Welly Wu
December 31st, 2012, 08:00 AM
I have two PCs: 1. Hewlett Packard Elitebook 8760w with Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64 bit and 2. System76 Lemur Ultra Thin (lemu4) with Ubuntu 12.04.1 64 bit Long Term Service.
I work with my good friend who works for a US defense contractor for the Department of Defense. I won't get into his job title or his responsibilities, but he travels throughout the country and he goes overseas to analyze DoD computers for security breaches and vulnerabilities. He recommends best practices for each department or agency to implement. I won't get into his job description in detail.
I have been working with him on similar projects in the past few years for private companies that have US government contracts. I can't detail everything that I've done in public either.
My personal experience is that I find that the official US government opinion regarding Microsoft Corporation is it's a love and hate relationship. Some mission critical services and products require Microsoft technologies, but they stick to in house stuff for top secret SCI related data and projects.
They do like Microsoft Windows 8 64 bit Enterprise and Pro versions. It solves a lot of gaps found in Microsoft Windows 7 and especially XP for their legacy systems that they are loathe to see coming to an end when their extended support runs out in April 2014.
They use almost every type of computer imaginable including GNU/Linux powered systems. Most of the stuff is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with SE Linux. However, they do use Ubuntu Server quite a bit for specific projects where they can't afford to provide a sufficient budget and they do use Ubuntu desktop with special DoD hardened modifications for narrowly defined projects. They use LTS releases almost exclusively except for test platforms that may require legacy versions.
My friend is thinking about making the switch from Microsoft Windows to Ubuntu for his personal computer. He sees the values of the GNU/Linux FLOSS philosophy and he's tired of Windows related problems and performance issues especially in production DoD environments.
I'm biased to think that Ubuntu 12.04.x 64 bit LTS is much safer and more secure than Microsoft Windows 8 64 bit Enterprise or Pro versions especially with their DoD hardened modifications because the basic problem is that relying on Microsoft to do their due diligence and keep everything patched does not always coincide with the op tempo for special communities found in the DoD community at large. One of the shining examples is that they can get a DoD employee to patch and fix problems in house using GNU/Linux systems rather than waiting and hoping that Microsoft Corporation is going to respond to a similar problem for Windows related issues on a timely basis. Sometimes, emergencies do pop up and there are legal restrictions involved with their projects that get in the way.
Most of the penetration testers and analysts at DoD view GNU/Linux with positive feedback. They like the flexibility and they like the fact that it has most of the tools and tool chains necessary for them to get real work done unencumbered. They have multi-year contracts with Red Hat and Microsoft among others, but they are able to rapidly iterate development on GNU/Linux platforms at a lower cost.
I've also been told that most of them keep multiple PCs at home for personal use and only authorized and approved DoD hardened configurations are permitted remote access to various DoD systems at work from home through their VPN gateways. While Windows 7 is still on their list, they are moving away from Microsoft toward GNU/Linux because of the $500 BILLION dollar defense cuts that are going to impact them over the next 10 years.
I told my friend to look into System76 or ZaReason as his next PC and I told him to choose Ubuntu 12.04.x 64 bit LTS as his GNU/Linux distribution of choice. He makes a good salary, but he wants to keep his total cost of ownership as low as possible for the next few years so he ruled out SUSE and Red Hat even though the latter is the most obvious choice.
I thought that I'd share this general information for anyone who cares. Forgive me for not getting into specific details for obvious security reasons, but I found it to be interesting.
I work with my good friend who works for a US defense contractor for the Department of Defense. I won't get into his job title or his responsibilities, but he travels throughout the country and he goes overseas to analyze DoD computers for security breaches and vulnerabilities. He recommends best practices for each department or agency to implement. I won't get into his job description in detail.
I have been working with him on similar projects in the past few years for private companies that have US government contracts. I can't detail everything that I've done in public either.
My personal experience is that I find that the official US government opinion regarding Microsoft Corporation is it's a love and hate relationship. Some mission critical services and products require Microsoft technologies, but they stick to in house stuff for top secret SCI related data and projects.
They do like Microsoft Windows 8 64 bit Enterprise and Pro versions. It solves a lot of gaps found in Microsoft Windows 7 and especially XP for their legacy systems that they are loathe to see coming to an end when their extended support runs out in April 2014.
They use almost every type of computer imaginable including GNU/Linux powered systems. Most of the stuff is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with SE Linux. However, they do use Ubuntu Server quite a bit for specific projects where they can't afford to provide a sufficient budget and they do use Ubuntu desktop with special DoD hardened modifications for narrowly defined projects. They use LTS releases almost exclusively except for test platforms that may require legacy versions.
My friend is thinking about making the switch from Microsoft Windows to Ubuntu for his personal computer. He sees the values of the GNU/Linux FLOSS philosophy and he's tired of Windows related problems and performance issues especially in production DoD environments.
I'm biased to think that Ubuntu 12.04.x 64 bit LTS is much safer and more secure than Microsoft Windows 8 64 bit Enterprise or Pro versions especially with their DoD hardened modifications because the basic problem is that relying on Microsoft to do their due diligence and keep everything patched does not always coincide with the op tempo for special communities found in the DoD community at large. One of the shining examples is that they can get a DoD employee to patch and fix problems in house using GNU/Linux systems rather than waiting and hoping that Microsoft Corporation is going to respond to a similar problem for Windows related issues on a timely basis. Sometimes, emergencies do pop up and there are legal restrictions involved with their projects that get in the way.
Most of the penetration testers and analysts at DoD view GNU/Linux with positive feedback. They like the flexibility and they like the fact that it has most of the tools and tool chains necessary for them to get real work done unencumbered. They have multi-year contracts with Red Hat and Microsoft among others, but they are able to rapidly iterate development on GNU/Linux platforms at a lower cost.
I've also been told that most of them keep multiple PCs at home for personal use and only authorized and approved DoD hardened configurations are permitted remote access to various DoD systems at work from home through their VPN gateways. While Windows 7 is still on their list, they are moving away from Microsoft toward GNU/Linux because of the $500 BILLION dollar defense cuts that are going to impact them over the next 10 years.
I told my friend to look into System76 or ZaReason as his next PC and I told him to choose Ubuntu 12.04.x 64 bit LTS as his GNU/Linux distribution of choice. He makes a good salary, but he wants to keep his total cost of ownership as low as possible for the next few years so he ruled out SUSE and Red Hat even though the latter is the most obvious choice.
I thought that I'd share this general information for anyone who cares. Forgive me for not getting into specific details for obvious security reasons, but I found it to be interesting.