FW: [Am-info] Gates gets government security at tax payer expense

[Jeff Wasel]

Hi All,

Unfortunately, the usually spot-on Hans has missed this one.

I spent 15 years working in the intelligence community, using sources from
Ft. Meade, the CIA and others, and the platform then, as it is today is
Solaris and Sol 86 on Intel running ADA or other DOD-specific OS. HP has
some of the data storage component which is done in a distributed fashion
for safety's sake. The secretaries and such use Office, but it ties into a
UNIX and Linux back end. Windows is not as pervasive as M$ would like, nor
is it used by most of the other gov't agencies for mission critical stuff.
CERT just released a warning telling people to stop using IE 6 a couple
weeks ago, so one would think they are aware of M$' limitations... As for
what the rest of the world runs, the UK's MI-5 and MI-6 are windows shops
with some Linux (know a few folks there from my work at the LSE): the German
external security folks use Linux on the back, some Windows and Linux on the
front, but they support less than 800 users so ramp-up is less. The
pervasiveness of Linux is a myth, simply because most of the analytical
tools used for espionage, satellite imagery and feed analysis are
home-rolled or derived from US-developed, ADA or windows-based applications.
It is the data that is classified, not the platform, and given that the DBM
structure that this stuff feeds into is primarily UNIX or ADA-based, at
least in the US, the impact on security because of windoze is somewhat
relative.

What you read about the security services is up to you - I like it when they
are perceived as dullards, idiots and the like, as it just lulls the threat
to sleep. Last time I looked, the KGB was on the losing side, and just
because the upper echelon of an organization may be too heavy, that doesn't
negate operational successes, witness Afghanistan. 150 CIA agents, with the
help of 700 Army, Navy, and Marine Special forces and those of Australia and
the United Kingdom, overthrew the gov't of Afghanistan in roughly a month -
a month to neuter a 10,000+ seasoned guerrilla army and national
infrastructure that has not had peace in 25 years. So much for our
incompetence.

END of off-topic rant...

That said, hope everyone's fine, and Gene and Felmon, thanks for your
interesting observations on the duality of rage...

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: am-info-admin@lists.essential.org
[mailto:am-info-admin@lists.essential.org]On Behalf Of Hans Reiser
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 9:56 AM
To: Mark Dodel
Cc: am-info@lists.essential.org
Subject: Re: [Am-info] Gates gets governmemnt security at tax payer
expense


A more serious worry is that the department of homeland security has
standardized on windows, and is now trying to make it secure, which I
fear will perhaps wind up being an enormous subsidy for the windows OS.

If you guys are going to make remarks about our intelligence services
being morons (they are), keep in mind that at a time when the Russians
and Chinese and Europeans and everyone competent is moving from windows
to linux for their intelligence services, we are standardizing on
windows.  Yes, they are the least competent intelligence agency in the
world, and their ability to select an OS without knowing or caring that
it has a few security problems is one of the measures of it.  They are
so far behind the Russians in skill level, it is a sad joke.....

Hans
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