Saturday, April 28, 2007

Idea

You may have heard on the news that there's been another mess-up regarding MTAS. The highly-secure application system had a slight flaw, in that anyone could easily access anyone else's application online simply by changing one of the numbers in a page's URL.
So theoretically I might not get a job because someone's fiddled with my application form... (rather than on my own merits)

And because two-thirds of doctors have not been selected for any interviews, MTAS created "Round 1.b" which allows all of us to have one interview, presumably to stop us complaining (rather than, say, admit that they'd got it wrong and re-organise the whole process in a more fair way).

But now, after the online security breach, the website's been taken down.

So when & where are all our interviews going to be then?
They start on Monday and we were supposed to log on this week to get the details.

But this is currently what the entire site looks like:


No, seriously. Compare. (edit: Since I posted this, they've changed it slightly and now admit there was a problem - power to the people!)

What now MTAS?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Junior Doctor's Committee has made a suggestion regarding Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary.

Make her resign
- and then reapply for her job using the MTAS process.

"That means that her job would be scrapped and she'd have to re-apply without any of her experience counting, which is basically what the government has asked junior doctors to do."


Sounds fair to me...

6 Comments:

At April 28, 2007 3:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

They've changed the MTAS error message. And have finally admitted that its due to a security breach.

Still makes the situation a farce.

Good luck with the 1b interview. When it occurs.

 
At April 28, 2007 9:15 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

They're absolutely bloody useless. And I've got all this fun to come assuming I actually manage to pass those things beginning with f are a worryingly small amount of time away.

 
At April 29, 2007 12:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I find it quite amusing that they claim to have taken the site down while they carry out "rigorous security checks". This should be done *before* the site gets anyone near release.

Additionally, given that the nature of the security problem was so blindingly simple (changing a number), I wouldn't say that the people behind the site are even capable of carrying out rigorous checks.

Good luck!

 
At April 29, 2007 12:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What an absolute joke.

I was talking to one of the junior docs at work today and he is the ONLY person i have ever met that thinks MTAS was good.

The rest of them are all tearing their hair out.

I dont envy you.

I think the idea for making Pat Fuckwitt reapply for her job using MTAS is brilliant.

 
At May 02, 2007 8:04 AM, Blogger MuppetMan said...

Speaking as a computer programmer, albeit one who doesn't tangle with the web all that often, I have to say I'm amazed by this...

If you can view someone else's details based solely on editing the url, then this suggests they are using a "GET" method of passing an identifier for the person concerned. That is ridiculous! A beginner's mistake that anyone with any knowledge at all simply would not make...

The only thing I would be using a GET for in that kind of scenario would be a non-sequential session id. (techo blabble for anyone else who understands it) - and they wouldn't be sequential either...

Are these the same muppets who plan on implementing a nice secure national identity register?

Martin

 
At May 15, 2007 8:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

actually patricia hewitt should be allowed to show her experience on an MP's MTAS site. that would really count against her

 

Post a Comment

<< Home