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jeremycec writes " Evidently, nothing's been resolved since 2001 , when this happened the first time. In these Memorandum Opinion and Preliminary Injunction documents from Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., we see how the court stepped in to pull the plug on a system, which, through its abject lack of due care, left someone's important financial information wide open to attackers. According to the former CIO of the Bureau of Indian Affairs: 'For all practical purposes, we have no security, we have no infrastructure, ... Our entire network has no, firewalls on it. I don't like running a network that can be breached by a high school kid.' So, when the BIA could get no relief through Interior's IT Dept., it went to the courts. Source: Government Computer News "

The usual FUD about Linux doesn't work any more so people like Silver are being a little more subtle, saying good things about Linux while sewing enough doubt to stop microsofties leaving the coop.

Linux isn't perfect but this article has only one aim despite his claims to the contrary and that is to stop people migrating to Linux.

If you need convincing of Silvers dedication to getting people to pay the Microsoft tax, look no further than here Note how the event is 'complementary'. Now who would pay someone like Silver for a whole morning devoted to selling Microsoft products and services?

... courtesy of the rejected post machine. The government sector news sites are always good - and usually better - for details about contracts of this sort:

Microsoft/Dell Gets $90-$120 Million Homeland Security Contract

Microsoft has been awarded the five-year, $90 million Department of Homeland Security contract for desktop and server software. The contract will be managed by Dell and will provide the DHS with 140,000 desktops running Windows XP and Microsoft Office Professional. When consolidated with current agreements, the contract amounts to a six-year agreement covering 144,000 desktops, worth between $110 million and $120 million. This follows the $478 million, six-year deal with the Army announced last month. More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington Post, InformationWeek, the Register , eWEEK, and Reuters.

From the article:

Did you read this article?

"Human error, not Microsoft Windows NT, was the cause of a LAN failure aboard the Aegis cruiser USS Yorktown that left the Smart Ship dead in the water for nearly three hours last fall during maneuvers near Cape Charles, Va., Navy officials said."

now read carefully "Human error, not Microsoft Windows NT"

Now are you saying that the network functionality was provided by a custom application and not by NT?

No I'm saying "The Internet is Down".

It's an enduser description of the problem, it's not technical. They claim the network crashed, when all that happened was the custom software system running things crashed. As far as the enduser is concerned, it's not working, right?

Oh, and i dont appreciate being called a loser no matter how you spell it.

Then don't act like a luser and start engaging your brain.

The fatal flaw in your argument is that you didn't use a enduser help desk call parser to read the description of the issue. This wasn't written up in a technical journal, it was written up in a government management policy journal.

Again, stop claiming "The Internet is Down" when your modem doesn't work.

So what if you have to call a tow truck every once in a while..

The Navy already uses Windows almost exclusively for its day-to-day computing, and it seems to be working out alright.

Really?

Keith Hodson, a Microsoft spokesman, said the contract could help the Army reduce its costs and "validates the Army's belief in our security model."

I can't wait to see this. I'm not sure if the Army will be significant enough pressure to make m$ security better. In fact, they're a small piece in the bigger pie.

While this is probably cheaper than the defense departments $300 toilet seat vendors (hey, they probably at least had a backup toilet seat tho), it doesn't make too much sense to me. I'm reminded of the Navy vessel that crashed running NT.

Given that XP is still having issues with updates and such, I'm wondering what the Army was thinking. But then again, that is often the case..

"A Microsoftie fresh back from vacation decided to try to find out the real story behind Microsoft's controversial SCO license. (If you don't know what we're talking about see story below.) This is the explanation he came back with. Note that it is second-hand. "

Look, I know Microsoft has it's NDA agreements, but too many of her stories are uncited, unsubstantiated, and just plain dumb.
Is this really Microsoft's attempt to extend Windows Services for Unix? 3 years ago Microsoft announced that Windows Services for Unix works with all Unix variants including SunSoft Solaris and Red Hat Linux 5.0, so why bother buying SCO licensing now? Did they pay Redhat as well (GPL yah yah I know), did they pay anyone else?

The timining of this is too coincidental, but c'mon no more Maureen O'Gara stories. Let me know if more get published, I know some tinfoil manufacturers that I need to invest in. -B

Double bollocks... with a knob on.

