Re: Microsoft wins Homeland Security Bid ( Reuters)

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:21:52 PDT, Brad Bemis <Brad.Bemis () airborne com>  said:
> My point is that security is a process, not a product.  Microsoft is going
> to work very hard with the DHS to provide a secure baseline that takes into
> account the sensitivity of information associated with the defense of
> critical infrastructure assets.  Comments stating that Microsoft will be
> incapable of providing an appropriate service (or at least a service
> comparable to any competitor in the marketplace) are biased and without
> merit.

OK. Even granting that Microsoft *is* trying to improve things, that's *STILL*
no excuse for giving them a sole-source.  Or for *ANY* vendor to get a
sole-source.

If they got stuff from two independent vendors, that would at least give you a
snowball's chance of half your systems surviving any given attack.  There's a
*reason* why the IETF requires two independent implementations to move
something to 'Standard', and why the Shuttle has 5 computers - one of which is
a different architecture and software system.

And if there's *any* agency in the federal government that needs to be
bulletproof, DHS is it....

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