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British Royal Navy Submarines Now Run Windows
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Dec 18, 2008 03:53 AM
from the deep-blue-screen dept.
from the deep-blue-screen dept.
meist3r writes "On his Government blog, Microsoft's Ian McKenzie announced today that the Royal Navy was ahead of schedule for switching their nuclear submarines to a customized Microsoft Windows solution dubbed 'Submarine Command System Next Generation (SMCS NG)' which apparently consists of Windows 2000 network servers and XP workstations. In the article, it is claimed that this decision will save UK taxpayers £22m over the next ten years. The installation of the new system apparently took just 18 days on the HMS Vigilant. According to the BAE Systems press release from 2005, the overall cost of the rollout was £24.5m for all eleven nuclear submarines of the Vanguard, Trafalgar and Swiftsure classes. Talk about staying with the sinking ship."
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BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
How about this instead? http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowandw/2276721446/ [flickr.com]
Seems more appropriate given the topic.
Parent
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Interesting)
And these would be backdoors would be accessed... how? ...underwater wifi?
Parent
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Insightful)
2. I see nothing irrational or excessive at all. The US has deliberately sent the Lucetania into a battle zone in order to enter WWI, disregarded intelligence that could have prevented Pearl Harbor, entered a virtual battle in Tonkin to enter Vietnam, and made up stories on WMD to enter Iraq. In that light an NSA backdoor does not seem more preposterous to me. And there have [heise.de] been [cnn.com] news [bbc.co.uk] items [wordpress.com] on this, even from Bruce Schneier [schneier.com].
I think you owe GP an apology for your incorrect accusation.
Parent
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but your average submarine does have an array of sigint antennas, elint, and all the other ints. That said, in the course of sucking down internet from that pencil beam footprint along the cost where president whoever lives, do you really think (all) the processing systems are immune to viruses and malware as well? The bored scope goat running his hand crafted packet sniffer used to strip out files (a.k.a porn) from the data stream, gets a little click happy with the mouse on a dull night watch and runs jessica.exe
Not all viruses get in via the suited moron with the laptop.
Parent
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
On my work PC (I don't work in I.T at the moment) the Sysinternal screensaver BSOD was installed as part of the build. Don't ask me why.
I set it as my default screensaver and thought it was a bit of fun, that is until when I was away on a business trip (trying to RDesktop in) and there was no response from my PC.
One of the I.T helpdesk muppets had noticed the BSOD on my monitor, not realised it was a screensaver and took my PC away and reimaged it.
I wasn't happy!
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Das Reboot (Score:5, Funny)
Just came here to say "Das Reboot" in a random place.
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How deep? (Score:5, Funny)
The last time I drove my car into a lake the windows didn't last past 15 feet. Of course my car is American, and those Brits have that funky metric system, so who knows?
(Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week)
Re:How deep? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually we call it 'Imperial' units.
Damn colonials are getting uppity again, Ponsenby...
Mark
Parent
Re:How deep? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not since 1776. Look up the definition of a gallon or a ton.
Parent
Re:How deep? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's actually a really irritating system we have here in the UK, in school during the 80's we were taught soley in the metric system so I still have no instinctive understanding of what a farenheight, a gallon, a league or a fathom actually are and yet some of these measurements are still pretty much in general use as are pounds, ounces & stones.
In my car I can view my petrol consumption in miles to the gallon or litres to the kilometer but the fuel which goes into the fuel tank is measured in litres and the odometer shows only miles so there is no way to make a simple comparison without having to work out between the two sets of measurements.
I wish the UK would make up it's mind one way or another properly and then stick to it !
Parent
Re:How deep? (Score:5, Funny)
...I know a pint...
Ah, a fine university education at work.
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Re:How deep? (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, but that is clearly a fail, not a fine (british) university education.
It's _pints_. Plural. Always.
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Re:How deep? (Score:5, Interesting)
They used to use the English system in the UK, and then the rest of the world caught up with them and they converted to metric. Right now, the countries not using the metric system are: Myanmar, The United States, and Liberia.
Parent
Obvious reason (Score:5, Funny)
The navy liked their version of minesweeper best.
Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Funny)
They did indeed learn from past mistakes and are remarkably forward-thinking. They made a boat that was doomed to fail miserably, named it the Titanic, and said it was unsinkable. Many years later there was a movie made about it that was a box-office smash hit. They're now seeding an even bigger future movie by making certain that ALL their boats will sink.
Parent
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Funny)
> ... making certain that ALL their boats will sink
These boats are submarines. They'd be broken if they _didn't_ sink.
Parent
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't the Brits hear about what happened to the USS Yorktown [wikipedia.org] when they tried Windows as a naval solution. God save the Queen, please.
Perhaps the Brits are smart enough to put user input validation into their applications ?
Parent
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
Your suggestion could be interpreted that Microsoft was not to blame on the Yorktown debacle, which is wrong.
Parent
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
Not having input validation on a userland application should NEVER be the reason a whole OS goes belly-up.
Indeed.
Your suggestion could be interpreted that Microsoft was not to blame on the Yorktown debacle, which is wrong.
They weren't. The application crashed, not the OS. It is trivial to demonstrate that Windows NT can handle a userspace application dividing-by-zero, you just use Calculator.
Parent
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Funny)
So, the USS Yorktown was an actual real life fail boat?
