Royal Navy goes with 'Windows for Subs'
Found on BBC News on Sunday, 28 December 2008
Bucking the open-source trend, the British Royal Navy has developed a modified version of Microsoft Windows XP and has begun installing it on its fleet of nuclear submarines.
Given that Windows runs on approximately 85 percent of the world's PCs, there is a good chance sailors are familiar with it. However, so are hackers -- both the amateur and the cyber warfare pro variety. Not a problem, according to BAE, since all hack-prone elements of Windows "were tended to during the modification."
I would feel very bad on board such a ship. XP may be ok for the average Desktop, but crucial systems? One would think that the military has enough funds to develop a custom system which is tailored exactly to their needs instead of paying to modify a gamer OS. After all, we all know those little quirks MS delivers; and using that to control nuclear warheads is just, well, sup par. Putting that aside, didn't MS travel around the globe telling everybody to abandon XP in favor of Vista because of better stability and useability?