“The fact that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Microsoft Corp. a $90 million enterprise software deal two days after Bill Gates met with DHS Secretary Tom Ridge in Washington is more than sheer coincidence,” reports Dan Verton for Computerworld. “It’s now a major security headache for a mammoth new agency that security experts say lacks the wherewithal to have considered alternative sources for its software.”
Verton reports, “On June 25, Gates met with Ridge and other leaders on Capitol Hill. And on June 27, the DHS signed a contract with the company for server and desktop software for approximately 140,000 users. The DHS described the contract as a critical step in the department’s efforts to establish a common computing environment for its 22 formerly independent agencies. But with the discovery last week of a critical security flaw affecting nearly every version of the Windows operating system — including Windows Server 2003, the first product to be sold under Microsoft’s so-called Trustworthy Computing initiative — some security experts are warning that the DHS may have backed itself into a security quagmire.”
“‘They had a choice, but it would have been costly and time-consuming,’ said Roger Cressey, former chief of staff of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. ‘The real alternative was to go open-source. But for 22 agencies, an overwhelming majority of which use nothing but Microsoft operating systems, to convert to another platform in an efficient and cost-effective manner would have been hard to accomplish,’ said Cressey. ‘DHS has neither the time, the money, nor the flexibility for that. Now it is held hostage to the imperfections of Microsoft code-writing,'” Verton reports.
Full artile here.
Why is Mac OS X not a “real alternative?” Too good for government work? Oh sorry, I get it – it would have created an oxymoron: Efficient Government Employees. The American people deserve better, but the “American people” are the ones who inflicted Microsoft Windows on the world, so perhaps they get what they deserve?
OS X is not a real option due Apples lack of Lobbying dollars. Apple would rather spend it money build better computers and Operating Systems then buying a President… Mediocrity breeds mediocrity, iI guess that is why the Goverment is comfortable with Windows and Micro$oft.
Windows are for the masses.
Remember how stupid the average person is…
For that person to be average, 50% of the public has to be less inteligent than he is.
And most of them have gov’t jobs…
The same people who actually buy those videos on how to use Windows….
“Windows are for the masses.
Remember how stupid the average person is…
For that person to be average, 50% of the public has to be less inteligent than he is.”
I have always said that 50% of the American population are flaming morons. Just take a look at the current CNN poll on whether or not Bush is doing a good job. How any sane person could possibly approve of the current state of this country is amazing to me, but the numbers don’t lie.
The poll is currently 50-50. Confirming what I have long believed about the lack of intelligence in 50% of the population.
<politics waste of space>
I have always said that 50% of the American population are flaming morons. Just take a look at the current CNN poll on whether or not Bush is doing a good job. How any sane person could possibly not approve of the current state of this country is amazing to me, but the numbers don’t lie.
The poll is currently 50-50. Confirming what I have long believed about the lack of intelligence in 50% of the population.
</politics waste of space>
LOL… I feel safer already!
Cinque
Unreal.
Can you say ‘kick-back’ boys and girls?
Okay, ‘kick-back’ is a baseless accusation.
How about ‘corruption’?
RV, shut the hell up and go to a political forum if you want to stroke yourself off over your wisdom.
this is a forum about computing and Apple computer, not a GOP/DNC self-serving orgy. fuck off.
‘DHS has neither the time, the money,’ isn’t that the mentality that let greedy administrators subcontract out security 2 to 3 times over at airports?? You are then left with underpaid under trained under-motivated etc. staff protecting the airports and planes. Remember the WTC, look what that kind of mentality got you. Quite cost efficient.
p.s. Didn’t the US Navy also have “cost efficient” windows related crippling incidences?????
The REAL reason there was no alternative is found in the membership of House and Senate Committees with general or specific oversight of Homeland Security. they are both loaded with Texans and Washintonians on BOTH the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. Dell is a Texas based company and Micro$oft is a Washington based company. It has more to do with taking care of the home folks than some conspiracy, but in the end we still get shafted.
WRITE YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES…NOW
Does the USA want a Homeland Security Bullshit anyway?
rageous,
the article IS fraught with politics and fraud, I agree that politics usually should be kept out of tech discussions but when it is THE politics that is behind one tech be used unfairly over another than……….
“We didn’t have the time.”
“This is what they are accustomed to using.”
…are the WORST reasons upon which to make a decision. And these guys are in charge of our national security?!!
It’s nice to see that our national security is somewhere down on the list below a director’s time, the staff’s comfort level, and usual politics.
The fact that this hasn’t made national media means that the media has bought into this lame logic too.
Remeber the movie South Park?
When the gov’t was using Windows 98 and it failed.
Let’s see how Teflon Bill acts when the computers of Dept of HS crash.
Windows has been one of the easiest OS’s to crash. If the FBI, CIA, DMV, INS are all using one common system sharing information, one virus will knock everything out.
I for one am glad OSX wasn’t an option.
Just think of the bullseye we’d all have on our computers once the government raised our OS into every hacker’s crosshairs.
Still…I suppose giving said hackers full access to any files they want by using a buggy OS isn’t much better is it.