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posted by Woods on Tuesday April 29 2014, @02:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the still-better-than-laserdisc dept.

Ars Technica reports that the US government built facilities for the Minuteman missiles in the 1960s and 1970s and although the missiles have been upgraded numerous times to make them safer and more reliable, the bases themselves haven't changed much and there isn't a lot of incentive to upgrade them. ICBM forces commander Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein told Leslie Stahl from "60 Minutes" that the bases have extremely tight IT and cyber security, because they're not Internet-connected and they use such old hardware and software. "A few years ago we did a complete analysis of our entire network," says Weinstein. "Cyber engineers found out that the system is extremely safe and extremely secure in the way it's developed." While on the base, missileers showed Stahl the 8-inch floppy disks, marked "Top Secret," which are used with the computer that handles what was once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), a communication system that delivers launch commands to US missile forces. Later, in an interview with Weinstein, Stahl described the disk she was shown as "gigantic," and said she had never seen one that big. Weinstein explained, "Those older systems provide us some, I will say, huge safety, when it comes to some cyber issues that we currently have in the world."

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 29 2014, @02:54PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 29 2014, @02:54PM (#37683)

    I spent some time in .mil and .com, and in .com when some liar tells the accountants that "this thing will have a productive life of 20 years" the accountants have this weird wink and nod thing going where they passive aggressively say OK and the liar gets his exec bonus, but everyone knows it'll be too small, obsolete, and replaced in 3 years regardless of this 20 year BS. In .mil where the accountants carry M16s, this wink and nod stuff doesn't happen and you really are stuck with it for the full 20 year lifetime. Or 50 year or whatever, the specifics don't matter much.

    Also .mil has been deep into appliance operation and abstraction, and .com just gives that lip service or says its good for increasing sales to consumers but they'd never do it themselves or whatever. .mil asks does the appliance work? Are the appliance operators qualified on paper? Well then its all good, and what some hippie in Berkley or SV claims is the latest fashion style isn't very interesting to these guys at all.

    And if it costs more in the long run, thats good because thats called empire building and is universally admired. You want to be the General in charge of the $100M project not the General in charge of the $25M project.

    Also the hope WRT the revolving door is to wander in and out of .gov and .com to maximize personal return, so a "career length" program is just about correct.

    So its not Ludditism as opposed to the tech upgrade treadmill, so much as seeing themselves outside the treadmill completely. Why yes, you do have a very nice treadmill there, but we don't do treadmills here so we're not terribly interested.

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  • (Score: 1) by linsane on Tuesday April 29 2014, @10:28PM

    by linsane (633) on Tuesday April 29 2014, @10:28PM (#37900)

    Concur. my .com customers want to know what the 18 month ROI is, .mil ones want three ft of paperwork including why i'm still going to be in business in 25 years to support it all...