How techies can help in the pandemic
Data and bill relief would keep vital lines open — and won’t be forgotten
Physical distancing notwithstanding, we still need to pull together and support each other as the pandemic gets worse. This includes techies and the companies they work at — and run. It’s good to see that some tech companies have taken initiatives that will genuinely help, such as paying casual workers as campuses empty due to staffers working from home.
Other welcome moves include United States internet providers not cutting off customers who get behind with their bills, and Optus in Australia’s smaller gesture of adding a one-off data volume increase for some mobile subscribers next month, to help them working from home.
Bumping up data caps and not cutting off customers is a start, because it’s vital people have internet access and smartphones can be kept active in the current crisis.
We’re talking about the most vital and often only communications channels people have after all.
New Zealand providers haven’t announced anything similar to support their customers yet, which is surprising as it would be highly appreciated and remembered for a long time to come.
People will notice too. Across the Tasman, the spotlight is beginning to fall on NBN Co, the national broadband wholesaler, as people will load up the access network by working from home in large numbers.
Unlike the New Zealand UFB equivalent, NBN Co charges retail internet providers for virtual circuits. This can get very expensive so internet providers try not to buy more CVC capacity than they estimate they need.
The CVC charging has been a bone of contention when things were more or less normal, and network usage was light during the working day.
In the Covid-19 pandemic it just looks ugly and dumb not to drop or remove CVC charges to help internet providers give customers more capacity that they badly need when working from home.
On a more active note there’s very important and urgent work to be done by techies. As we’ve seen since the Covid-19 pandemic started, phishers, scammers and ransomware criminals are exploiting the emergency, causing serious damage.
Last week, computer systems at the University Hospital in the Czech Republic city of Brno were hit in an unspecified internet-borne attack which saw some scheduled operations being postponed.
It looks like Czech police and the country’s Computer Emergency Response Team were able to get the systems back up and running quickly. The hospital is where the coronavirus tests for the Czech Republic are processed and you can fill in the blanks here to figure out what might have happened had services not been restored.
Attacking hospitals is scumbag behaviour which is sadly made easier by healthcare organisations not having enough money to refresh old tech with new gear that’s more secure and kept up to date.
This is a delicate and complex problem that requires a thoughtful approach, but, if healthcare organisations ask for it, IT companies and security vendors should run not walk to their assistance.
New hardware, software, cloud consultancy and systems maintenance; whatever is needed, provide it if asked and do so for free. Some free legal help is required here too, to deal with indemnity, privacy and similar sensitive issues and it would be good if tech lawyers stepped up.
Why free? Well, the virus doesn’t care who it attacks and chances are lots of us will get sick. In that situation having well-functioning IT systems in the healthcare sector that are able to fend off ransomware attacks and hacks is “enlightened self interest” which I’m sure even die-hard libertarian geeks would agree with.
Likewise, protecting people against cynical attacks is important too as we might not keep our guard up quite so much in difficult times.
For example, Russian criminals are selling fake versions of the John Hopkins University live map of coronavirus cases to spread infostealing malware, which is an appalling thing to do.
That and fake WhatsApp text and voice messages circulating about Covid-19 and tests results for infections are a worry.
They could make people question if text messages from hospitals and healthcare providers are real, and not act on them.
Again, if there are security researchers with cycles to spare and vendors who can help here (yes, for free again; don’t try to sell anything), it’s a safe bet it would be appreciated.
If asked to, providing trusted information and checking systems to ensure they’re as secure as possible could be of great help.
Maybe even helping police and government agencies by tracing the criminals might be appreciated not just by healthcare organisations but other public sector service providers that are already under siege in the current climate.
There are plenty of concrete things the tech sector can do and now’s the time to offer that assistance unconditionally.