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U.S. Government Prepares For Vista
IO ERROR writes "Patrick Svenburg, program manager for Windows Client Solutions in Microsoft Federal, answered questions from government IT managers today about the upcoming Windows Vista release. Many of the questions were about BitLocker, Microsoft's new drive encryption technology, as well as other security questions, upgrading from Windows XP, IPv6 deployment and more. Svenburg is a member of the Windows Vista Launch Team and is leading early adoption efforts for Windows Vista within the Federal community, according to Government Computer News."
I found response to the DITSCAP question a friging joke. BTW, DITSCAP has been phased out for http://iase.disa.mil/ditscap/index.html DIACAP, the microsoft guy should have know that! Without going into the details... The DoD should demand microsoft do the DIACAP for their OS. If you've ever gone throught the DITSCAP process you would know why... It is a major pain in the ass and was/is crap. Contractors that provide other softwares are or should be required to go through this process, why on earth can the DoD not demand the same from the maker of the primary OS used by them. If the DoD follows their own rules/regs/instructions Vista shouldn't hit the desktop till at least LATE 2008. Bunk I Tell ya!
Does the U.S. Government (or any government in the world) get to audit the source code of Vista for themselves? If not, why not?
That means that any computer running with less than 2G of RAM and without a 7900GTX GPU is going to be tossed out as obsolete.
Bet on it! Cheap PCs are-a-comin.......
You know, Microsoft usually has either extremely dull or extremely stupid names for their products or features, but Bitlocker strikes me as actually being pretty cool. And it's not every day that they do something nifty, so write this one down.
As for the asshats asking about why threading is disabled, GO READ ABOUT IT ON THE FRONT PAGE. A little research won't kill you.
If all my base are belong to you and I attempt to retrieve my base, does that mean I'm freebasing?
>Vista Enterprise or Vista Ultimate- the OS of child pornographers. I notice none of these people asked the obvious question about the destructive potential of BitLocker on the science of computer forensics.
Sorry, but that's a load of scaremongering bull. Encryption is not a new thing. Anyone who wants to has been able to encrypt files has been able to do so quickly, easily, with minimum effort, and for free for quite a long time now, using something like Truecypt. Having full drive encryption on enterprise versions of Windows is not going to change a thing; the people who are going to pay for more a more expensive version of Windows in order to use full drive encryption are not going to be those who would not have otherwise used encryption.
>Windows Vista will be an enormous disruption in how people use their computers. They will have to learn the new environment and the new software that goes with it, and it will be some time before they get used to it and become comfortable with it. Well. If you're already planning on disrupting your computing experience that much in the vague hope that, "Maybe this time will be better," then you are obliged to try out Linux.
Sorry, but please, please shut up and go away. There are certainly a large number of truly excellent arguments in favour of using Linux instead of Windows. But condescendingly informing people that they are somehow 'obliged' to try Linux instead of Windows, whilst ignoring or dismissing the real and existing - but emphatically not unsurmountable - barriers that exist to switching, is unhelpful, patronising, and arrogant.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Unless you get permission, you aren't allowed to have encrypted data on any govt owned hard drive you may be using. BitLocker won't be allowed under current rules. Anyway, the government has shown they're incompetent, schizo, and paranoid about security. They want to use a secure OS, as long as it's Windows. They want COTS, to save money, but they can't get it through their heads that the commercial world does not share their views on security. The commercial world has in effect decided that the costs of the extreme measures the govt wants are not justifiable. Businesses are not interested in spending billions to formally verify everything. It would entail a massive redesign (for instance to a microkernel architecture) so that more formal verification is even possible. That's why there's almost nothing that has met EAL 5 or higher standards. And if that's not enough, govt doesn't want just security, they want the power to give out or take away security as they please, and don't seem to get that that's often not possible-- can't put the genie back in the bottle for one, and for another any form of security that can be "taken away" isn't security. They're all hung up over "made in the USA" or rather "coded in the USA" because foreigners can't be trusted not to put backdoors and traps and so forth in the code, so that's why Linux isn't acceptable, but it's ok to have Mexicans or Nicaraguans illegally in the US build the buildings and roads for the government. Military commanders risk their troops lives sending them on patrols in Iraq or Afghanistan, but they won't dare use some unapproved system such as Windows XP (has to be Windows 2000), because the punishments are so severe. If something goes wrong and it's discovered they used unapproved software, no matter how widely used and known and trusted, not only could they be kicked out of the service, they could be jailed.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"