No Windows Allowed On Ex-Battleship Cruise Liner

uucee writes "Wired has a story on an ex-warship cum cruise ship. Owner of the ship, Doug Humphrey, on why no Windows aboard his ship: 'We didn't want to have viruses blowing up systems that we depend on for navigation and monitoring engines and other systems. And since nothing seems to be able to stop all of these Windows viruses, the best way to win is to just stop using Windows.' However, it's not clear why Mac programmers can be trusted more than Windows programmers to keep a ship running: USS Yorktown was brought to a halt not by a virus but by bad coding: divide-by-zero. As Windows viruses don't travel through 'the ether,' it's also unclear how mission-critical systems, properly cut off from the outside world, would become infected in the first place."

Comments

First post?

[handsomepete]

They didn't have Windows on the ship because sailors kept opening them and getting all their stuff wet. Ta da!

(So long, karma.)

No windows?

[I Am The Owl]

But then how do they see where they're going?

Whatever

[Otter]

1) This is a coastal patrol boat with a 40 mm cannon and two machine guns. It isn't remotely a "battleship".

2) The owner doesn't mention the Yorktown incident at all. Given the way it's constantly, erroneously invoked here, I'm surprised this is the story picked in which to debunk it.

3) So, somebody with a fairly sketchy understanding of computers made a billion by selling his startup to someone else before it cratered. It's been a while since people like that were a novety worth expending thought on.

Re:Whatever

[doughumphrey]

Some friends said I might want to get in here and correct factual errors, and clarify what we are really trying to do. It's my warship, and I'll do what I wanna ;-) Seriously, it is mine, so I can answer questions on it. 1) it isn't remotely a battleship You got that right - we run it with a crew of 4, you can't do that with a battlewagon. It is a coastal patrol boat, 120ft long, 24ft wide, draws 2 meters of water (yes, it is british, and NATO compliant, which means that there are mixed english/metric measures EVERYWHERE on it. Mine has not 40mm gun on the back deck - a much more mundane but much more useful Seacrane 200 is on there for picking up large items on and off the rear deck. There are mounts for .30 cals (1919's or M60 if it was in the US navy, something in .303 british if in the Royal Navy) There are 2 mounts, one per side, on the upper deck for heavy machine guns, likely the ever popular M2HB .50 cal 2) The Yorktown thing is none of my concern per se - I don't need any extra evidence that windoze is a threat - I have owned companies with many employees and many windows boxes. Evidence abounds. 3) If you are talking to me, I do not have a "fairly sketchy knowledge of computers. I have written PDP-10 code, PDP-11 code, Suns (my first was a 2/120), Vax, and have done IP networking since NCP was around. No, I don't hack code now, but I am pretty well versed on the technology, and on the current state of the security art (my current focus is deep packet scanning - not sure I really BELIEVE in it, but there is a lot of work going on in the area) You don't always have to check your brain at the door to make money, and YOU should be more carefull before making the assumption that someone who owns a strage toy like this might not understand networking. Doug Humphrey doug@joss.com

Re:Whatever

[Henry V .009]

Doug, if you have your navigation and engine systems connected to a network and to the internet you are in for some trouble. Especially now that everyone knows about your boat. If you are going to brag about your secure computing solution to the world--well, at least get a set-up that has security as a major focus.

A Mac isn't that hard to crack--all it takes is one hax0R getting offended, and then sailing your boat to Antartica.

Re:Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

Doug,

If you weren't aware of it before, you probably know it by now. Anything interesting or useful that rears its head on Slashdot will likely be ripped to shreds by what has quickly become the nets most vicious and petty peanut gallery.

Slashdottians know nothing, they accomplish nothing, and their opinions are worth nothing. They are uniformly bitter, small-minded geeks who overestimate their own importance and their own skillz. They are, for the most part, losers. Their biggest accomplishment is in insulting others' spelling and grammar, attacking the GPL license despite their grade level understanding of it, and tricking people into clicking on goatse.cx links. They are know-it-all blowhards who use their computers primarily for Pornography and online gaming, at which they cheat regularly to offset their complete lack of motor skills.

Despite touting the wonderous greatness of linux and open source, they all use Windows and Internet Explorer. They like Macs because of OSX, but want it to run on X86 so they can steal a copy and give nothing back. They will eventually buy a Mac due to their inability to run Windows without crashing it constantly by their own stupidity, and become raving unbalanced lunatics who do more harm than good for the Mac community by claiming that the G4 is quadruple the speed of a dual 3Ghz Xeon box.

They lie about their own experience to make their case, and when you win an argument with them, they post anonymously in order to tell you they've had sex with your mother.

Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded.

Signed,
Yoda the Retard

Submission errors/comments

[psyconaut]

(1) It's not a battleship, it was a patrol ship....quite a small one at that.

(2) It's not used as a "cruise ship" now -- it's the personal vessel of an entrepreneur.

(3) As for how viruses would have gotten aboard (because they don't "travel through the ether") -- the ship has satellite Internet and is hooked-up to DSL when moored.

All that said, it's an ugly fsck'ing boat that dude's got!

