Slashdot Mirror
Embedded RTOS Maker Raises Linux Security Issues
drquizas writes "Embedded RTOS provider Green Hills recently delivered an address where they raised the question of whether Linux can be considered secure enough to be used in defense applications. Much of the usual FUD is present in the remarks, although an interesting question is raised regarding what defense and other government contractors are required to do in testing code (in this case anyway): is the closed code here being held to a higher standard than its open-source equivalent, and does this change the 'security through obscurity' argument?"
quote from this raty-os dude
"It costs us $500 to $1,000 a line to review our source code. It would cost billions of dollars to review Linux."
Say whut? It actually costs this? why? where can I sign up???? I'll sub my per-line auditing out, rake it in...
Naw, cmon, really? the government charges this, or he just pays this cost? Because..huh?
Is it only me - cause when i read green hills I immediately thought about the Windowss XP background :P
For example you'll never see backdoors in commercial software. You can rest easy that they've done their job well and everything is nice and secure. That's why its better to stick with big commercial vendors like Cisco.
btw, why even give a story like this press? What a joke.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Come on. These guys have a valid point. When you rely on high-quality closed source vendors like Cisco at least you guarentee you won't have back doors built into your system.
Oh. Wait. Nevermind.
Note to self: If ever pirate Russian gas pipeline control software, look for the "paybacksAreHell" subroutine.
You want custom, quality, made for Govt. spec code! The kind that is produced by either the low-bidder, or corporate crony!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Definitely a need, and absolutely there is a market. There is also intense competition for the market. There are few players.
Oh, I don't know. Personally, I want to be able to perform missile launch and guidance control from my Linux desktop; the apparent performance degradation that would accompany the kernel revisions required to make it a true RTOS would be more than made up for by all the cool things you could do with it. Esp since the newer, faster hardware would make the deterministic scheduler appear to perform as well on the new hardware as the current scheduler performs on existing hardware. Just think of the possiblities.... It adds a whole new dimension to the idea of "fighting SPAM" or "nuking" an offensive banner ad...
"The Internet is made of cats."
"Real-Time Operating Systems Must be Highly Reliable"
Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Unix, and Linux often crash, lock up, or go crazy. They indicate this condition by displaying a sad face, an exploding bomb, a red X, a blue screen of death, or by simply refusing to respond to mouse-clicks or keyboard input.
Come on, if Windows was that bad Diebold wouldn't use it in their ATMs... Ooops...
how long until