19 Dec
2011
19 Dec
'11
2:09 a.m.
On Dec 18, 2011, at 8:22 PM, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
(see the discussion a few weeks ago about why a VAXStation 4000/96 goes for thousands of
dollars on Ebay when a 4000/90 is lucky to fetch $300)
Wasn't
Windoze NT DOD certified for security with the included restriction
that the computer has to stand in a closed room without any network connected to
itand without access from people to his Console?
Nobody has read the footnotes it seems, it was certified, so what..
Well, that one was a particularly silly joke, IIRC:
- Windows NT 4.0
- on a specific Compaq machine that is now long out of production (yes,
the certification was for the entire setup) - no network
- no printer
- no removable media (i.e. CDROM, floppy)
- only keyboard, mouse and monitor attach
- %SYSTEMROOT% write-only, therefore
- the printer spool system doesn't work (fine, there is no printer
attached anyway)
- you cannot, for instance, install Microsoft Office since it
want to drop files there
- What _can_ you do with it? Log in, smile at the auditors, log out.
We're doing a project for a Navy contractor right now. This is supposed to be a
real-time system that assists in the instrument landing of planes on carriers, so its
realtime performance is kind of important. One of their few competent software people
asked for Green Hills Integrity and got told that they'd be using Windows XP Embedded
instead.
He managed to talk them down to at least Red Hat (not that that's real-time in any
sense, but still...) We still can't put any Linux machines on the internal network
because the auditing requirements for Linux systems pretty much don't exist (or where
they do, the goalposts move weekly so it's impossible to keep up). You're also
not allowed to have USB flash drives on base, though curiously there are some exceptions
for USB hard drives (because those are less likely to walk off with sensitive documents?).
We have to transfer files between machines via CD now on balky CD writers which have
about a 30% yield.
My tax dollars at work...
- Dave