08-01-2005, 11:04 PM

Well my friend went to go work at the Pentagon for the whole summer and then some. He also informed me that they ONLY use a special version of Windows.

Bill Gates obviously has a deal with them.



Was this worth being a thread? No. But lets get outraged anyways.

08-01-2005, 11:43 PM

Yeah I have a friend in the NSA section there and they did use Sun stations with Solaris not long ago, but moved to Windows last year. Its a Government contract with Microsoft. We have it on the ships in the Navy as well now. Sucks to have to use it at work.

08-02-2005, 12:19 AM

the NSA eh? i have a friend who needed top secret clearance for a job there but just missed it by a tad...he actually got whatever is right underneath that or whatever you call all those rankings of clearance....

i am not entirely surprised that they use windows, the world basically runs on windows and it can be a decent OS under some circumstances

-chris

08-02-2005, 04:30 AM

It really shouldn't be news that the Pentagon uses Windows, seing as how they have since the beginning almost. The U.S. government contracted Bill Gates years ago to have him program a solid and secure OS interface. He'd been working on it since MS-DOS first arrived and was more or less complete when Win 2000 came out. The OS's by MS that we see are actually his dummied-down versions of U.S. government software that he was able to negotiate to produce at the same time as theirs.

08-02-2005, 04:49 AM

The Pentagon uses windows. The Pentagon also claimed there were WMD in iraq.. go figure...

08-02-2005, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by Aptmunich

The Pentagon uses windows. The Pentagon also claimed there were WMD in iraq.. go figure...

I thought that was the CIA.

08-02-2005, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by technologist

I thought that was the CIA.

Nooooooo - the CIA had weak evidence of WMDs .... the Pentagon / DOD needed the evidence to support the claims against Iraq - but in usual CYA everyones pointing fingers both ways ..... Whitehouse > CIA > DOD ....circle jerk :spook:

Anyway - no surprize the feds are running a super (secure) version of windows on their super secure ( no emmissions ) PCs :dive:

08-02-2005, 01:08 PM

it shouldnt be a supprise though.

who else has the money to write an OS that can guarentee 100% stability in given situations.

a contract like that would prob bring apple down if the US government pulled out

08-02-2005, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by inflexion

it shouldnt be a supprise though.

who else has the money to write an OS that can guarentee 100% stability in given situations.

a contract like that would prob bring apple down if the US government pulled out

A/UX (the first Apple Unix OS) was written for government contracts. Any good Unix-style OS should be able to meet Government needs, including OS X.

I seriously doubt that the version of Windows the government uses is any different from the version they sell to everyone else. Probably just configured in a standardized way with all the services off.

08-02-2005, 04:14 PM

I'm not saying it was a surprise but it just makes me mad.

08-02-2005, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Acill

Yeah I have a friend in the NSA section there and they did use Sun stations with Solaris not long ago, but moved to Windows last year. Its a Government contract with Microsoft. We have it on the ships in the Navy as well now. Sucks to have to use it at work.

you using that IT21 crap on your ship? that stuff is the worst. when i got to my ship everyone was like "yuck you have an apple." they are slowly changing their minds after i showed them what it can do.

08-02-2005, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by technologist

A/UX (the first Apple Unix OS) was written for government contracts. Any good Unix-style OS should be able to meet Government needs, including OS X.

I seriously doubt that the version of Windows the government uses is any different from the version they sell to everyone else. Probably just configured in a standardized way with all the services off.

yea may be so but how long ago was that? also there was a massive article in Linux Format (yea im a linux fan as well so shoot me!) about why said people use M$ for there o/s and the financial aspect was one of the reasons as well as the fact that M$ (like apple) is closed source so no one can sit through the source code and try to find a way to exploit it

08-02-2005, 09:05 PM

The government has ALWAYS used Windows/DOS/ IBM stuff, since the dawn of computing. Getting them to change would meet a lot of opposition because of everybody's "bottom line", MONEY. So, it may be crappy and it may be frustrating to those of us in government service who see the potential advantages of using Apple, but we gotta deal with it somehow... (at least for the time being.)