

US Secret Service IT is 1980s mainframes, only up 60% of the time - seldo
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-secret-service-outdated-computer-mainframe-system-1980s/story?id=9945663

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philwelch
I don't know what's more worrying--the state of the Secret Service's IT, or
the prospect of the government attempting to replace all of it with an
ambitious new IT development project.

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wheaties
If you haven't worked in government contracting you don't know just how spot
on this comment is.

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aswanson
If you haven't worked in government contracting read this:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/who-killed-
the-v...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/who-killed-the-virtual-
case-file)

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wheaties
"...poorly defined and slowly evolving design requirements; overly ambitious
schedules; and the lack of a plan to guide hardware purchases, network
deployments, and software development for the bureau."

Yup, that's about how it goes.

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d2viant
There's part of me that actually feels relieved at this news. If these are the
same people enforcing the Patriot Act, I feel like I have a fighting chance
now.

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dutchflyboy
Wow, that's old! Just by looking at Moore's law: 30/1.5 = 20, a machine of the
same size would have aproximatively 2^20 times more power!

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cmelbye
Just goes to show you what red tape does. It's sad that servers that even the
smallest startup uses are more advanced and modern than those of the United
States government.

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rbanffy
There is no need to throw out something that works well, however old it is.
New startups will end up using the more modern stuff, just like older ones
will end up with slightly older equipment. That's not a problem unless if
affects reliability.

That, of course, assumes the government solution works fine, something the
article says it doesn't.

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rbanffy
I'd buy a couple 327xs if they come up in an auction!

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CoachRufus87
sad (and terrifying)

