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The US Navy's Warfare Systems Command Just Paid Millions To Stay On Windows XP
itwbennett writes: The Navy relies on a number of legacy applications and programs that are reliant on legacy Windows products,' said Steven Davis, a spokesman for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego. And that reliance on obsolete technology is costing taxpayers a pretty penny. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which runs the Navy's communications and information networks, signed a $9.1 million contract earlier this month for continued access to security patches for Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003.
Is it just me, or does that not seem like that bad of a price?
They did that with OS/2 back in the day, too. They stayed on OS/2 1.2 a couple years past when the OS expired for everyone else. I guarantee you what they paid for this one was less expensive than changing all the documentation to reflect a later version of windows.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Office, though? What are they doing? Using a mail merge macro to address the nuclear missiles on said submarine? Why the heck can't they just replace that with minimal issues?
At the end of the day, though, I'm not that worried. $9.1 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $700 billion DoD budget. There's a whole lot more pork in that barrel to be worried about.
"That reliance on obsolete technology is costing the tax payers". Do you have any idea how much it would cost the tax payers to try to *replace* all that embedded technology? Far, far more than $9.1M. I really wish that people wouldn't post articles with such blatant biases and so little background research.
The best thing that Microsoft could do for the world is put Windows 7 into perpetual maintenance and charge $50/year for the product. No more churn to replace hardware and software when they obsolete an old O/S. No more retraining costs to get IT personal who can manage the new O/S which does things just differently enough to trip people up.
At least MS isn't as bad as Apple where the literally force you to buy new hardware along with the new O/S (Ipad 1 anyone?)
Honestly, with the speed they develop and certify critical software in the military, I'm surprised some of these systems are up to Windows XP.
the XP version of Minesweeper. Apparently they get a lot of use out of that one.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
'The US Navy paid $9.1M to insure that critical systems running an older OS are still supported while they continue to transition away from said older OS, a process that anyone with IT experience knows cannot happen overnight, and sometimes can take years, particularly when it comes to systems with potentially disastrous consequences at risk should you just slap updates on them willy-nilly.'
I do realize that we're talking about post-Dice Slashdot here, but this is one of the lamer website shillings I've seen in a while. Honestly, the article itself isn't nearly as sensational as this clickbait summary would have you believe.
Inside thousands of labs all over the world there are testing devices worth tens of billions of dollars running on XP
The OS upgrade path is next to none
Nails extra
I paid $520 Billion dollars, that's billion with a 'B', to have the most modern and well equipped military in the world. If you're paying Microsoft to keep Exchange 2003 up to day, I am starting to doubt that I'm getting my money's worth here. Hell, when was the last time you even won a war?
I think we won the cold war, but I'm not sure it was a victory for the better.
Be seeing you...
Sometimes the only way to win is to not play the game.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Uses DOS just to be safe.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Windows EOL dates are known way in advance. 10 years from the date of release. Sometimes they do extend it (they did with XP) but you can plan on a decade. That really is a good amount of time to plan on the lifecycle for your products. It is not too much to say "about once a decade we are going to make sure that our code is up to date and compatible with the current version of windows, and then transition to that". Were you to transition to 8.1, you'd have support until 2023.
While critical systems certainly aren't something to move to a new platform right away, you have plenty of time to do it in. This is just a case of feet dragging.
'Davis wouldn’t provide more details about the systems or their use, citing cybersecurity policy, but an unclassified Navy document says the Microsoft applications affect “critical command and control systems” on ships and land-based legacy systems. Affected systems are connected to NIPRnet, the U.S. government’s IP network for non-classified information, and SIPRnet, the network for classified information.'
Well, not secure from outside attack, you can defend against that by not putting it on a network... KISS
Maybe everything after XP started phoning home to who knows what "area code" (206, NSA, KGB, unit 61398?)
Doing things right, and doing things cheap are two different things.The presumption was that "COTS" was both... maybe not so much anymore. (BTW the spirit of COTS means OSS is fair game for scrutiny.)
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
"Davis wouldn’t provide more details about the systems or their use, citing cybersecurity policy"
...on Windows XP?!
...WTF...
That opens up the can of worms of campaign finance money and lobbying.
WSUSOffline will do what you want:
http://download.wsusoffline.ne...
You need an old version (9.2.1) to get XP support. Basically pick what updates you want, then it will download it, and build it in a form that basically you can double click the installer and it will run the updates.
it's not a hammer, it's a manual nail insertion device designed to provide application of no less than 5000 ft-lb of energy to a drawn steel fasteneing device of up to 0.162" in diameter and 3.5" long with swaged or pressed impact points. The design must be such that operation is possible by users which fall within the 20th and 98th percentile for size based on standard American male growth charts for all races. The device shall require low skill level for operation. Item must be maintenance free with no adjustment required for initial or long term operation. All materials shall be sourced in accordance with OPM regulations and include a certificate of authenticity for all natural materials and a certification of chemical composition for all non-natural materials. Chemical composition may be provided by certificates of origin and testing by third parties at the source of material, or through destructive testing and analysis of the 0.1% of the fabricated product quantity per lot. Each lot shall be identified using ONLY the military item number (no commercial numbers or identification shall be allowed), be marked "U.S. Military Use Only", and carry the lot number. Identification shall be integrally cast, impressed, and/or indelibly marked on the item, or on each part of the item if the assembly is separable.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Good point. That does, however, qualify him for being the contract manager on the government side.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You mean to rell me some of our critical defense systems are running on Windows? BSOD anyone!
Ah....how come companies world-wide rely on MS Malware? Because it does what they need it to do. Yes, it is inelegant, yes it is buggy, yes it is a pile of insecurity that could knock a dead buzzard off a shitwagon at 20 paces. Until recently, there's never really been an alternative. Much of the military is doing the usual kinds of things it takes to keep a large organization functioning, i.e., payroll, retirement plans, accounting, etc.
