this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
144 points (98.6% liked)

Malicious Compliance

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People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

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The 'Paperwork Flood': How I Drowned a Bureaucrat before dinner., Sightless Scribbles (sightlessscribbles.com)
submitted 1 day ago by otter@lemmy.ca to c/maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world
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[–] Frostbeard@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

The policy of not asking about personal medical information by regular email is sound.

I work as an engineer(not in the US) in a governmental capacity and we would never ask for sensitive material to be sent byail.

We do however have a secure service in our web page where you can upload such material, with the option to cc in people by mail to alert them that you have sent something. Otherwise it will take a day for our archive to send it the right way.

Edit: We have more secure options, but that requires an invite/link. We ofc can handle proper secret stuff as well, but that involves a seperate intranet and secure terminala and so on.

[–] Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 22 hours ago

My usual response to this kind of bureaucracy is to go to a local print shop, have it printed, then put it in a box and mail it in.

I might have to try the fax option next time.

[–] Zebrafive@lemmy.myserv.one 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Our government is run by Vogons

[–] FederatedFreedom1981@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

To be fair, ALL governments are run by Vogons.

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

There are definitely levels to it, for example the Dutch and French administrations are incomparable, the Dutch being 100x more efficient and straight forward. I don't know about the rest of Canada but I do know that at least Quebec unfortunately seems to have taken from their colonizer in that aspect.

[–] FederatedFreedom1981@lemmy.ca 1 points 13 hours ago

Merely cultural offshoots. An interstellar race like the Vogons can't be expected to be entirely culturally monolithic.

[–] Red0ctober@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dammit, I thought it was infiltrated by the Pleiadians

[–] FederatedFreedom1981@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

Nah, the evidence is clear, all the speeches are terrible poetry.

[–] teft@piefed.social 29 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm surprised the SSA don't have an option to mark you as permanently disabled. We have that in the VA system. It's not like someone's blown off leg is going to regrow.

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 7 points 15 hours ago

I’m surprised the SSA don’t have an option to mark you as permanently disabled

Cause then someone might be able to abuse the system and get free money! We can't have people living on free money below the poverty line. We have to put barriers into place to both dehumanize people and "prevent widespread fraud".

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Similar thing in my country, gotta prove your disability every year. I've been putting off redoing the paperwork got my ADHD for like a year. I don't even necessarily want the tiny bit of money they'd pay me, I just want the tiny tax break on the payroll taxes for the employer (which is me).

But yes, even if you have a missing limb, you need to fill out 10 pages of forms annually.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

Especially if you have a missing limb.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

That's not even the dumbest thing they do. The SSA shuts their website down outside of business hours.

[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What the fuck...? As someone with a circadian rhythm disorder I didn't know things could get any more fucking bleak. Parks, libraries, stores, doctors are all closed, but fucking WEBSITES?? Christ.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

Because otherwise the employees would have to stay up all night turning the Internet crank!

[–] aviationeast@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Most faxes these days are unencrypted.

If you know how to eavesdrop, faxes are less secure than google to google email. Or if you need to be certain you zip encrypted the file, send it over, and then call with the password... Or fax the password.

[–] Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 18 hours ago

Use 7zip, not zip. You can encrypt the filenames too that way. Even Windows natively supports 7zip these days.

Regarding the password, if you need to be more certain (and don't want to get into public key cryptography), you could send the password through snail mail in a tamper-evident envelope.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Google email reads all your mail and sells what it finds to advertisers.

The encrypted zip could work as long as the filenames don't reveal anything. Google looks in encrypted zips and reads the filenames (which aren't encrypted).

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Google doesn't sell anything to advertisers, that would be mega dumb.

They do sell access though. Advertiser ticks boxes for what they want their target audience to be and then Google shows it to those people.

If they sold all that data, nobody would advertise through Google anymore because it wouldn't be better than competing services.

Now their three letter friends? Those guys definitely get data.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Google doesn’t sell anything to advertisers, that would be mega dumb.

Yes you are right, they don't give direct access to the data. But they are reading the emails and selling your data in aggregate. Advertisers need only jump a few hoops to take Google's aggregated advertising data and combine it with other data sources to personally identify you.

[–] TribblesBestFriend@startrek.website 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’m surprised they don’t have a fax-to-computer system, my father had that when I was a kid and I’m no kid now.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Hell, most office copy machine/scanners these days allow you to email scanned documents directly from the printer

[–] TribblesBestFriend@startrek.website 1 points 16 hours ago

Scan by Email aren’t as secure as Fax machine

I’m not sure why

[–] AzuraTheSpellkissed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago

But that would require updating existing legacy systems, and official bodies often aren't incentivised to orchestrate that