Parent
Won't work (Score:5, Funny)
Next generation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saving the tax payer £22 mil (Score:5, Informative)
Summary fails to mention, and sort of implies the opposite; The cost saving is down to using off the shelf hardware, not switching to windows.
First informative post... mod parent up. (Score:5, Insightful)
20 posts before the first one that actually provides useful information.
Is that a typical ratio on slashdot? I haven't been keeping track.
Parent
Re:First informative post... mod parent up. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, normally it's worse, but this time the title includes Windows - so brace yourself for a flood of cliches.
Parent
Here's where the real savings are (Score:5, Funny)
Windows made the submarines on-the-shelf hardware, they'll be sitting pretty on some reef shelf in no time.
Mr. Malda, I'm submitting the news article for 2009-01-19 ahead of time:
Microsoft's Ian McKenzie announced today that the entire Royal Navy Nuclear Submarine fleet had sunk due to a Windows buffer overflow. HMS Vigilant's captain, Commander Bob Anstey, said: "I heard my 1st officer shouting 'Captain, Be SOD, Overflow!', so I yelled at him: 'Get the caulking guns ready, you SOD!' and he just gave me a blank stare and said: 'We cannot caulk this one, sir! Vigilant's a goner!' Well, bugger me!"
In other news:
HMS Vigilant's captain, Commander Bob Anstey allegedly accidentally fired a nuclear missile at Redmond, Washington in an attempt to complete the Windows Activation of the newly installed 'Submarine Command System Next Generation' customized Windows XP system. "It was a bug, yes, that's it. Some kind of unfortunate bug triggered the 19-step launch sequence," said Commander Anstey. Nobody at or near Microsoft could be reached for a comment.
Parent
Re:Saving the tax payer £22 mil (Score:5, Informative)
Was custom built hardware running Ada86 custom software
Then Mixture of SPARC's running Custom Solaris system, and custom hardware, and the same Ada software
Now some off the shelf hardware (PC's) running custom version of Windows somewhere between Win2k and XP?
N.B. The Sonar system however run Linux ....
Parent
HMS Bob (Score:5, Funny)
HMS Bob: "Das Not Boot."
other news (Score:5, Funny)
Wolfgang Petersen is reportedly preparing to make "Das Reboot", a (very) short sequel.
The subs the least of our problems (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The subs the least of our problems (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah? How about "The USAF accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in Redmond, WA that fortunately didn't explode, but damaged the building of famous Windows OS maker Microsoft, instantly crushing CEO Steve Ballmer and the entire marketing team into a pulp."
Feel better now?
Parent
Re:The subs the least of our problems (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I am relieved! (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can sleep safer knowing that if the Brits are about to launch a nuclear missile from a submarine and start WWIII, a UAC window will pop up asking if they are sure about it.
Re:I am relieved! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Clippy (Score:5, Funny)
And the scary thing is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
.. British Navy submarine captains are the only officers worldwide (as of the mid 90s or so) to have the independent right to launch nuclear missiles if they lose contact with the Admiralty.
Not quite true (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
what do you want to do? (Score:5, Funny)
Not a nice environment to work in (Score:5, Funny)
Now think about a corporate drone using Windows. Your desktop is locked down, updates are rolled out by IT. If your machine is taken over by an IE exploit, the Exchange server fails, etc. etc., there is nothing you can do about it.
Conclusion: Windows is the appropriate operating system for submarines.
Actually, this fits in quite nicely... (Score:5, Insightful)
With the Royal Navy's recruitment advert for IT crew where the guy goes on about how complex the equipment is and then finishes the advert with the punch line "but sometimes, I just switch it off and back on again".
Perhaps this is why it's saved tax payers £22 million too, we no longer need high paid IT staff with a clue what they're doing, we can just get 16 year old school drop outs who IT qualifications are that they built their own PC and set up an internet on uncle Joes computer by sticking the AOL disc in. I mean, hey the nuclear missile launch console has failed to fire off our nuclear deterrent after Russia just obliterated Europe in a nuclear attack, just reinstall Windows and make sure you stick the latest nuclear weapons launch drivers on, if not just pop round to the local PC World store and get the Tech Guys (UK equivalent of Geek Squad) to fix it for £125.
I can sleep comfortably knowing that our nuclear deterrent is in safe hands.
Useful on a sub (Score:5, Funny)
See, this is actually an elegant solution, as the bloat will act as a redundant buoyancy system in case of the inevitable blue-screen crush.
Sinking ship? (Score:5, Funny)
Windows Security Certification (Score:5, Funny)
Keep Linux out of defense (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the fact that Linux is built mostly by anonymous contributors, kept on servers which are hacked every now and then (Fedora Signing Key Server Hacked in August - Red Hat Infrastructure Servers recently Hacked, Cracked & Compromised) what guarantee is there that Linux - God's gift to nerds - doesn't contain sleeping trojans written by Russians or Chinese ?
Do the math: what would it cost to accomplish this? I think something like less than 10.000$ (including paycheck, laptop and broadband connection).
Re:save UK taxpayers 22m? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean gnuke? :)
Parent
Re:"18 Days" (Score:5, Funny)
It didn't take 18 days to install windows. It took 18 days to re-cable the whole submarine with an ethernet network, replace all the computers, AND install windows. I'd like to see you rewire a submarine in that time...
I can't believe I just defended the military.
Parent