August 2012
With the recent additions of large population states to the ALD and CPAverify, the challenge of how to address the issue of potentially immense search results came to the forefront. CPAverify previously had a limit of 150 names in the search result. The decision to limit the search results was one made by the ALD Task Force, with a recommendation by our Senior Developer, Mike Semich, as a security precaution. "CPAverify utilizes an upper limit on the search results in order to minimize the risk of our database being mined by unscrupulous entities. Without an upper result limit, as well as several other limiting factors, a hacker could obtain the whole of the CPAverify database in a short period of time."
Data mining, in this context, is the process of stripping a website of all of the data it contains. Every possible value could be downloaded and stored. Hackers online often do such things and then set up parallel websites that can be indexed by Google. While maintaining the security of our Board's information is of paramount importance, ensuring ease of use for the public is a close second. The search limits are a key factor in achieving these ideals.
Public member of the ALD Task Force and new Strike Force Chair, Mike Skinner, identified a potential issue with the existing limit when he searched for an individual with a common last name and only an initial for the first name. Though he knew the individual’s middle name, that information did not help him refine his search as only fields for first and last name were available on CPAverify.
To address this concern, our developer worked with the Public Strike Force to find the ideal number for the search results limit based on the volume and type of data contained in the database. As a result of these efforts, the maximum returned search results have been increased to 250. Additionally, we have added a field for "Middle Name" on the search screen. The Public Strike Force and our technical team feel confident that this upper limit on search results keeps our high security measures intact, while making the search much more effective and user friendly at the same time.
Please take a few moments to check out these new features for yourself. Thank you to Mr. Skinner and the Public Strike Force for these suggestions for improving the public’s searching experience on CPAverify.
Please email Elizabeth at [email protected] with your own suggestions for improvement and the ALD Task Force will happily consider it. We are committed to constant improvement here at NASBA for the benefit of the State Boards and the CPAs across the country. Thank you for being a part of it.