-psy

I have to say...

[Smidge204]

"We didn't want to have viruses blowing up systems that we depend on for navigation and monitoring engines and other systems."

It's note-worthy that this is not a military vessle anymore. Unless I'm reading the article wrong, this boat is a glorified private yacht. I fail to see the importance of the whole issue from this perspective.

I can see the ads now...

"My name is Doug Humphrey, and I'm a rich bastard who downsized my company and bought a disused warship-turned-yacht for my own private use!"

Good for him. Worried about your navigation systems? Get a stand-alone GPS unit (Assuming the Royal navy stripped out the navigation equipment that the ship originally had, that is, which I'm sure didn't run Windows!). And I'm sure an engine room in a ship like that still requires a trained engineer and at least one assistant to operate.

The only 'critical system' I can imagine on that ship that could possibly rely on the stablility of an OS is his stock-market update streamer.

Now... if anything, the interesting story here is how they converted his *company* to use Macs, and is supposingly saving the firm a bunch of money on maintainance. That's something to talk about. Now we can have a meaningful discussion on the Mac vs. Windows situation in the business world.

=Smidge=

Re:I have to say...

[doughumphrey]

It is just a private vessel now - nothing official. You can get barebones GPS things with no real OS but we have more sophisticated things for charts and maps, and also we are doing stuff that monitors equipment. Still, really critical things like radar, radios and basic GPS nav have nothing to do with external connections - we are not fools ;-) As to how we got the company to go all Mac, and the evidence that it saves a bundle, that is pretty easy. When you are downsizing things, you don't have the luxury of a big MIS staff - sales people like PC's rather than Macs, but if there is nobody to fix the PCs they are all dead in a few weeks. The Macs are more simple, and they get the job done. Seriously, the only complaints we got were that the games didn't run on the Macs. Boo Hoo. Doug

Keeping Out Viruses the Easy Way

[MBCook]

Why don't they just isolate the network that the ship's computers are on (the important ones like navigation) from all other computers. Don't connect it to the internet. And have every computer on it locked down, take out disk drives/etc. It would be very hard to get a virus that way, and you could run whatever you want for an OS.

Link to the ship's home page

[ckd]

Welcome Aboard the Badtz Maru! has more photos and details of her history.

Unclear?

[rebill]

it's also unclear how mission-critical systems, properly cut off from the outside world, would become infected in the first place

That's easy - unless the machine is unplugged, sealed in cement and at teh bottom of the ocean, *someone* is going to bring his special program from him and will install it on the box.

Unless you post a guard on every box at all times, someone is going to play with it and screw it up.

Or steal it. One guy was so brazen that he came into a training class, and removed RAM from the machines while the class was going on. We found out about it a little while later when the person giving the class called us to ask when were were going to send the guy back to "finish working on the machines."

"Uh, what guy?"

"The guy that you sent out, earlier!"

"We didn't send anyone out . . ."

The point is, with 5000 employees in a manufacturing plant, we had the occasional problem where one of our critical systems would drop off-line because someone wanted to plug in their coffee machine, or play his solitaire on OS/2, or decided that they really wanted to chill down their alcohol in that nice, air-conditioned cabinet during the summr months . . . and Cruise Ships will have that many employees. All it takes is *ONE* idiot, and you end up in the press . . .

READ THE FREAKIN STORY!!!

[SensitiveMale]

Here is the BIG REASON!

When the firm underwent a drastic downsizing recently, he moved his entire staff to Macs because it was too expensive keeping a fleet of Windows machines shipshape.

"We forced everyone to go to Macs for the desktops," he said. "The support load dropped to almost nothing and the only complaints were from people who couldn't play games on their machines any longer.

I expect slashdot reader to comment on the story before reading it, but shouldn't the SUBMITTER read it first?

goddammit timothy...

[BiOFH]

What the fuck is that all about? Half the facts in the headline are wrong (battleship, cruise liner, yadda yadda) and then you strike off on a tangent that's just plain inflammatory and, from the looks of it, shows off your ignorance of closed system infections.

Argh! I've so had it with this bullshit. Slashdot has become incredibly unreliable. You guys fucking lie in your headlines (let's call it what it is.. it's no merely "inaccurate", it's fucking lying for the sake of sensationalism) and then just go on about your business when half your [huge] readership makes note of it.

ARGH! I defy you [Slashdot editorial staff] to address this issue. I defy you. Go ahead... prove that you all aren't the true 'anonymous' cowards hiding behind your 'code of silence'.

Headline: Slashdot makes shit up just for shits and giggles. Facts secondary to inflaming the masses.

Wargames...

[mshiltonj]

And since nothing seems to be able to stop all of these Windows viruses, the best way to win is to just stop using Windows.

The immediately brought to mind a line from the old Wargames movie: "Strange game: the only winning move is not to play."

Re:what I want to know is...

[glenmark]

Read the article. The guy owns a company that provides broadband access via satellite. You can certainly connect a Mac to such services (the sat modem just looks like a router), but most companies that provide that service are just too lazy to provide config scripts for platforms other than windows.