Wot? That's not related to national security? Yes, it is. That's what it takes to make a large organization into a functioning large organization. And given the size and scope of the weapons systems they must buy (hint, they stopped making their own stuff years and years ago), you wouldn't want it any other way. They are only now getting to where they can produce an audit of their financials.
Wot? They didn't have auditing until now? Nope, they had the same mentality you do. This is the military, they could just whack together systems right? But now they have a new problem. In the past, they were a big enough market unto themselves they could pretty much define what companies will build for them. No longer. The military is not a large enough market for most companies, if they are going to build something, they need to sell it outside the military as well. So, now take Congressional mandates into the equation where product providers cannot be shown preference. How do you get software for over 1 million people? You cannot farm it out to several companies, the software won't work together. By the time you get the software, install it, train people, and use it, you have a large sunk cost. Redoing that every 5-10 years is beyond expensive.
My tax dollars are paying for the updates. Why can't the government share them?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
a lot of outfits, including governments, run platforms as long as they can. see http://www.geek.com/news/commo...
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management continues its contract for Windows 3.1 support.
Kythe
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imo, it was a good decision, ==provided== there will be an effort to start moving off of Windows XP and on to a more sustainable environment than Windows.
Finally the update from NT.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
It isn't just the U.S. Navy, but the IRS and a bunch of other government offices that are still on XP for legacy reasons. Let's face it, Vista was an abortion from the get go, and Windows 8 wasn't much better. In fact every even numbered OS from Microsoft is horrid. Hence why business uses Windows 7 now.
For what they have now, there isn't really any better choice.
I've been in a similar situation working in telecom. My boss asked me to come up with a plan to replace WinXP with Linux a few years ago. This was for only 25K people, but the software running on the machines was highly specialized - we aren't talking normal desktops here. Think "device testing equipment and software to interface with it."
For us, the cost of WinXP licenses was just under $5M - peanuts - compared to the cost and time to migrate all the other custom software to Linux. Much of the interfaces were provided by 2rd parties for HW API access and that software ran $25M each - we had about 20-25 different SW packages like that. Basically, it was a very costly project and as long as phones are in grandma's house and people use 128Kbps DSL and ISDN connections, those tools will be required. I'd guess about another 20 yrs from today.
$9M/yr is a bargain when you start looking at these numbers.
So, I left that job and I've been a full-time Linux user and server guy for almost a decade now. I still think that decision was correct and I don't have a big issue with NWS paying for this either. I wish they'd used Linux initially and think all new systems deployed so mandate F/LOSS and open data formats.
You're using a tablet with 1GB of RAM as your main computer? You want to run a 13yo operating system? XP Tablet edition? You are the very definition of a stubborn old man.
Office 2003 is arguably still the best version of Office. I have co-workers who still use it and I've used pretty much every version since 4. I don't disagree with them, although I have personally transitioned to 2010 for compatibility. Newer versions don't provide much additional usability and make certain things more difficult such as removing the ability to select chart curves directly from the legend. Why??
WordPerfect 5.1 baby, WordPerfect 5.1. "Reveal codes" is/was the most useful feature ever.
I agree - it was really cool to cleanup the mess it sometimes created. You can do this in Office as well. Unzip the docx, and with a proper XML editor you can do anything. Except.... the mess MS has made of that XML is unbelievable. The logic behind it seems to be to make it as difficult as possible to edit this manually.
Thermonuclear chess?
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
The Navy purchases computers as parts of much larger systems, often ships. These things get assembled and their expected lifetime is much longer that the technology cycles we enjoy outside of their domain. Refit schedules are not driven by the computers on board but rather by much larger, more expensive and longer lived components like diesel motors. The Navy is just in the last couple of years starting to move some of their onboard computer systems to what they refer to as "Carry On" components. There are probably ships in the fleet that have 25 year old electronics on them because these components weren't ever expected to be replaced.
It was $520 B in 2014 alone. What does that have to do with a Cold War that has been over for decades?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Here.
Inside thousands of labs all over the world there are testing devices worth tens of billions of dollars running on XP
The OS upgrade path is next to none
You don't update software on medical equipment anyway. That thing would have to be recertified.
The NMCI was supposed to be a manageable intranet, with the Initiative back in 2000 the first step, identifying apps, updating systems, blah blah blah.
Sort of got done. Sort of. The history of the NMCI is a study in vendor management, high expectations, and bureaucracy.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Ah, yes, SPAWAR...
Where wrinkly old generals sit around in a hot tub all day discussing their war plans.
At least that was my first thought when I moved to San Diego years ago and first spotted the sign on the huge complex.
Trivia: during WWI, the building they are housed in was an aircraft factory. The factory roof and nets covering adjacent Pacific Highway had painted scenery to fool an errant Japanese bombers.
Millions of mom-and-pop businesses thank SPAWAR for enabling their old inventory system sitting in the corner running on a PC-AT to continue to function!
Yes, plenty of other stuff like this as well.
A friend who is a Materials Scientist rues the day that they updated his electron microscope from Win XP to Windows 7 (or 8, forget which).
So I'm not raising the efficacy or exonomy of sticking with XP or not, if the navy wants to pay Microsoft for security patches instead of upgrading then that is fine.
No my question is, are the security patches the navy will get a federally paid for publishable items?
If they are then that means under current rules, once a piece of code is published to the navy, unless it is covered by a security mark then they and/or Microsoft is required to disclose it. Now this may not make financial sense to the big M, but how many times over are they willing to get paid for the same patch on an old OS.
I say, once the navy or any federal department who is paying for patches gets them then they should be released for public consumption, free of charge.
...for 9 meelion bucks.