What SCO Wants, SCO Gets (Forbes)

Posted Jun 19, 2003 4:47 UTC (Thu) by naughty-artkitekt (guest, #10552) [Link]

"scox will be bankrupt before this lawsuit is settled. Look at their finances. scox
does not have a competitive product. and scox has alienated every potential
customer with their 1500 letter campaign."


Not completely so, about the alienation part, considering an ad I read at the UK
Navy News site:

http://www.navynews.co.uk/articles/2001/0104/0001042702.asp

There was a, basically, "We're here for you, SOC" piece up there a few days ago.

They've still got the UKRN (Royal Navy) using thar-she- Sco-blows' software in
the fleet's (or a number of capital ships') combat systems comptuers. That
means targeting, tracking, navigation, and other systems tied into SCO-blow's
daily-dying code. If the RN is not able to edit the code as NTUs (New Threat
Upgrades, or whatever "sexy" term the USN & UKRN use today), then the Brtish
Parliament and MOD (Ministry of Defence) will SURE kick their own "arses" for
allowing their systems to be dependent upon a proprietary OS.

Even the US Navy's USS Yorktown (CG-48) "went broke dick" (see FCW or
GCN circk 1998 (Federal Computer Weekly or Government Computer News)


http://www.securityfocus.com/guest/3448

http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/sfonline/library.pl?cat=188&offset=60
========Interjection, to lift a scathing quote of that author=====

If you really want to break Microsoft's monopoly, you need to get alternative
operating systems, like Linux, rated by the NCSC. Many companies, like Red Hat,
do not want to invest the time or money to have their products evaluated and
rated, but I believe that the potential for government contracts (and the
knowledge that our nuclear secrets are a little bit safer) is well worth the
investment. In addition, Microsoft will no longer be able to beat the Linux crowd
over the head with the "No Security Rating" argument

(http://www.microsoft.com/NTServer/nts/news/msnw/LinuxMyths.asp).

I believe Linux is capable of much more than just meeting the C2 rating Microsoft
Windows NT holds. Since Linux can do everything that Microsoft Windows NT
can do (and then some), one can reasonably assume that Linux can achieve a
minimum C2 rating. In order to meet the B1 requirements, the operating system
must be able to append security information to objects after they leave the
system. Microsoft Windows NT could not achieve this rating because they
supported only the FAT file system for floppy disks, which cannot track security
information. Linux supports the EXT2 file system for floppy disks, and the kernel
can be compiled to remove support for the less secure FAT, forcing users to use
a file system that contains security information, hence mandatory protection.
However, requirements for B3 and A1 require that the operating systems be
stripped of all components not vital to system security ...."

and an even more scathing link:

http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/am-info/Week-of-Mon-20000807/003657.html
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0807/news-navy-08-07-00.asp

"Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water"
http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2.htm

""If you understand computers, you know that a computer normally is immune to
the character of the data it processes," he wrote in the June U.S. Naval Institute's
Proceedings Magazine. "Your $2.95 calculator, for example, gives you a zero
when you try to divide a number by zero, and does not stop executing the next
set of instructions. It seems that the computers on the Yorktown were not
designed to tolerate such a simple failure.""

But according to DiGiorgio, who in an interview said he has serviced automated
control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is
the source of the Yorktown's computer problems.

NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide damage control, run the ship's
control center on the bridge, monitor the engines and navigate the ship when
under way.

"Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is
similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said.

The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the systems
failures, he said.


"Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political
pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said. "If it were up to me I
probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we
used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down."

===
(and: http://www.cromwell-intl.com/security/468-generalinfo.html for Telstar
solar-flare failure, Yorktown, DNS spoofing, etc...)
""Microsoft Federal Systems will help design the ships IT
>>architecture based on the companys Windows 2000 platform. The
>>commercial off-the-shelf software solution includes a three-year
>>commitment by Microsoft Consulting Services for technical support
>>during the ships software design, development and deployment.
>>Actual construction of the CVN-77 will begin in 2001."
>>
>>"The software will run the bulk of the command and control
>>systems in the three "decision centers" being designed into the
>>CVN-77s architecture, said Brian Roach, Lockheed Alliance manager
>>for Microsoft Federal." "

">>I mentioned this to a friend, who returned a rumor that the
>>sucker was towed home *twice*.
>>
>>Looks like some ####heads don't learn from experience. It's also
>>too bad the Three Stooges aren't still around, I can imagine what
>>they'd do with the idea of a warship at sea gone blue-screen."



