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Microsoft Releases Super-Secure XP to US Air Force

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the true-security-through-obscurity dept.

Wired is reporting that Microsoft is releasing the most secure version of Windows XP ever created, but only if you are the US Air Force. "The Air Force persuaded Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to provide it with a secure Windows configuration that saved the service about $100 million in contract costs and countless hours of maintenance. At a congressional hearing this week on cybersecurity, Alan Paller, research director of the Sans Institute, shared the story as an template for how the government could use its massive purchasing power to get companies to produce more secure products. And those could eventually be available to the rest of us. Security experts have been arguing for this "trickle-down" model for years. But rather than wield its buying power for the greater good, the government has long wimped out and taken whatever vendors served them. If the Air Force case is a good judge, however, things might be changing."

2 of 507 comments (clear)

  1. MS is probably holding the air force hostage by t0qer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So I have this on good authority from someone who works there... A few years back the VA decided to start migrating from IIS to apache. At the same time they wanted to migrate file servers as well. When MS caught wind of this, they told the powers that be at the VA, "You drop us, and we'll audit you." Part of the contract MS holds with the VA is they're allowed to perform a license audit any time they want. The VA did its own internal investigation and figured out pretty quickly that MS had them, "Over the barrel" so to speak... I don't think the Air Force really wants to use MS stuff, but if they're in a similar situation as the VA, this doesn't bode well for them. I hope the Obama administration catches wind of this and puts a stop to this practice. It isn't right that my tax dollars are being forced into MS's pockets. I think in these rough economic times our government needs to really start exploring more OSS/free solutions out there.

  2. AF Standard Desktop Configuration by PapaSmurph · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While this was an interesting article, the XP and the Vista versions used by the USAF are the same ones used by the general public. The only differences are the security setting, the firewall configuration, and the user configuration. No one is an admin unless they need to be, and no normal day-to-day work is done in admin mode (same thing you do in Linux, no doubt).

    I didn't know this article was going to be published, but when I found it, I was not surprised by the comments. I've been working on this program for more than 2 years. Users hate it. Developers loathe it. Network security staff loves it.

    Nothing can make Windows (or any other OS) completely secure if it's connected to a network. This is as close as the federal government as ever come.