281188 - FEMA.gov - Internet Registration - IE 6.0 Only

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[David E. Ross]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has a Web site for
registering for disaster aid when a federal disaster is declared (cited URL). 
The site states "Technical Requirements: The Online registration requires
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6.0 or above."

Attempting to enter that site produces an error popup that says: "mwdz2w11 could
not be found.  Please check the name and try again."  

Spoofing IE 6.0 for Windows XP via the PrefBar extension allowed me to enter the
site and begin registration for a disaster that damaged my home.  Thus, FEMA is
using a sniffer for no good reason.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:




This is a U.S. government Web site.  The service provided at this site is vital.  

I failed to complete registration for disaster aid only because the Presidential
declaration of our disaster had not yet been implemented at the Web site.

Comment 1

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

[e-mail]

I will send them a note.

Comment 2

[Mike Mason]

I think this bug can be confirmed.
It is disgraceful that FEMA would not allow these distressed people to use any
browser to get help.  What about the Mac and Linux users?
Perhaps we could organize a campaign to target all gov't agencies to change
their ways and support web standards.

See this link for more info:
Want to file for aid online? Better run Windows - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9231271/

Comment 3

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

I should have been hounding them over this long before now. Sorry.

Comment 4

[David E. Ross]

It may be that this Web site is in violation of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (as amended through 1998), which requires federal Web
pages to be accessible to the handicapped.  That would mean this page (or
equivalent) must be "viewable" with an audio browser, which usually requires
that it comply with W3C specifications.  

Comment 5

[Felix Miata]

Given the current gulf coast situation, the severity is worse than normal. -> major

Comment 6

[russell bell]

Why not build in spoofing the user-agent header?  Lynx (my favorite browser) and
Opera (so someone tells me) allow this.

Comment 7

[Dan Tobias]

I don't like the concept of spoofing, as it only encourages the clueless
browser-sniffers to stay clueless.  It should be used only as a last resort, and
shouldn't be encouraged.

Comment 8

[Michael Gabriel]

reigsitration is now through http://www.disasterassistance.gov/daip_en.portal and seems to work, couldnt go through it all of course ...

Comment 9

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

marking fixed in that case