires the manual intervention of a clerk? Or perhaps they have a policiy to shut down the office computers after office hours - in any case, a funny comment on Germany bureaucracy.
Example: http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=elwdagencylanding&L=4&L0...
No, I'm not joking. I discovered this trying to estimate my mom's benefit late one night.
Maybe these guys were CMU grads ;)
The Dutch Student grant organization (DUO) is also offline between 12 and 6 "to synchronize front and backend systems"
no, they don't save the order to execute it the next morning. they just print an error message and you have to enter your transfer order during opening hours.
it's only ironic because mbank is an internet only bank :)
What's more interesting, mbank uses the same backend for pl, cz and sk. I know that it works in cz and sk exactly the way it is supposed to do. Why is pl exception?