Lawmakers question federal government's reckless sprint towards cloud computing

Tech 1984 ^ | 6/13/10 | Tech 1984

[oc-flyfish]

So the federal government is rushing into cloud computing without any thought for security, privacy and other important topics. And then last month the Dept of Engraving gets hacked because their cloud computing provider was compromised? Can anyone say insanity?

[donna]

Cloud computing definition:

Instead of running your apps yourself, they run on a shared data center. When you use any app that runs in the cloud, you just log in, customize it, and start using it.

[oc-flyfish]

Yes, thanks for the definition for people who are not familiar with it.

[CanaGuy]

Sun Microsystems had a similar product years ago running under Solaris called X-Windows. The advantage was that the desktops were cheap-cheap-cheap, just enough power to create a window and access the server. I think there are a lot of products doing this now.

[donna]

And then last month the Dept of Engraving gets hacked because their cloud computing provider was compromised? Can anyone say insanity?

I don't know where I've been, I've missed ALL of this. I had to look this up, too:

"But that was only after those webpages re-routed an unknown number of unsuspecting visitors to another site in the Ukraine that is notorious for installing malicious software on users' computers."

This kind of stuff has to be done on purpose - maybe payoffs to bureaucrat decision makers? Or, infiltration by foreign operatives via affirmative action hiring? I mean, no one could think cloud computing is acceptable for national security.

[Myrddin]

The return of the mainframe. In1983 we logged into the UNIVAC mainframe and used the applications present. Ditto for the DEC VMS boxes, IBM VM/CMS and IMS. Let's not forget large UNIX systems. Everything old is new again with a different name attached. The "login" is now a web server/browser pair instead of a vt100 async or IBM synchronous console. The new world has more players, more access and more potential for compromise.

[donna]

I didn’t think of it like that. I worked for a bank back then and the security there was outstanding. But, that was then, when people still had a work ethic, and it was private, not government work.

[Myrddin]

Classified systems are not connected to the internet. There are plenty of unclassified systems with sensitive data that are connected. We have bozos in MMS watching porn on government computers at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, ships that should have been inspected were negligently allowed to operate unsafely...oil spill.

[oc-flyfish]

You are correct but there is a slight distinction. With the X-Windows box, you would typically connect to a server in your organization.

With cloud computing, you are connecting via a web browser to a data center located somewhere in the world.

[oc-flyfish]

That is the scary thing... the government CIOs are jumping into it full force without any consideration for security.

[Myrddin]

There was generally good physical security to
mainframe terminals. Networks were private,
wired and proprietary protocols. A 3270 terminal
wasn’t available a Walmart. It took some effort
to configure a terminal for access. Very different
from the current world.

[oc-flyfish]

Right. The only difference is that the Dec-Vax, ES/9000, AS/400, etc were all owned by the same company and part of the wide area network.

Now your apps, data, etc are being stored in a data center somewhere in the world outside of your direct control.

[donna]

Oh man, we are going to get chips in our heads - they’ll tell us it’s to prevent computer crime!

[oc-flyfish]

Not to argue, but DHS just got busted for having classified systems connecting to unsecured systems according to a recent audit:

http://tech1984.com/2010/06/11/audit-finds-deparment-of-homeland-securitys-network-vulnerable/

[oc-flyfish]

Exactly. I remember what a pain in the butt it was to configure terminal access correctly for AS/400s.

[oc-flyfish]

Hahaha! They chipped the dog we adopted. Guess I have to be careful what I tell him. :-)

[djf]

IBM has announced in one of their SOD’s (Statement of Direction) a RETURN TO THE WATER COOLED PROCESSORS OF THE 80’s!!

That can only mean one thing. They are going to start building bigger, denser, faster machines.

Not just a little bigger than an RS6000 class server.

WAY BIGGER!
Humongous bigger!!!
Mind boggingly bigger!!

[Myrddin]

It's not argumentative. It's illustrative of the dolts that are currently serving. They are illiterate. They operate with a great deal of hubris, then feign surprise when they are caught screwing up. We are likely to have many compromises of classified information while the leftists infest the sensitive bureaucracies.

[Talisker]

Just another justification to cover the exposure of national assets to theft.

This Clintons did the same thing at Los Alamos - among other things, they changed all of the color-coded security badge levels to a single unrecognizeable version in the name of not making people feel bad because they didn’t have special access.

Result? Chicoms got sophisticate nuke construction data from Wen Ho Lee, a Chicom agent.

Now Obama is doing cloud computing to the whole government...

[Myrddin]

RS6000's were considered little desktop machines in my world. A room full of 3090/600 with DASD as far as the eye could see was "normal". 110,000 square feet of raised floor on each of 5 floors. Water cooling was the norm. We had a 3 turbine co-generation plant on-site to provide chilled water for air handlers and mainframes. The building core had massive UPS systems plus all the telecom connectivity to the outside world. Some of my floor space has 1100/64 and multiple 1100-92 UNISYS boxes. One floor above was solid Amdahl mainframes with 6 huge robotic tape handlers. The 3rd floor had 40 UNISYS 7000 machines, 6 3B20S machines and multiple lineups of disk and tape. Just a cozy little data center handling most of the business computing needs for southern California at PacBell. That was the state of things as I left in 1991.

Some new "exotic" Stratus machines arrived about the time I was moving on. PacBell was doing trials of fault tolerant systems. One company touted their "Non-Stop UNIX" product. A demonstration was arranged in San Ramon. I couldn't get tickets to fly from San Diego, so I asked a trusted co-worker to have a look. The "non-stop" UNIX stopped at 8:30 AM and the vendor failed to get it started until well after 5 PM. More like non-start UNIX. Not what you want in a shop where the cost of down time in measured in the thousands of dollars per minute.

I did end up working with some Stratus/VOS machines that were part of the bank network in 1996. Security was very tight and my software got a real close bit of scrutiny before it was permitted to go "live".