From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-22 14:59:30 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!feed.news.qwest.net!news.uswest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3B842DEA.E01CA1BE@timesys.com> From: Adam Fineman X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.17-timesys-2.0beta i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.functional Subject: Re: How Ada could have prevented the Red Code distributed denial of References: <3B6555ED.9B0B0420@sneakemail.com> <87n15lxzzv.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <3B672322.B5EA1B66@home.com> <4a885870.0108112341.7ce02ac0@posting.google.com> <3B834E5D.B0D26AB1@adaworks.com> <9lvsic$bet9s$1@ID-9852.news.dfncis.de> <0sDnZRVkz5qL@eisner.encompasserve.org> <3b83847d.1117251944@news.worldonline.nl> <3B83F498.E0F6C582@timesys.com> <7aTg7.10919$2u.78544@www.newsranger.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 18:10:50 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.117.135.98 X-Trace: news.uswest.net 998517568 65.117.135.98 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:59:28 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:59:28 CDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12295 comp.lang.c:76256 comp.lang.c++:84966 comp.lang.functional:7638 Date: 2001-08-22T18:10:50-04:00 List-Id: Ted Dennison wrote: > > In article <3B83F498.E0F6C582@timesys.com>, Adam Fineman says... > > > >Ted Dennison wrote: > >> Well, the software in question was the marine (engine) control system. It had > >> nothing to do with the weapon systems. I suppose you could get rammed... > >> > >I'm in need of clarification. Are you saying that a US Naval vessel's > >engine control system was running under Windows NT? > > That was the idea. Scared yet? Well, then realise this was back in the days of > Windows NT 3.51, if I remember correctly. Also realise that Navy software is > expected to run proplerly for *decades* without maintanence upgrades like home > users are accustomed to. If you change something as significant as an OS, you > have to retest and recertify the whole system, which is incredibly expensive, > and thus not undertaken lightly. > > I was particularly amused at part of one of the articles where they said the > vendor essentially blamed the problem on the Navy using an obsolete version of > their software. Perhaps home users have become resigned to being talked to that > way. But you simply do *not* go telling the Navy that all that softaware they > paid you millions to develop was really buggy crap, and thus they should pay you > again for an "upgrade". > > I don't know what happened to this technology after that highly publicised > blowout. I suspect that at most it only got deployed on some of the newer > cruisers, and the Destroyers are all still using the reliably designed > Ada/Unix/CMS-2 stuff. I was in the Navy, and my second ship was the USS Gonzalez (DDG 66). I was a member of the commisioning crew, in fact. I did not realize that this had ever been tried (using a Windows box to interface with the engines). I read the article linked elsewhere in this thread, and was floored. The USS Yorktown going DIW (dead in the water) actually happened while I was on the Gonzalez! We also we experimenting with the "Smart Ship" initiative, but no existing ship's systems were ever going to be interfacing with the LAN or any general-purpose OS. The plan, as I recall, was only to add new monitoring systems that would be run over a dedicated LAN. I don't think that it was ever intended that a general-purpose OS of any kind would be used to _control_ ship's systems, only to monitor them. That was the plan on my ship, anyway. Using a general-purpose OS (even a "high-end" Unix) to control any type of machine more complicated than a household appliance seems like a very silly idea to me. -- Adam Fineman Software Engineer QA Department TimeSys Corporation -- Opinions posted here are my own. They do not necessarily reflect those of the management or the other employees at TimeSys Corporation.