-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 31 May 2002 7:10 pm, Miark wrote:
> "..the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution outlines how open source > might facilitate efforts to disrupt or sabotage electronic commerce, > air traffic control or even sensitive surveillance systems. > > "Unlike proprietary software, open source software does not make the > underlying code of a software confidential. > > "'Computer systems are the backbone to U.S. national security', says > Fossedal, chairman... 'Before the Pentagon and other federal agencies > make uninformed decision to alter the very foundation of computer > security, they should study the potential consequences carefully.'" When I saw 'air traffic control' I smelt a scoundrel. The following is flagrantly OT but demonstrates that someone who knows what they're talking about is, occasionally, useful ;) As someone who works in air traffic management and the architecture and UI of systems thereof ... all I can say is that the de Tocqueville Institute is offering the most gorgeously fluorescent red herring. Windows would not get within shouting distance of a core ATM system because of its reliability problems, because you get everything bar the kitchen sink thrown in and, by far the most important reason, because Microsoft is _extremely_ reluctant to alter basic functionality. (A friend told me an a story of working on a banking system for one of the UK Big Four banks which was using Internet Explorer as a front end for browsing information; the bank wanted various things not merely turned off or obfuscated but _removed_ and Microsoft would not budge despite having money thrown at it; in the end the front end was written from scratch). When, if things go wrong, you kill people, you want the technically best solution, and these tend to be a mixture of closed and open source. All the modern ATM systems I know are based on a flavour of Unix (typically AIX or Solaris) which is customised by working closely with the vendor. There is also quite a bit of open source in there; most usually X11, again customised. I'm pretty sure Linux-based systems will appear soon; that they haven't already is because ATM moves slowly and carefully, for obvious and good reasons. A lot of uninformed 'analysts' also seem to think that it's easy to hack into ATM systems. This is not true, certainly not in the UK; they run on networks separate from the public telephone, wireless and broadband networks, and usually use customised protocols. These protocols are the right solution for the wrong reason (historical compatibility with some very cranky old systems) but the notion of some 14-year-old telling planes to go all over the place from their back bedroom is preposterous.The Internet, or even TCP/IP, and ATM do not mix! Alastair - -- Alastair Scott (London, United Kingdom) http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE898Q7Cv59vFiSU4YRAtMQAJ9Luo4zM+TkywnUeOXviAc5cD/aDQCcCCRV ozftw9E4TLJ2/YD3coFfoeQ= =64n2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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