Secret Service Flounders With 1980s Mainframe

[JMcEntegart]

A new report shows that the technology used by the United States Secret Service is so old, it's only operational 60 percent of the time.

Secret Service Flounders With 1980s Mainframe : Read more

 

[kyzar]

VAX VMS ftw!

 

[darkknight22]

where do you even find parts for a 1980s mainframe??

War Games comes to mind lol.

 

[igot1forya]

[citation][nom]darkknight22[/nom]where do you even find parts for a 1980s mainframe??War Games comes to mind lol.[/citation]
Joshua - Would you like to play a game?

 

[skit75]

I'm pretty sure the annual budget for the Secret Service is classified but, my guess is they have had all the money they have requested for at least the last 10 years....what is the hold up?

 

[omnimodis78]

"...the Secret Service is so plagued by computer-related issues, it invited the National Security Agency to formally review its IT systems." - - Costing taxpayers millions, no doubt - instead of hiring a handful of college students in their last last year of schooling who would do a comprehensive assessment probably for free just for the chance to be able to put the experience on their resumes. You absolutely got to love bureaucracy and the way governments operate. As for the story itself, I'm sure these people are less relevant today than before, I mean clearly if they can actually function with outdated technology, it just goes to show that they are not really at the forefront of anything.

 

[TwoDigital]

It's rather strange that the government generally strives for 98% uptime... In our IT group, we have big penalties if we don't hit 99.90% Having 98% uptime means they are grateful to have their system offline for nearly 30 minutes on average every day. Yikes.

 

[Guest]

It may be harder to hack into 1980 mainframes since our youngest and brightest don't even know what EBCDIC is.

 

[Pei-chen]

Don't worry, our messiah know how to use a Blackberry. He covenanted with us that he will revamp the country's IT system.

 

[Shadow703793]

[citation][nom]edzeek[/nom]It may be harder to hack into 1980 mainframes since our youngest and brightest don't even know what EBCDIC is.[/citation]
Pfff.... a simple DDOS or a DOS will work easily.

 

[ern88]

Ya, pretty bad when your Black berries and Smart phones have more computing power then their main frames.

 

[marsax73]

[citation][nom]pei-chen[/nom]Don't worry, our messiah know how to use a Blackberry. He covenanted with us that he will revamp the country's IT system.[/citation]

I would rather have the messiah than an ex-cokehead.

 

[michaelahess]

We aim for 99.99999% uptime at my company. Lazy government employees.....

 

[michaelahess]

Oops, added two extra nines, it's only 99.999% uptime, man, we have it easy!

 

[Hilarion]

I have to deal with the data output from these "ancient" (read that as "should be extinct") monstrosities converting it to something that a modern computer can use because they would rather pay for my services than spend the dollars to update their systems.

I shudder to think at the waste of taxpayer dollars keeping that monstrosity running at all and the cost of the power that it uses in the process.

And they wonder why we think our government is broken....

 

[Parrdacc]

"Would you like to play a game. How about a nice game of chess?"

Probably the only thing it can do anymore.

 

[redplanet_returns]

hey...at least they upgraded from those punchcards..

 

[Rhynn]

I call BS. The Secret Service is a branch of the Treasury. They are -not- underfunded. This is a smoke and mirrors excuse for more money to be funneled into another "department" of the government that we wouldn't approve of.

 

[Rhynn]

I call BS. The Secret Service is a branch of the Treasury. They are -not- underfunded. This is a smoke and mirrors excuse for more money to be funneled into another "department" of the government that we wouldn't approve of.

 

[Guest]

there may be a good reason

every time an upgrade is done (esp hardware) there's a risk of sabotage or spy devices being introduced