I was talking to a friend who is in a demographic that would benefit most from the Affordable Care Act - he and his wife spent years unemployed, and when he did find a job he was offered the choice of lower pay with benefits or higher pay without. He chose with health benefits as he had years of unmet medical and dental needs, but it means they they now make barely enough to get by. His wife is unemployed with no serious likelihood of getting a job - they have only one car and public transportation in their area is awful, and there are no jobs within walking distance. Their low income and high needs mean that they would almost certainly benefit from enrolling using California's website.
Last night I asked him why he hadn't enrolled, and he said that he had been told by a friend who knows about computer security that California's site has an unreasonable number of links and security holes in their pages. I think I know who the source for this is, and he's a tea-partier type, which makes me suspect deliberate misinformation. To paraphrase as closely as I can remember, he said "even the front page is spaghetti code - what should be a simple page is very complex. There are all sorts of links and information trackers built in, and nobody knows where that stuff is going."
I can't argue with him about this because I don't know about computer security, and calling his source's motives into question will just restart an argument I don't want to have. Can anybody help me with citations by recognized computer security experts saying the the California site is safe? It would probably be good to have these reassurances for other state's sites too. I don't need citations about how they work, but about their security. If this has already been diaried on DK, I haven't seen it and would appreciate a pointer to that discussion.
Thanks, PNE
11:37 AM PT: Addition: I looked to see if Norton, McAfee, or any of the other recognized security companies issued any reassurances about the site. As far as I can tell, there is nothing positive or negative from them. This seems odd, because it seems like a question a lot of people wouldbe asking.