British Royal Navy Submarines Now Run Windows 725
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."
Learning from prior mistakes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I would have thought the military would want Op (Score:3, Interesting)
Source for obvious reasons. I know the Brits and Americans are friends, but still, running an OS that is doing Bill-knows-what doesn't sound very secure in many ways (Would you want the US military running a closed source Red Hat Linux sight unseen?). Even if there is no backdoors/spying, the ability to compile the source and see what it is doing at every step will have benefits in the future, to look for holes previously unknown, to see what it is doing every step of the way, or to graft new abilities into it.
What makes you think they haven't got a contract with Microsoft for access to the source code ?
Re:Learning from prior mistakes (Score:4, Interesting)
So, how does one tow a submarine?
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.
Secure software (Score:4, Interesting)
She worked in some high security, underground place with thick steel doors (did she? well either she told me that or it's my imagination again...) and they showed them videos of what happened when they made mistakes: everyone drowns... or the submarine gets crushed by pressure, or whatever, depending on the bug. I don't think accidentally releasing nukes was one of the scenarios though...
Maybe they should show the microsoft programmers some of those videos.
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Interesting)
And these would be backdoors would be accessed... how? ...underwater wifi?
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.
"18 Days" (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they mean that the sub was incapacitated for 18 days while a transition plan was executed.
If it really took 18 days, they wouldn't be installing Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
It is mysterious to me as to why they would use Windows. I'd also love to know what is being commanded with the system? Is it just the Naval IT? e.g, sending encrypted email, accessing charts, documentation etc, crew communications, hiding pornography, printing happy birthday banners? I doubt it is controlling ballast tanks and dive planes and I can't imagine it controlling reactor or launch functions.
And if it's just the case of internal email and minesweeper games, isn't 18 days a long time? Especially if MS decided not to include hardware transition work and training in those numbers?
What were they using before that it was so expensive?
How can 8 years of evaluation time possibly save the military 22M pounds per year?
Meh. I guess it's on MSDN, so it's going to be a *little* biased. Kudos to the MS sales team. Good job, don't know how you did it.
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 !
Re:BSOD (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft denies that the NSA has access to the _NSAKEY secret key.
Re:How deep? (Score:3, Interesting)
Couple of things:
1. We don't call it the English System, we call it the Imperial System.
2. It should be called the British system if you're going to call it anything.
3. It's not the same anyway because your pints are smaller.
4. No one here uses Fahrenheit ( what a quintessentially English name!) any more, except the Daily Mail and we like to pretend they don't exist.
5. Most things are metric now anyway.
But apart from that, please go on calling it the English System. It's not at all confusing.
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:Won't work (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually no. The USA has that first.
8 years ago I helped a buddy weld in a frame to mount a screen door into the side of the hull of the forward torpedo room of the USS silversides.
That was the most fun I had ever. Crawling around all over in that sub rocked. Plus being a maintenance crew for it I got to start the engines monthly and dive to inspect her moorings and cradle she sits in. WW-II Diesel subs ROCK!
Re:Actually, this fits in quite nicely... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah but it'd act as a warning to other nations in the future if humanity did manage to survive never to go down that route again!
Realistically though it's a very scenario dependant thing, if some allied nations were still ok then it'd be worth doing as a deterrent against attacking them too.
If however all allies are gone it's a much more confusing scenario, I think if everything you and the billions of people who wanted to live in a world the same way as you had gone to be replaced by a lifestyle that you and those people simply aren't happy living under, or perhaps wont even be allowed to live under by the new regime then the justification for not nuking them in revenge just to save the human race is pretty void- why care about saving the human race if humanity is at a point where it's arguably not worth saving?
I'm usually good at playing devils advocate and look at the other point of view when pondering about such things, but I really can't think of any good reason why if the enemy were the only ones remaining that I should allow them to remain after what they'd done. Do you have any reasons why you'd allow them to live their way of life after they destroyed yours and everyone elses you knew? I think perhaps the fact there does seem to be no good justification to let them live is one of the reasons why a nuclear deterrent should in theory work- because there's going to be nothing left if one party goes nuclear, although I suppose we should never underestimate the idiocy of man sometimes.
