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.

Comments

And now... In Swedish.

[lewko]

Zee BBC is roonneeng a stury oon Sveden's noo cerbun feebre-a steelt sheep, zee Feesby. Bork bork bork! Es vell es beeeng zee furst steelt sheep, it is cuntrulled by 'stete-a-ooff-zee-ert cumpooters useeng a Veendoos NT oopereteeng system'. 'Boot Kuckooms und zee Svedeesh Nefy deny it cuoold be-a sebuteged by heckers und sey thet ifee iff it deed zeey cuoold fell beck tu tredeeshunel steereeng und nefeegeshun'." Ve-a hed a prefeeuoos stury ebuoot thees es vell.

Re:And now... In Swedish.

[kunudo]

It's not about replicating Swedish, you bafoon. It's the Swedish Chef from dialectizer... You know, as in the FUCKING MUPPET, which did say 'und'?

Yes, I know. He was wrong too.

Why stealth?

[aixou]

Is everyone all of a sudden gunning at the Swedish ships?

Maybe the powers that be saw Tomorrow Never Dies one too many times.

Why????

[BWJones]

it is controlled by 'state-of-the-art computers using a Windows NT operating system'. '

First off, I am not sure I would call an NT system "state of the art". Next, I have to wonder just why folks are using a commodity platform to perform literally "mission critical" operations in a combat environment. Particularly one whose history of security is dubious at best.

Re:Why????

[dasmegabyte]

Well, the security of poorly administrated Windows systems is dubious. But none of the 25 Windows 2000 machines in this office has ever gotten a virus in the past three years...basically, since I took over as administrator.

Why? First thing I did was install a firewall. Second thing I did was disable unneccessary services. Third thing I did was patch them regularly.

And that's it. I am the only admin for the company and I spend maybe two hours a month working on Windows (most of which is spent convincing the Exchange server to run a little bit longer). Why is Windows security so bad? Because most Windows administrators are lazy and would prefer to let things go for a few weeks than test the effects of the patch themselves.

And as for Windows systems NOT being state-of-the-art...would you like a list of hardware that had Windows support YEARS before Linux got it? You probably don't, it's quite long and includes such obscure technologies as "USB." Not dissing on Linux overall (and I realize support for new tech has gotten MUCH better), but if you're a company that needs support for cutting edge technology and you don't want to write your own drivers, sometimes Windows is the only option. All that bloat? Yeah, some of it is Minesweeper and that retarded dog, but some of it is also features.

Not so worried about it being hacked...

[Trogdorsey]

I'd be more worried about it crashing

The US has had a stealth ship since the mid-80's

[Flounder]

but if I told you about it, I'd have to kill you.

Sea Shadow

Re:Coolest part...

[BWJones]

Actually, cryptic paint schemes go back as far as the early 1900's in war ships designed to conceal edges and make it difficult to determine which direction a ship may be traveling in. They have been used on and off for years, but most commonly on smaller littoral combat platforms rather than larger ships.

James Bond

[Claire-plus-plus]

Well at least James Bond will find that one easier to destroy than the last stealth ship he dealt with, all he would have to do is give it's IP to some script kiddies.

Hmmm.

[Faust7]

First off, I am not sure I would call an NT system "state of the art".

Well, the article says the computers are state-of-the-sart, not the operating system.
However, I doubt they're running NT 4.0 in any case. Windows 2000 or Server 2003, most likely, and those are simply not operating systems to be laughed at.

Re:Hmmm.

[Flounder]

Windows 2000 or Server 2003, most likely, and those are simply not operating systems to be laughed at. No laughing at Windows 2k or 2k3?? You do realize this is /. we're talking about, remember?

Re:Hmmm.

[Geekenstein]

No, NT is the most likely OS. Military hardware takes years of design and testing to be put into service. If you look at the computer specs for the newest USAF fighter prototypes, you'll see they have about the computing power of a 486. Once things are certified and stress tested, you don't go changing the design on something that works.

Re:Hmmm.

[borgboy]

Actually, having been in the defense industry, I can say with the timeline this warship was developed that it's entirely probable that it does run Windows NT 4.0. You dont change specs like that on a project of this scope lightly. NT also has been rated C2, in certain specific configurations.
Good? Bad? Evil? Not my argument.

Been there done that!

[10Ghz]

Finnish Hamina-class. Maybe not as radical as this ship, but stealth-ship regardless. And packed with high technology.

So what makes this Swedish ship "first stealth-ship", when there are already stealth-ships in use in Finland? And they have been in use for quite some time already.

Probably OK

[W2k]

If this boat is running anything like the NT systems I used when I was in the army (the Swedish army that is) I'd say it's pretty stable and secure. Windows NT has had quite some time to mature as an operating system and has had most of its bugs fixed by now. Obviously, they won't be connecting these things to the Internet, so no need to worry about hax0rz.

I, for one, welcome our new Swedish Navy Stealth Ship overlords.

It may be invisible to radar...

[mwvdlee]

...but it'll be easily spotted by all the outgoing packets coming from the spyware, troyans and virusses "installed" on WinNT!

Stealth cars

[DataCannibal]

I was at a job interview recently and those of us who were there being interviewed were chatting about fun jobs we'd like to have.

One of the guys there told us that a friend of his, who had previously worked for an arms company, was being recentltly interviewed for a job at a Formula 1 racing team. When asked what he could tell them about his previous job and how he could use that experience in the job he was interviewing for he repliad that, because of the classified nature of his work he couldn't tell them much about what he had been doing. He could, however, help them to make their racing cars invisible to radar.

Clippy

[merky1]

I see that you are attacking a lesser third world country. Would you like to

0 - Launch Missiles
0 - Fire Cannons
0 - Hide

Windows NT at the helm

[LabRat007]

So the crew would look something like...

1 Captin

1 First Mate

50 Enlisted To Man Stations

103 System Admins to keep NT's "blue screen of death" from sinking the ship

Re:Doesn't the US have a stealth Ship?

[Quila467]

You're probably thinking of the Lockheed Martin "Sea Shadow" which was a stealth ship built by the same group that built the F-117 stealth fighter and the SR-71. It was built by Skunk Works in the mid 80's as a test ship to test stealth technology on ships. If you google for skunkworks sea shadow, you should be able to find a picture of it.

Re:Windows NT you say?

[superdan2k]

Wouldn't that be spelled, "4h0y m4t3y, th4r 5h3 bL0WZ0RZ!"?

NT is a good choice...

[Rick.C]

... if all you want to do is steer. Oh, and control engine speed. No problem. And maybe integrate the radar. Still no problem. And run LSASS to make sure that there are no NT license violations. And RPC to check if anyone wants to use the C$ share. And SVCHOST and SPOOLSV and WINLOGON. And CSRSS and SMSS and maybe WOW. And IE4 for the user interface. And MSTASK to monitor it all...

Captain to Engine Room (through the low-tech voice tube): Switch to manual control IMMEDIATELY!

Re:The US has had a stealth ship since the mid-80'

[Dr. Smeegee]

I vish to use a protractor on your steelth wessels!

It's a brilliant bluff

[Nevrar]

Excellent idea...

Bluff the world... Say you have an invisible navy - no one will be able to disprove it! Everyone will think Sweden is the next superpower...

The fastrack to world peace.