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Amazon, Microsoft wage war over the Pentagon's 'war cloud':
Amazon and Microsoft are battling it out over a $10 billion opportunity to build the U.S. military its first "war cloud" computing system. But Amazon's early hopes of a shock-and-awe victory may be slipping away.
Formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure plan, or JEDI, the military's computing project would store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the Pentagon to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities. The Defense Department hopes to award the winner-take-all contract as soon as August. Oracle and IBM were eliminated at an earlier round of the contract competition.
But that's only if the project isn't derailed first. It faces a legal challenge by Oracle and growing congressional concerns about alleged Pentagon favoritism toward Amazon. Military officials hope to get started soon on what will be a decade-long business partnership they describe as vital to national security.
"This is not your grandfather's internet," said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a defense-oriented think tank. "You're talking about a cloud where you can go from the Pentagon literally to the soldier on the battlefield carrying classified information."
Amazon was considered an early favorite when the Pentagon began detailing its cloud needs in 2017, but its candidacy has been marred by an Oracle allegation that Amazon executives and the Pentagon have been overly cozy. Oracle has a final chance to make its case against Amazon - and the integrity of the government's bidding process - in a court hearing Wednesday.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:45AM (3 children)
Headline is about Amazon vs Microsoft.
Summary is about Oracle barging in.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:07AM (2 children)
From TFA: " Microsoft has largely stayed quiet during the dispute. In a statement, it focused on highlighting its 40-year partnership supplying the military with services such as email."
Apparenltly, Oracle's complaints and court case could help Microsoft.
Anyone sane trust any of them with anything secret, let alone national secrets?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:04AM
We aren't in the "sanity" teritory here, we are in the Pentagon's one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:07AM
How is that any different with other contractors and their sub-contracts?
Surely we're aren't talking about the mil. putting their stuff on the "public" cloud of those vendors, but getting them to help build & manage a private cloud right?
If anything I'd think it'll be better, if anything at least for Amazon, they don't have a rabbit hole of sub-contracting culture - at least not that I've dealt with in the corporate sector. Not sure about MS or Oracle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:00AM
SHOW ME YOUR WAR CLOUD!
"The leaders of Judah made a formal presentation to the king and he went along with them. Things went from bad to worse; they deserted The Temple of God and took up with the cult of sex goddesses. An angry cloud hovered over Judah and Jerusalem because of this sin. God sent prophets to straighten them out, warning of judgment. But nobody paid attention." --some ancient aliens conspiracy theory that was my frist MSG search result
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:06AM (6 children)
Glad we've moved beyond Terminator's military scaremongering in Grandpa's day.
So now we're in the cloud, and it's ... "Terminator: Skynet as a Service" ? Eh, I'll wait for the Blu-ray.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:53AM
hmm, should we hold T:DF to the standard of making social commentary of the same insane pursuit of war in real life?
from great sci-fi horror, decent sci-fi horror, john connor wet dream, decent prequel/sequel (time loop could emerge and dissipate if titor physics), to the intertemporal resistance beginning to act by removing john connor from the time loop--tok715 can do better than that incel, to ???
john connor will be played by edward furlong's CGI doppelgänger in a flashback scene
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:20AM
"You're talking about a cloud where you can go from the Pentagon literally to the soldier on the battlefield carrying classified information."
He's also gotten the situation completely turned around. The information classically filters upwards. Reliable information must be able to get up to the appropriate level to where it can be used to make informed decisions about tactics and, at higher levels, strategy. However, the qualifying word is reliable. As the information is aggregated and summarized at each level that it passes up through it necessarily loses detail and, unecessarily but inevitably, becomes politicized. The politicization comes, in the best cases, from cherry-picking what to pay attention to and, in the worst case, from plain old lying.
However, other nations would find the flow from the top down useful since that is what they can react to. Because Amazon is unproven still and with M$ very long and proven track record of utter failure in both design and security, it will be enemies (external ones beyond just the inernal ones Amazon and M$) who will get the most practical use out of this "cloud" scam. It's nothing but a very expensive scam which will cost lives as well as money by making a bigger more confusing mess while not just leaking secrets but plain radiating them.
Infrastructure cannot be safely or inexpensively outsourced. Businesses learned that the hard way and their schooling is there for everyone to see, including the government's employees. This whole thing looks like it is taking pork barrel politics to a new realm, one where money flows to business based on factions rather than groups of businesses based upon geographical populations.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:18PM (2 children)
Guess it depends on which script they are using. Is it "Skynet" or "Evil Empire"? After all they did name this project "JEDI".
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:51PM
It's a Star Wars, Terminator cross-over get with it!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:09PM
Shlock-and-AW-SHIT
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @03:29AM
Microsoft's penchant for BSOD takes on a new twist with this.
I guess someone has to partner with the military. Least they could do for one's own country. They better do a good job, whichever of the three get the contract.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:55AM (1 child)
Firstly, haven't they learned a thing or two about cloud providers? Data losses, leaks, data offshoring, out-of-control subcontractors, and just plain loss of control over the data. Not to mention tbe ever-present threat of losing access to the data when the internet goes down, which should be a concern to any normal business, but especially one to the military.
Secondly, if I was an enemy of the US, I'd start mapping out all the datacenters run by cloud providers and developing EMP weapons. Are Google, Microsoft or Oracle ready and equipped to deal with hostile actions against their assets by foreign actors? I very much doubt it. The Pentagon is totally reckless to outsource their data to them...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:12AM
Something's telling me that "This is not your grandfather's internet". I don't expect the cloud to be hosted/supported by the same infrastructure as the "civilian" one - more likely it will be a "private cloud + services".
A speed reading across TFA reveals this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:36AM
Regardless of who builds it, it will of course be called W.O.P..R !!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday July 11 2019, @11:05AM
The results of these major procurement contracts are always the same: The losers claim some irregularity, and tie the program in knots for years. Sometimes they managed to force a new competition, sometimes not. Regardless, the result is years of costs for nothing at all.
To take another example: Consider the KC-46 program. The initial idea in 2003 was to simply hand the contract to Boeing. This led to a corruption scandal.
So they issued an RFP (request for proposal - the start of a competition) in 2006, and the contract was awarded to...not Boeing. Boeing protested and forced an "expedited recompetition". Boeing tried to change the terms of the competition midstream, and as a result the whole thing was cancelled.
A completely fresh start with a new RFP was issued in 2009. Three bids were received; one was disqualified for arriving 5 minutes late. The others, well, somehow each competetor was sent a preliminary copy of the other competitor's bid. Finally, the two remaining bidders submitted final proposals in 2011. Boeing won the competition.
So it took 8 years in order to award a contract for an aircraft. Along the way, at least two people were jailed for corruption (trying to force the contract to go to Boeing). Eight years and probably thousands of person-years of work later and...the contract went to Boeing.
There is something fundamentally broken in military procurement. From TFA: we now have Amazon, Microsoft and possible Oracle fighting over this enormous contract. The names of the players change, but the problems remain exactly the same...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:06PM
Shouldn't they get Facebook involved?
Facebook has a well earned reputation for rapidly disseminating private information.
The thing about landline phones is that they never get lost. No air tag necessary.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:40PM
another good example of why no real patriot pays the income tax. they should be using tax dollars to develop FOSS tech and instead they are going to hand over stolen tax money to fund closed source shit the people can't own. fuck these thieves.