I would hardly call myself biased. At home I have a wireless doorbell, digital satelite, a car with remote central locking, a pair of cordless phones, 4 mobile phones (between the three of us), a couple of cybikos, one of those X10-type TV things, a wireless PS2 controller, and I just bought a Gamecube wavebird yesterday. I used to have a targeted microwave dish for broadband (TELE2 in Reading UK - great), but in the new house I'm stuck with modem, so have no reason to install Wi-Fi on the half dozen vintage computers I tinker with (though that would be a project - can you even get wireless cards for 16-bit ISA slots? how about VESA?). I read slashdot because I am a geek, not because I am some rabid anti-technologist.

In general, mobile phones and wi-fi are safe. Safe is a qualitative term. Microsoft Windows is safe for use in an office environment, but would you consider their shrinkwrapped software safe for use in critical systems such as hospital equipment, pacemakers (Windows CE for pacemakers!), key airplane control systems, and naval vessels? When you introduce new devices into more life-critical environments you must accept that the definition of Safe for those devices must change, the critique has to be more stringent. Mobile phones are safe, but are they safe for use in Airplanes?

You are ducking the argument. Lets ignore that you are ready to discard research out of hand. You are trying to make me prove to you that mobile phones aren't safe, but have no arguments that they are. Given that the risk to life of you being wrong is far more than the risk to life if I am, I suggest that you provide something more positive in the way of argument. I agree that it is a one in a million chance that a mobile or wifi device will interfere with an airplane enough to cause a crash. But, with tens of thousands of planes flying every day, and hundreds of mobiles on each plane, a one in a million chance will occur every day. So I suggest you at least propose some positive evidence before discarding an existing safety precaution. And not some silly apochryphical story about your 4th cousin who uses mobile phones on planes all the time and has never crashed yet.

I will iterate the point for a third time, as you still seem to have missed it. It is not the strength of the signal that is a problem, it is the information content within that signal. I never mentioned anything about standing in front of a microwave - that is a completely different discussion. I should also make clear that the hacking a plane with a pda idea is very much tongue in cheek - the mention of sticky back plastic and Blue Peter badges (ok, UK centric, shoe is on the other foot now Slashdot!) can be seen as a clue.

But let me get back to the point that it is not the signal but the information in the signal.

Have you ever noticed your digital satelite TV picture during a storm. You get a perfect picture regardless of the conditions outside... up to a point. There comes a point where the interference from the storm exceeds the fault tolerance in the TV signal, and suddenly your perfect picture is a series of bright squares, fractured images, and it sounds like somebody is taking pot shots at a squealing pig. Basically, digital signals don't degrade gracefully. Compare that with an analogue signal - you rarely get a perfect image, but during severe interference you can still make out the image (ain't the human visual system great - which is why people can watch scrambled porn by squinting their eyes, allegedly).

Now if you have ever used a taxi with a CB radio you'll recognise the next point. Taxi radios remain absolutely silent until they receive a signal from their base station, when they burst into full life. Now sometimes they pop into life with a burst of static for a split second, for no apparent reason. Basically some interference tricked the CB into thinking it was receiving a signal from the base sta

How about a 10,000 processor X86 computer?

I guess that's junk too?

Russ Cooper, moderator of the NTBugTraq security list and a security expert for TruSecure Corp., seems to be contradicting himself in two stories on the same day (or is being misquoted). Make of this what you will...

This story quotes Cooper: "I do expect that in the next seven to 10 days we're going to see a worldwide wave" of attacks, probably via an Internet worm, Cooper said Wednesday. "And it will be effective."

And this story quotes Cooper: ""I doubt we will see an attack based on this," Cooper said. "It's pretty unlikely any such exploit attempt will get legs.""

Uh that was 5 years ago. Apparently they have learned something since I haven't heard about it since.

Why not? They've tried it with Windows nt, which didn't work, so maybe there's more trust in open systems since then.

IOWA

DISPUTED BET. The Iowa Lottery Board has come under fire for rolling out the first scratch lottery game on CD-ROM. The Treasure Tower game requires users to buy scratch tickets, then play a CD-ROM interactive game that lasts 15 to 20 minutes.

