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No Windows Allowed On Ex-Battleship Cruise Liner

Posted by timothy on from the world-of-recreation dept.

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."

7 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. First post? by handsomepete · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    (So long, karma.)

  2. No windows? by I+Am+The+Owl · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --

    --sdem
  3. Whatever by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Whatever by doughumphrey · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

    2. Re:Whatever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      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

  4. I have to say... by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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=

    1. Re:I have to say... by doughumphrey · · Score: 5, Informative

      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