Secret Service Flounders With 1980s Mainframe

[liquid0h]

[citation][nom]omnimodis78[/nom]Ya, the NSA has been doing an amazing job keeping your country safe with all their experienced staff! Before you drop the 'idiot' assessment though (very immature if I may add) perhaps you should get your head out of your rectum and look into something called "US Cyber Challenge" ( http/csis.org/uscc ) and maybe it will become clear that my comment wasn't as idiotic as you gave it credit. Cheers!!![/citation]

Wow, way to dog the NSA for protecting your country. I'm sure if they f'd up you'd know about it. Oh wait, you haven't? That means they are doing their job.

Btw, last I checked USCC is for security. I don't think that includes building a sensitive database infrastructure from the ground up. Great idea buddy...

 

[matt87_50]

damn.. I can see why they kept it a secret!

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]darkknight22[/nom]where do you even find parts for a 1980s mainframe??War Games comes to mind lol.[/citation]
You go on eBay, apparently. At least, That's what NASA does. (and 8086 chips are a fair bit harder to come by than their cut-down 8088 brethren, since it was the LATTER that was used for the IBM PC)

[citation][nom]omnimodis78[/nom]instead of hiring a handful of college students in their last last year of schooling who would do a comprehensive assessment probably for free[/citation]
Except I'd point out that a 4th-year CompSci student would NOT have the sort of security clearance to leave you feeling comfortable. They'd also be so starved for money that it'd be a guaranteed security leak; China could just waggle a pitiful $1,000US in front of their nose and have access to whatever state secrets said students may have overlooked. Even the outright network structure is classified, and valuable information. (all the better to efficiently hack into it if you know how it's built...)

 

[palladin9479]

Umm just no. The US Secret Service is not running on a 1980's mainframe. They might have one around that holds some database that was built back then (I've seen this happen in other Government departments), probably using some form of telnet terminal to work on it, but their operational systems are definitely new (in the perspective of the government).

One thing to realize, software written and developed for critical state systems (this includes classified DoD stuff) takes a ~long~ time to get certified and is ~very~ expensive to upgrade / modify. This is because every line of code must be gone through to ensure absolutely no back doors / entry points are put there by a programmer. What very few US citizens realize is that damn near every country in the world is actively spying on the US, even our closest allies do this. Everyone wants to "keep up with the jones" technology wise and guess what, the USA is "the jones" of the defense world.

So no out of school college grad would be allowed anywhere near these systems, you need a clearance and years of experience working this fiend before your allowed to actually do anything cool.

 

[jamesedgeuk2000]

the gov dude didn't say it was made in the 80's, he said it dates back to the 80's

Windows 7, Linux and the iMac all date back to the 80's too

He is just using smart wording to make it sound worse than it is

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]james_lankford[/nom]what an idiotyou actually think a bunch of seniors from MIT or Yale could as comprehensive an assessment as people from the NSA with years of experience ?hell, why not just get a senior in med school to preform that open heart surgery you need ? I'm sure they'd be happy for the experience. Why pay all that money for a board certified surgeon ?moron.[/citation]
Actually serveral students went directly from school to becomming experts in their chosen field, so it's not as far fetched as it may seem. Though admittedly those students are rare - but a properly conducted checkup could highlight potential subjects. I think the goverment entities are smart enough to know this though, so they're likely already doing it.

 

[aymad1ntelect]

Availability in the 666666's.
Should be availability in the 9999999'z
Itanium anyone???

 

[dmwright]

Food for thought : I haven't seen anywhere that it explains that they only have one system. I would not be suprised if they had several Mainframes....

 

[ossie]

FAA's ATC is using even older tech, any attempts to totally replace it with a more modern one (currently NGATS) failed to date...
ATC is a much more important issue than an old SS big iron, but politicians have more interests in stirring up DHS "threats", to line up the pockets of "security" contractors.

 

[drip50291]

Well its probably good that they're down most of the time bc they could get hacked in a second. Our government = NOOBS

 

[gmcboot]

[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]

Yeah lay this at his feet. He is the cause of all problems from the beginning of time to the end. If you don't like the man because he is black then say so. I am so tired of these side swipes of messiah, socialist, terrorist, birthers. Stand up and be a man, if you have hatred and bigotry in your heart be proud of it, let everyone see just what type of person you are. But stop hiding behind these stupid remarks. You are only fooling yourself when you say them.

In answer to your question about him fixing our IT infrastructure, maybe if the right wing party of NO would actually think of the country before their stupid politics we could do something. Actually have a dialog about whats best for the country. But no, it more important to say NO to everything.

 

[ethanolson]

OMG, just migrate to HP's NonStop. Those things have seven 9's of uptime and are fast too.

 

[bk420]

Hope they still make vacuum tubes.