Re:And the scary thing is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
All our missile subs carry sealed, hand-written orders from the prime minister as to whether to retaliate with nukes in the event that Britain is the target of a first strike. The orders are destroyed once the prime minister leaves office and few have ever revealed which way they decided.
It is, apparently, one of their first tasks upon taking office.
See this report from The Today Programme [bbc.co.uk]
Re:How deep? (Score:3, Interesting)
The US gallon is the old British Wine Gallon.
The US and UK tons (short and long tons respectively) are both based on the old English pound measurement of weight. Both are twenty hundredweight, but the British hundredweight is 112 pounds while the US hundredweight is 100 pounds.
Interestingly, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_ton
There are, however, some U.S. applications for which unspecified tons normally means long tons (for example, Navy ships)
Re:How deep? (Score:5, Interesting)
A league is about the distance a healthy man can walk on a good road in one hour. A fathom is about the height of a tall man; it is about eighteen hand widths (fingers closed). A US gallon is the volume of eight pounds of water. An imperial gallon (i.e. the UK gallon) is the volume of ten pounds of water.
One interesting thing about weights. The system of dram/ounce/pound is base 16, which makes division by two a practical measuring operation. Take a pound of something readily dividable, divide it into two equal portions (using a balance scale). Then repeat the process four times. The result is one ounce.
This shows the offsetting virtues of traditional units. While they are difficult to calculate with, they are convenient for measuring things -- especially when it come to quantifying things for sale.
For example, consider length:
1 inch = approximately the width of a thumb
1 hand = 4 inches = width of a hand with fingers closed
1 ft = 3 hands
1 yard = 3 ft
1 fathom = 2 yards
1 rod = 5.5 yards = length of ox goad
1 chain = 22 yards = 100 links in standard survey chain
1 furlong = 10 chains = distance ox team can plow without rest
1 mile = 880 fathoms
Notice that if you lay out a square field such that an ox team can plow one furrow across then rest, you get a square with sides of exactly one furlong or 660 ft. The area of that field 43,600 square feet, which is nearly exactly one acre (43,560 ft).
For purposes of round measurement (no fractions), such as you would use in commerce, traditional measurement is far more convenient. If I'm buying liquor, the following units exhaust all the practical measures to which I might wish to round a purchase:
1 mouthful
1 jigger (aka 1 fluid ounce) = 2 mouthfuls
1 jack = 2 jiggers
1 gill = 2 jacks = 4 jiggers
1 cup = 2 gills = 8 jiggers = 16 mouthfuls
1 pint = 2 cups
1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups
1 cask = 16 gallons
1 barrel = 2 casks
1 hogshead = 2 barrels
1 butt = 2 hogsheads = 4 barrels
1 tun = 2 butts = 4 hogsheads = 8 barrels
In such a system of measurement, you never, ever have to deal with fractions. Breaking down into smaller units is simply a matter of dividing a whole into two equal parts. So if you want to buy things without having to specify fractions, traditional units are the bee's knees (equal to 1 / 128 of an inch ... no just kidding). That's not so important in a world with calculators -- you just calculate a unit price.
Still, if you want to buy eight feet, three inches of rope, you can measure out twenty-four hands and three thumbs and come rather close.
Re:Do Myanmar/Burma and Liberia use same as US? (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as the metric system, I can really only comment on my little corner of the US, but it seems to be mostly younger science types who use metric with any regularity. Even with them, it's mostly just their professional life where they use metric and it's primarily because the units are easier to work with when doing complex math. I'm an engineer and I run into a lot of older engineering types who refuse to use metric unless they absolutely have to. Younger engineers (and scientists in general) with any decent education can generally switch between the two systems without much trouble.
In my experience with the general (non-scientific) population, metric is a lost cause at this stage. Some of the manufacturing/assembly people I work with (mostly older) actually get angry if I suggest we should use metric, even for simple things. Bear in mind, though, that I live in a somewhat rural area at the moment. Globalization is for unpatriotic commies and these new things like the metric system and computers are black magic. Better educated folks and more urban areas in general won't be as bad.
Re:save UK taxpayers 22m? (Score:1, Interesting)
What a load of tosh... you seem to imply that an Open Source system would be shovelled in without testing and run only at the whim of the onboard admin.
