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More on the Swedish Stealth Ship
Dr.Knackerator writes "The BBC is running a story on Sweden's new carbon fibre stealth ship, the Visby. As well as being the first stealth ship, it is controlled by 'state-of-the-art computers using a Windows NT operating system'. 'But Kockums and the Swedish Navy deny it could be sabotaged by hackers and say that even if it did they could fall back to traditional steering and navigation'." We had a previous story about this as well.
It depends on what's more beneficial to them at the moment.
NT is, within certain parameters, a stable operating system. But I can't figure out why a nation would build defense systems on foreign-owned operating systems. Sure, the likelihood that the US and Sweden ever get involved in a real conflict is small. But when there are arguably better non-foreign operating systems available, why not use those instead?
It's not like you gain anything in terms of compatibility by using a Windows-based operating system. Saving a few hundred bucks for cheaper Intel (or even Alpha) hardware probably is a drop in the bucket. You might be able to find cheaper programmers, but this is a carbon-fiber ship already costing millions of dollars, what's a few hundred grand extra a year for software development costs?
Then again, I'm sure the Sweedish air force might have a few F-16s or C-130s; but how many American jets, planes, tanks, and boats have Swedish software running them? Could you imagine the American nationalist outcry if we ran foreign software on our American defense systems?
Anyone who would call NT "state of the art" is incompetent and not a good judge of hardware.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ve-a hed a prefeeuoos stury ebuoot thees es vell.
Bork Bork Bork.
...BORK BORK BORK!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Swedish Navy has no reason at all to believe NT isn't stable or secure. Just look what it did for the US Navy!