I don’t think I’m going on a limb here to ask “Why does the US military keep using Microsoft’s operating systems and applications?”. In recent months the military in paticular has locked down portable media on workstations to the point getting a job done takes twice as many people as it used to, and still you can’t transfer files around workstations as needed. USB sticks (Thumb Drives), external hard drives, re-writable CD/DVDs, DVDs, CDs and even the rattle trap little floppy disc is no longer allowed on government workstations.

In a recent article I read on LinuxPlanet they ask a similar question “Why does Microsoft always get a free pass?” (http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/6605/1/). I ask myself that every day when I login at work and get the now normal greeting “removable media is no longer allowed on government computers”. As well as a defyingly slow scan (Norton) of miscalanious files before I’m finally greeted with an almost usable desktop (it is useable after the scripts finish running).

What brings this on is an article I received by email on the US Air Force “AIM Points” web site. Written by Siobhan, August Cole and Yochi Dreazen at the Wall Street Journal (http://aimpoints.hq.af.mil/display.cfm?id=33156). Daily hacks are happening to some very sensitive operations, yet the US Government keeps on using the very tool that enables the enemy an opertunity to get in and snoop “Microsoft Windows”. Why the US Gov’t uses Microsoft baffles me; the only conclusion I can honestly come to is; those that are high enough up to push for change know Windows; so they don’t want to change.

Yes it would cost a butt load to toss Windows and move an entire force to another operating system (training, tech support and computer systems administration time for the turnover would be costly by its self). Hell, even if they don’t want Linux (my baby) they could still pay the licensing fees they are used to and lower the risk conciderably by moving to Mac OS or back to Unix like they’ve done in the past. If they at least went with Mac they could still keep their bloated office suite (Microsoft Office) and run virus software that slows a computer to a crawl so it would feel “just like home”.

For now it seems the military is happy patching, “protecting” and incombering the workforce with operating systems and applications that remain vulnerable from every side. Sometimes I want to find the people in charge of running the software purchases, requirements or what ever and shake them while asking ”You dumb asses, do you not see the other options out there?”. Then again if they dropped Microsoft who else would be slipping them some free stuff on the side? (I speculate here; but it’s not unlikley).