Re: Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages

On Jan 22, 12:06 pm, Fred J. McCall <fjmcc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"William Black" <william.bl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:
:One major problem is going to be security.
:

Always a problem.

:
:I read somewhere that Obama is going to use some sort of Blackberry device
:as a secure terminal.
:

News to me.  I suspect someone is confused.

:
:Having seen one,  who's going to issue the appropriate certification saying
:it's secure and Tempest tested?
:

If your "read somewhere" is true, that would be NSA.

:
:The British government issues a list of equipment and software they allow
:people to use to process classified material.  I think the only Micro$oft
:product on it is Windows NT,  the rest must either have security holes or
:haven't been properly tested yet.
:

I suspect the latter, what with governments being so slow on these
things and all.

:
:The only Blackberry system mentioned is only allowed to process RESTRICTED
:information,  a classification the US doesn't use and is roughly equivalent
:to 'FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY'.
:

I don't know that 'UK Restricted' is even treated that high.  How it
gets treated is determined by contract when it's turned over to us.

:
:The list is at
:
:http://www.cesg.gov.uk/publications/media/directory.pdf
:
:It's about 4 megs.
:

They seem a bit schizophrenic.  They approve only NT, yet have other
products that they approve that only run on other versions of Windows.

Yeah, welcome to the dark ages. That's the government for you. Some
places are better than others, some are worse. Usually you end up with
two systems, one open and one classified. Much easier that way. Drop
in a clear administrative system for just routine stuff, put in one
that's Tempest certified for the other stuff. If you have to have 2
computers on a desk, , so be it. Put a big sticker on it, classified
use only.

I remember we got our Tempest computer. Absolutely secure. Caught fire
2 hours after being turned on. Well, it WAS secure. Cost 2 or 3x usual
cost.

With the procurement mess that government loves to generate, maybe
they can upgrade. But, once they do that, paperpushers think its done
and has a life of 10 years or something and won't buy new stuff, or
upgrade. Or want to replace broken stuff with what original specs
were. Try that in any computer environment.


Absolute worst job is trying to get say a dozen agencies to agree on a
computer system or get what they have to talk to each other. Unless
you have a 'God' button that says, at this point this is the decision,
nothing happens.

And sometimes they have stuff on a 'legacy' system they don't want to
lose. Wanna bet NASA still has 7 track tape drives? Don't even think
about 'well just put it on a new media', we're talking rooms,
buildings full of tapes.

god knows if the Brits are any better. Or the Russians. Bet there's a
People's Vaccuum Tube Factory somewhere.
.