A large commercial aircraft manufacturer based not far away from Redmond puts Windows NT on its cabin entertainment systems on a particular successful commercial jet (an option; you can run Linux if you desire) but the flight control is handled by a customised *nix OS. If it's just Microsoft hatred, why don't they just stick NT on there? Might it have something to do with the legendary Windows reliability leading to the cabin system being frequently tits up, and not wanting the primary flight control system to copy it?
Signed,
a happy realist
RTFEULA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How deep? (Score:3, Interesting)
To continue your great review of traditional measurement: when you need precise measurement, e.g. to fit a board together precisely in a cabinet, the traditional builder does *not* use a tape measure with inscribed units. They use a blank measuring stick (or string), or even the actual board itself, hold it up to the place it needs to fit, scribe and cut accordingly.
A tape measure is a remarkably imprecise measuring device that too many people (including many professionals I've known) rely on too heavily. My measurement, translated to the nearest unit I choose to squint at is different than the same unit on your tape measure and is even different when I do it on the same tape measure.
I almost never use the things anymore and instead use a plain stick with a sharp pencil or knife to measure and transfer dimensions. much more precise. I couldn't tell you in inches how long a particular board is, but I *know* it will fit.
Not so sane, either. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Lusitania was a Cunard liner.
In 1915 nothing on this Earth could be more British. She was torpedoed just south of Queenstown, Ireland, on May 7, 1915. The ship went down in 18 minutes. 1,195 died, including 123 Americans. The U.S. was a neutral in 1915 and her ports were open to ships of all nations. The Lost Liners - Lusitania [pbs.org] [Robert Ballard, PBS 2000]
That Japan was about to make a move against the U.S. was known.
But where?
The Pearl Harbor attack was a hit and run raid, and, in the end, the attack bought Japan only six months of naval superiority in the Pacific. Pearl, after all, was nothing more or less than a forward naval base. It wasn't where ships were being built or men being trained. It wasn't rubber or oil or other strategic materials. Report Debunks Theory That the U.S. Heard a Coded Warning About Pearl Harbor [nytimes.com] [Dec 6, 2008]
Tonkin didn't feel like a virtual battle to those who fought in it. Anatomy of a crisis [americanheritage.com] [March 2004], What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam? [americanheritage.com] [May 1988]
There was - let us say - fair reason to be a tad suspicious about Iraq's abandonment of WMDs:
In 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector..showed Taha documents...that showed the Iraqi government had just purchased 10 tons of growth medium. Iraq's hospital consumption of growth medium was just 200 kg a year; yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it. Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to the inspectors that she had grown 19,000 litres of botulism toxin; 8,000 litres of anthrax; 2,000 litres of aflatoxins, which can cause liver failure; Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene; and ricin, a castor-bean derivative which can kill by impeding circulation. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella, foot and mouth disease, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as smallpox, but which is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the U.S. and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq and weapons of mass destruction [wikipedia.org]
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* - Spell-checking is built into Firefox and the ieSpell [iespell.com]plug-in has been around for quite some time as well.
Engineer vs Craftsman? (Score:3, Interesting)
Bingo! And there you have one *very* important distinction between an engineer and a craftsman -- the engineer deals more with theory and should-bes and measured reproduceability, while the craftsman deals more with practicalities and what is right in front of them. An engineer's approach to cabinetry would be very different, but when it comes to furniture, FWIW I'll take the craftsman's work any day. :)
Cheers,
Re:number base (Score:3, Interesting)
If the system were really defined around a sensible number base, we would all be working in base 12 ... All we need is to modify the human race with a couple of extra fingers - are you game?
Well, I'm a keyboard player, and anyone who plays any sort of keyboard instrument will tell you how often they've wished they had an extra finger on each hand. I recall a keyboard master class a few decades ago, in which the instructor said that we probably thought that by now he knew all the fingerings and didn't have to spend so much time working them out. He told us that we were wrong, and we should face the fact that every one of us would spend the rest of our lives puzzling over fingerings just as much as we do now. It's just a fact of life if you're playing on a keyboard.
So where can we order the upgrade? Is there somewhere we can download a torrent of it?