Hacker News Reader

Comment by hnfong | Hacker News Reader

Having a cert from a validated *.gov CA doesn’t seem that complicated, or at least, should be “just as complicated” as setting up properly TLs certs.

Getting the tech adopted might be difficult (like you say some judges may not see the point of it) but the PKI doesn’t have to be super complicated…

Having different authorities provide signatures for different types of documents may or may not be needed, in theory it is more secure, but just checking the domain name suffix should be a good start. And every tech literate person has a general idea how to tell “valid” domain names from phishing sites, so the scheme translates well

View on HN

> Having a cert from a validated *.gov CA doesn’t seem that complicated, or at least, should be “just as complicated” as setting up properly TLs certs.

You're not wrong, but you are overestimating the tech skill level of the average non techie.

I'm travelling right now, and a surprising fraction of restaurant websites here aren't https.

Yes, but we're talking about the judiciary here, not restaurants... Surely they'd have a minimal IT department...

You might hope so, but I have no reason to think they are magically more ept than anyone else.

I don't know much about the American ones, but the British ones are complaining about the ceilings falling down due to chronic underfunding of basic maintenance; getting the digital infrastructure right is probably lower down their wish list than ceilings that don't collapse:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/courtroom-shut-ceilin...

I pointed this out in a previous post elsewhere but there are places out there with little to no manpower, period.

https://www.wwnytv.com/2023/11/15/st-lawrence-county-struggl...

A single judge, and likely, a single court clerk, are the only people in many, many rural courthouses. And sometimes, that judge themselves might have been able to get into the job with one vote as a joke. Neither of them could have any IT support, just a couple laptops from the county if that to help them out.

These courts out there run a lot more on paper and fax and occasionally normal email (https is 'secure email' right? /s). They'd have zero clue what a CA even is, other than the Golden State.

>Surely they'd have a minimal IT department...

That is horrifically underfunded, so the pay is low, so the employees get poached all the time. I have a bit more insider information here than most as I had family that has worked in the court system and law enforcement 20+ years, and was good friends with IT at the county.

These counties are generally so busy fixing past problems there is zero time, budget, and manpower to implement new technology like you're talking about. Seriously recovering encrypted systems is a major part of their time. As to the poaching, the number one 'company' that poached good IT people in the county was the feds. They tend to pay a lot more, and they too are generally critically understaffed.

Most IT people simply don't want to work for county/state/fed at the end of the day because pay isn't great, and for that not great pay there are a lot of restrictions.

But you also assume they wouldn't give up using it due to frustration.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com