The Truth about Gambling Foundation, a Burlington anti-gambling group, has condemned the Treasure Tower game and called for it to be regulated by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission because of its similarities to slot machine gambling.

Ingenio Filiale de Lotto-Quebec of Montreal developed Treasure Tower. To run it, users need at least a 166-MHz Pentium, Microsoft Windows 95 and an 8X CD-ROM drive.

didn't ya see, they they switched to oracle on linux :)

and contrary to analog radio transmission which are prone to interferences and background noise/hiss, VOIP actually makes a lot of sense in space. All it requires is a data channel with limited bandwidth (64kbits is plentiful) but short delay, and the voice quality is just as good as with a regular phone call.

Maybe NASA saw in IP a cheaper alternative for astronauts to get pr0n than having to fly (heavier) tabloid magazines to space? :->

Ok, if the military is so worried about static charge buildup on your ass when taking a shit on your F16, why do they use NT on there ships???? Does MS crap really deserve a MIL specification.

I remember I saw this slogon many years ago:

Office Automation: Microsoft comes to your office!

Now

Warship Automation: Micosoft comes to your Warship!

Luckly my office machine wouldn't get towed back to port after it crashed. :)

(I'm aware that USS Navy official confirmed that the 'Smart Ship' was crashed due to human error, not Microsoft after thorough investigation. All pro-MS please put down your torches. I really don't want to debate with pro-MS AC anymore. Thanks. :)

Not exactly sure what the us navy is up to, but I can guess. The big items of military equipment are getting too expensive to buy, even for the us. The only alternative is to make extensive use of COTS hardware and software to push down the prices. The aim is to modify cheap stuff to deliver what you need, with the idea that at least that way you can have a lot of them, even if they might have some compromises.

NT & 802.11b are just two examples of this, I'm sure if people do a little digging they will find more - in particular the computer hardware.

After all, a destroyer is just a platform for missiles and a radar. And a target, of course. Never say that to the navy though, they are kind of sensitive to that type of thing.

The question of /. readers is, how could they be supported in doing this better ? As usual, they get a load of contractors in who sell them the advice that Microsoft is a sure bet. What would an open source warship look like? Even better, how could you retro fit an existing hull to provide a cheap platform that be some use?

One thing is for sure, other countries have picked up on the same idea.

If the database does something wrong with its data, gets an access violation and crashes, its due to the database, like on Unix.

GCN actually had another news release a few monthes later at http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/november9/6.h tm which states clearly :

Human error, not Microsoft Windows NT, was the cause of a LAN failure aboard the Aegis cruiser USS Yorktown that left the Smart Ship dead in the water for nearly three hours last fall during maneuvers near Cape Charles, Va., Navy officials said.

Navy ships dead in the water

I am a software engineer but I'd be ashamed to show my face at a mechanical or civil engineer convention - the buildings and machines they make don't blow up all the time, repeatedly, for no reason at all.

The responsibility placed on engineers (particularly civil engineers) is greater than that of many software engineers. Civil engineers are held liable for the failures of their designs. The civil engineer field book is a legal document. It must written in black pencil. Nothing may be erased. Corrections must be written with red pencil. A single stroke of red should be used to strike out an error. The point is that not only are civil engineers held accountable for their designs, but they are also required to keep consistant records of their work.

Now, contrast this to responsibility taken by certain firms whose software has failed to perform. I seem to remember for instance that the Navy had a brand-new, trick-out ship a few years ago that ended up being pretty useless for a while because of its software.

I don't know if NASA ever got any satisfaction from the subcontractor that wrote the system that screwed the Mars Polar Lander.

This is the only industry that I know of where we actually reward companies for putting out a faulty product (i.e. pay bug fixes). As Wally once said, "I'm going go write me a minivan."

-Jennifer

<quote> "Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said. "If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down." </quote>

Have you ever heard of the Flat Neighborhood Network topology? Just because you can't figure out how to design a network for a cluster supercomputer, it doesn't mean nobody can. Apparently, you also seem to think you know Cray better than Cray. Not only is Cray now marketing Linux server clusters, it's also planning on building a cluster supercomputer using 16000 AMD Opteron processors. Perhaps you should jump in and inform them that clusters have gone the way of the dodo. Either you're wrong, or many highly paid Cray employees and various PhD's are.

