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IBM Clinches Security Certification for Linux
Nimey writes "IBM has gotten Linux certified under the Common Criteria specification. " What this means is that government can consider Linux when making purchasing decisions. Linux got the highest rating possible.
What are the ratings and how does other common OS's score? Anybody know?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
According to this article, Red Hat and Oracle are working on gaining the same level of certification by the end of the year.
I mean, look at all the other level 4 assurance level OSs here . Of course, Windows 2k has had this certification since last year AND Microsoft has prepared a nice guide for ensuring compliance to the common criteria guides for the Windows Sysadmin. I'm very glad that Linux will be able to compete with Windows on a bureaucratic level as well as on technical merit, but perhaps there is a slight overreacction from the part of the /. editors?
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
I'm a sysadmin for a large government data center. We've been using Linux in production for years, and we always purchase boxed distributions, even some preconfigured(!) machines from Dell. Government regulations do, however, prevent me from ordering Windex and Duster. These are considered janitorial supplies, and there is no justification in Information Systems procuring these items. So frankly, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Things look a lot different on the ground.
Did you seriously think that they would? If so you need to share some of the dope you've been smoking. As has been said numerous times on this board: to IBM, SCO is nothing more than an annoying mosquito. They might be carrying West Nile, but they are still just a mosquito, and can be crushed or captured almost any time.
The cool part about this whole article is that with the security cert, the government could begin switching some of their offices over. It also means that organizations like hospitals (who need to be concerned with privacy due to HIPAA) can be sold on the fact that it is secure and they don't have to worry as much about some hacker stealing confidential information.
Think about it."We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Well, look at it this way. If you couldn't, trying would be futile. Sorta like trying to get water/blood from a stone. But, with linux certified, saying that you will not even have one supporter of linux in gov't just got a little unreasonable.
You have big corps like IBM, HP and Dell saying, "it's ok."
You have many countries saying "It's ok, see?"
You have the US (via certification) saying "it's ok."
Seems more unreasonable to say it will never happen every other day.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Well IBM is a force to be reckoned with as well. In some ways a little more then Microsoft. Especially in New York State, where almost all the agencies use IBM products. But it was IBM who brought Microsoft into the mainstream. And they can probably bring Linux into the mainstream. It will not be an overnight adoption but a gradual one.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.