====== resume from interjection=====

(from the above, I wonder if the USN so much likes "power projection" over the
deep and shallow blue seas that it is ok with suffering "blue screens at sea"...
Does anyone know of any BSATs happening yet?)

(scroll down further to see a commentary on Multics)

(QUICK! Do this in Google before the pages disappear:

"fcw uss yorktown nt" in the search box... )

(due to.. guess what? "DIVIDE BY ZERO" ERROR!)
and had to be towed in disgrace back to port by a TUGBOAT because windoze
NT decided to "check for light leaks" (Close eyelids for a snooze...) and the ship
went "underway with no way on" ( wallowed adrift, powerless, a nearly 1
BILLION DOLLAR SHIP, dropped the load and couldnt' reenergize her power
systems).

I was LIVID tht MYYYYYY USN would DARE think to use ms windoze to
supplant a working Ada system. Ada surely was ancient, but to leap from "Flight
Simulator" name re-badgers (NO, NO, NO, you newbies or forgetful little ones,
ms did NOT write Flight Simulator. Just as they bought Hotmail and Visio, they
bought the makers of Flight Simulator...., as they buy so much and then feign
innovation...go figure...). I remember the FFG-7s sometimes "dropping the load"
and the surface and other contacts and tracks had to be manually re-fed into the
computers. Their systems were not exactly "dated" but it is frightening to this
DAY to wonder if any more ms crap is lurking in the power bus management of
the CG-47 or DDG-51 or any other warship in ANYBODY's Navy. I wouldn't (as a
sailor, sailor usually can be respectable about feeling the loss of even an enemy
sailor to heavy-handed odds...) wish ms on even my ENEMIES (if I had/have
any). I hoped to god(dess) that ms' crap was not running the target managment
systems, but, s/he ain't listenin' to my wishes. Well, the first time the USN
watches crap-doze take a ship to the bottom for failure to respond to to an
inbound missile or the engines die as a magnetic influence mine rises up her stern
because win2k or xp decides to improperly degauss the ship's hull... it'll be time to
send ms fed sys to Davey Jones' locker to bring up the remains...

I think Linux (I call my verison "SeaLinux") and MySQL or SAP could be a better
match to replace Ada, and CERTAINLy replace ms and SCO stuff.

Anyway, UK citizens, better hop (and HOP-Holler or Pummel) all over your MOD
and tell them to put their pounds wherere their choppers are. If sco dips and
plunges to Davey Jones' locker, you can BET the spare pence in your bonnets
and cupboards that the RN will be hating life if they don't have mods rights to
SCO's code. Remember: JUST because Linux is Open Source doesn't mean the
militaries are disallowed from hardening and locking down the kernels. You can
wrap and obfuscate the kernel and related systems to the end of eternity in the
name of national security and still not violate the GPL/GNU/FSF sensibilities or
ideals.

Yup, the fictional ship I drew has a dual-deck SeaLinux computer cored. The
comptuer compartment is about 10'x12'x9' (depth, width, height) on one deck,
and 8'x12'x9 in the below compartment. It's armored, biometrically
access-controlled, video monitored, and audio-wired. Deadly force is
AUTHORIZED to protect that core. My ship is intentionally (from
layman's-but-ex-sailor's POV) designed to be a better Burke than the Flight I
AND Flight II AND Flight III Burkes, and its not a USN ship, but a WORLD NAVY
ship. Linux is International, so I decided in 2002 to Globalize MY ship.

It's a SCO-free ship, baby... and many companies will likely be sco-free, pretty
soon... Linux is not PERFECT, but at least MY (fictional) navy will have a
SeaLinux Federal Systems....

David Syes, attempting to force nations to consider global navies vs national
navies (via fact, fiction and artistry...)