*applies Ockham's Razor*

Newport News Shipbuilding is constructing CVN 77, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, for the Navy in Newport News, Va. In January (2000), the shipbuilder chose Lockheed Martin Corp. to develop the carrier's integrated warfare systems, said Jerri Fuller Dickseski, a company spokeswoman. Lockheed Martin officials chose Microsoft for the project.

"According to DiGiorgio, who in an interview said he has serviced automated control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is the source of the Yorktown's computer problems.

NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide damage control, run the ship's control center on the bridge, monitor the engines and navigate the ship when under way.

"Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said.

Pacific and Atlantic fleets in March 1997 selected NT 4.0 as the standard OS for both networks and PCs as part of the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century initiative. Current guidance approved by the Navy's chief information officer calls for all new applications to run under NT.

Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown.

"Refining that is an ongoing process," Redman said. "Unix is a better system for control of equipment and machinery, whereas NT is a better system for the transfer of information and data. NT has never been fully refined and there are times when we have had shutdowns that resulted from NT."

But according to DiGiorgio [a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk], who in an interview said he has serviced automated control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is the source of the Yorktown's computer problems.

NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide damage control, run the ship's control center on the bridge, monitor the engines and navigate the ship when under way.

"Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said.

....

Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown.

...

The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the systems failures, he said.

"Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said. "If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down."

But according to DiGiorgio [a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk], who in an interview said he has serviced automated control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is the source of the Yorktown's computer problems.

NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide damage control, run the ship's control center on the bridge, monitor the engines and navigate the ship when under way.

"Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said.

....

Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown.

...

The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the systems failures, he said.

"Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said. "If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down."

Come on now, that's the lazy way!

How about citing an actual example of windows code bugs causing big problems? I'll go first. The USS Yorktown had to be towed back to harbor when the NT system that was automating most of the ship crashed.

Or it could be the Yorktown

I'll bite.

You obviously don't know anything about Linux.
From GCN:
"BALLMER: Linux is not dominant in the market, but we get paid to focus in on competitive threats, and it's a really competitive threat."
He goes on about this. There was a recent interview (I think on CNN, I searched quickly and couldn't find it) where he says the same thing -- Linux is a high priority concern for MS.

A poster on /. recently added:
"I work for an SI company. A large one. With a huge degree of MS-related
work. The MS reps tell *us* that they can commit MS resources (i.e.
spend MS money) to help us win projects IF Linux or Apache are involved.

We're talking about people's time at many thousands of dollars per day.
However much we need. They won't do it for almost any other project...
So I'd say yes, they see it as a threat."

Linux is not a joke on the desktop. You obviously haven't tried it recently. Red Hat Linux 7.x is just as easy to install as Windows, and comes with almost all you need. A quick, guided installation of Ximian GNOME and you're set, IMO. I find it's easier to use than Windows. And don't give me anything about a learning curve -- Windows has a learning curve as well.

" Face it, Linux is such a joke on the desktop that it is hardly important enough to consider when making major business decisions in a profitable corporation."

Well, let's see:
Disney isn't profitable?
Hollywood graphics rendering companies aren't profitable?
Merril Lynch isn't profitable?
HP?
DELL?
IBM?

Why are 27% of servers shipped today shipped with Linux?

Here's a website you might find interesting with a loooong list of companies invested in Linux.

Everyone makes mistakes, but you're just blatantly arrogant and ignorant. Please do some research before posting extremely retarded comments.

the 2.4ghz band is a mess. cordless phones, video transmitters (X.10!), 802.11, and Bluetooth all share that band of frequencies. Granted, this is what was pretty well inevitable with the FCC unrestricting the 2.4ghz band.

now there are technologies they never thought of, like interference from this light. I seriously have a problem with any of these 2.4ghz products: i'm not even guaranteed that my video transmitter will work with my phone without interfering.

i'll wait until Ultra Wide Band products become available. 3.1ghz phones are just around the corner. then watch us roll into GPS territory. maybe we should just switch back to carrier pigeons (:

...in the past thinking like this has resulted in things like Ada.

