zonitronic t1_j41utyl wrote
Reply to comment by bond___vagabond in Cyberattack takes down land-records management system used by many Vermont towns by sickter6
Everyone is affected. If you cannot verify land records, it effectively shuts down most business- public and private- not just real estate sales... No licensing/permitting, no construction, no probate, no repairing roads or utilities... Go ahead and try to get business loan without being able to prove your location or collateral...
This attack only emphasizes the importance of the town's having their own backup systems or hard-copies of the data.
mcmdreamer t1_j42ab85 wrote
This is not true. Only half of Vermont towns even have any amount of land records online (meaning some of those only have an index, only have images 2021-present, etc.), and of those, only ~60 use the two Cotthosting websites. On top of that, ALL land records are available in the Town Clerk’s offices as physical copies.
zonitronic t1_j42hr30 wrote
Yes, less than half of the towns even; Yes, the hardcopies of all the land records are still maintained in the vaults... The problem is accessing them: Some of the towns in the Cotts systems did not maintain backups/ hardcopies of the INDEXES needed to find the correct hardcopies of the land records in the vaults, beyond the "daybook" records if the clerk's themselves. If you cannot find the documents you need in a timely manner, they don't do you much good. It affects us all in that having 20+ towns in Vermont effectively shut down for business damages the entirety of the State economy. My apologies if I was unclear.
deadowl t1_j43k51n wrote
Make some contracts for people to manually index the records, and feel free to add some buffer room and reallocate excess to indexing records at the state archives.
mcmdreamer t1_j42kjb6 wrote
More than half, actually. My current list has 138/256 towns online - maybe more as there are towns I don’t search often so I don’t keep up with. My firm has not needed to postpone any closings or delay any matters because of this. Searches for the Cotts towns are now back to how they used to be - searching the cards, general indexes, book indexes, daybook, etc. - before online land records. Yes it’s inconvenient and more time-consuming but isn’t “effectively shutting down most business” as you stated.
zonitronic t1_j431spk wrote
Not sure why you're getting downvoted; seems like a healthy discussion here...
The problem I am running into is that the particular Cotts towns I have been working in did not continue to make physical copies of the index cards (or other physical copies of the indexes) after they went to the Cotts system, so I have not been able to perform searches "back to how they used to be", because there is no index available at all for me to reference from. It is good to hear that it is not the case with the Cotts towns your firm has been working in, but please do not assume all the Cotts towns have physical backups of their indexes- I sure wish they had all been smart enough to do so, but that is not the case.
mcmdreamer t1_j436x5q wrote
No clue why I’m getting downvoted haha
Why did your towns not print their index when it was back up last week?? What towns have you had trouble with? Manchester immediately printed the index when Cotts was back up so searchers wouldn’t have to take as much time searching while everything is down.
Like I said, it’s a complete pain but I’ve found searching in-person in these towns is doable and haven’t needed to delay anything because of it.
(Also I’m so happy to see another VT title searcher here!)
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