Yes, this is true. Ada was devised as the result of 4 groups competing against each other, and the best of em (though opinions vary) selected as the Mandated Language for the DOD.

The whole process is described thusly:

The driving concern of the HOLWG was to assure that the design was guided by a responsible principle investigator, and to preclude "design by committee". On the other hand, picking a single contractor to do the job and trusting to luck would have been imprudent. The procurement was through multiple competitive contracts, with the best products to be selected for continuation to full rigorous definition and developmental implementation.

And it was a disaster from the Defence Contractor's viewpoint. Firms fell over themselves trying to get exemptions from using it, ANYTHING was better. Because Ada had

• Objects
• Exceptions
• Generics (templates)
• Multiple-threading/Tasking
• Strong Typing

So yes, had compatibility been mandated in the past, we might all have systems far more reliable and robust. But Microsoft wouldn't have $40 Billion and a number of tame Congresscritters.

I didn't know VB was available for Linux.

1997, anyone?

Not Space Marine Doom

It seems to me that you're not just saying that Apple can be forgiven for this, but that it wasn't a mistake.

Your parent post and mine are not talking about how things are, only about how things should be. We can agree that invalid input should not destroy a system, even though we all know it's very hard to design such reliable systems.

Actually the Navy Battleships computer system is running WinNT

Yeah, gives a whole new meaning to Blue Screen of Death when your warship's network crashes.

"Captain, I've got incoming missiles on a bearing of ... Oh Fuck! The bloody thing crashed! We're dead meat!"

What are the major differences currently between OpenOffice and StarOffice?

I remember a DoD procurement elated to StarOffice, has the price remained the same? (Are they running it on Solaris anyway?)

Also would it give evidence on how MS "breaks" competing programs?

It would be, however, a BugTraq fest waiting to happen! ;-) The flip side of which would be that they will no longer have to have their month-long moratorium on new coding to clean up their code. Others will do it for them.

"Government Computer News" is a not-very-funny attempt at a satire news site, usually for the purpose of fooling weblogs into posting to their 'interesting' stories.

For example, "NATO uses Windows 3.11 for Operations Centre" has been around for a while.

-D.B.

The Yorktown's computer crash had nothing to do with Windows. Try doing a little research before spreading the FUD, m'kay?

Like the "Microsoft Cruiser" that went dead in the water after a computer failure?

Here's a link I got from a google search.

Crazy stuff, and even crazier that I (and I'm guessing most of us) had never heard about this before.

What you say is only partially true. If I donate money to an organization and that organization goes out, on their own, and kills all my enemies, who is to blame? I certainly didn't do anything wrong, I mean, I didn't know they were going to kill anybody for Gods sake...

These people were hired by microsoft to lobby for them, thus microsoft shares in the guilt.

Does anyone remember when microsoft got caught telling lies about competitors products on usenet, or maybe it was a compuserv forum, I would love to find a link to that again. It was back in the win 3.xx days if I recall correctly. Those microsoft guys make the friggin mob look like church going law abiding citizens!!

3. Microsoft invested $600 million in our company a year ago when we really, really needed it?

Is that your company running business burying ships deep into the sea, called US NAVY?
&nbsp_
/. / &nbsp&nbsp |\/| |\/| |\/| / Run, Bill!

http://www.gcn.com/vol19_no27/dod/2868-1.html

Free software crashes ships?

I know the Navy would just love to know what a BSOD means.

Believe me, they do.

The Navy had a ship that was completely computer controlled (part of a future-systems testbed), running some Windows flavor. Well, somehow the entire system crashed, and the ship was dead in the water because the propulsion was also under complete computer control. IIRC, it took them over a day to get the ship back underway.

A quick google search came up with this: http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2.h tm

Cheers,
Brian

It's interesting to see Dick taking the strategy of cutting FBI funding to kill off carnivore so soon after the FBI went to the hill claiming that the reason NIPC was not effective at preventing computer crime is that they need more money.
--
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Musashi

It's interesting to see Dick taking the strategy of cutting FBI funding to kill off carnivore so soon after the FBI went to the hill claiming that the reason NIPC was not effective at preventing computer crime is that they need more money.
--
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Musashi