
Chinese military to replace Windows OS amid fears of US hacking - PatrolX
https://www.zdnet.com/article/chinese-military-to-replace-windows-os-amid-fears-of-us-hacking/
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ConfusedDog
Ideally for improving security, they should invest on supporting open source
software, hardware and standards. Open Design Principle is much better long
term strategy than Security by Obscurity. But for developers in China, there
are a lot of obstacles with contributing to open source communities worldwide,
so I can see that probably not going to happen.

End of the day, policymakers are more educated with economics than
cybersecurity and computer science. They probably still gonna use Microsoft
products.

~~~
duxup
>They probably still gonna use Microsoft products.

Even if they did get rid of most MS products. Some senior guy probabbly fires
up windows and installs a dozen search bars.

I knew a guy who served in the gulf, he was pretty high ranking, handled some
security stuff. Got a request from someone important to basically break all
the rules because important guy didn't want to walk too far from his CHU to
make a call home.... but he was high enough ranking so they did it. It wasn't
even a far walk.

~~~
panpanna
> Some senior guy probabbly fires up windows and installs a dozen search bars.

A "security expert" at a F500 once showed my a web page on his laptop. Only
40% of the page was visible due to his 7-8 search bars.

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sametmax
If they don't use Linux, I wonder how long it will take them to have something
productive for the average worker.

I mean, Android took a decade to be usable, was built by one of the most
talented and rich company on earth. Yet it is still limited in what it allows
you to do: no office suite, limited driver support, weak multi-monitor, can
use few FS formats, no RAID, etc. And that is despite Android actually
wrapping a Linux Kernel.

Not to mentions they'll need to get so many basic tools ported.

No matter the high competence of the Chinese tech scene, their ability to
brutally push an agenda and the number they can throw at it, I can't imagine a
scenario where those resources wouldn't be better spent validating and
customizing an existing distro.

However, I can imagine many reasons they would choose the harder road. And as
a geek, I find it sane to remind myself that technical efficiency is not the
goal of all entities.

~~~
jiveturkey
> If they don't use Linux, I wonder how long it will take them to have
> something productive for the average worker.

If the _do_ use Linux, I wonder that.

Not being snarky. Linux is unusable for "the average worker".

~~~
nicoburns
I think this is just a matter of familiarity. I've seen highly non-technical
users find linux as easy if not easier than windows.

The problems are mainly unsupported hardware and lack of software support. But
if you stick with open alternatives then you can do just fine.

~~~
PatrolX
I often test the latest Linux distros on crappy old hardware (and new
hardware) just to see how compatible they are.

I recently tested Kubuntu 19.04 on a 20 year old desktop, it works perfectly
and even had third-party drivers for the video card.

~~~
lolc
I find this hard to believe because a desktop of 1999 would only have around
256 MiB of RAM.

~~~
officeplant
My friends dual Pentium Pro system is capped out at 2GB of ram. Many older
machines got maxed out ram wise if you bothered to upgrade them at all when
previous gen ram goes super cheap.

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nemild
I'm surprised that "security by obscurity" is touted as a way reduce attacks.
This is almost guaranteed to lead to less diligence in the code — and more
risks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity)

~~~
sdinsn
Obscurity isn't supposed to replace security, it just aids it. Note that the
US government heavily practices this, with 'Suite A' cryptography. Most other
governments have similar practices.

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duxup
I'm a bit surprised they run it at all.

~~~
jseliger
Likewise. I wouldn't, if I were them.

~~~
JohnFen
I'm not willing to use Windows on my home machines, and I'm not them.

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O1111OOO
Food for thought...

I strongly suspect that this new OS will be coming from Huawei.

It makes sense that a Chinese company develops an OS for their own government.
We are in the spyware era, afterall.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear, years later, that Huawei's "backup" effort
was never to replace Android on consumer devices but to fork it for Chinese
government use. It's too convenient an excuse to have so much work done on so
many _doomsday_ scenarios. Huawei, I think, was already tasked for the new
OS(es) by China.

Similarly, their efforts to replace Windows[0] was to provide their government
with a "homegrown" OS solution. Not unlike Sailfish in Russia[1].

As much as I like the idea of a new OS competing on the world stage,
preferably based on Open Source... it's simply not going to happen coming from
either Huawei or China. Control of data is the the overriding motivator among
nearly every tech firm and government. When these transitions take place (gov
and Huawei consumer), I might as well be running RedStar OS or a US-based
commercial alternative.

[0] [https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-
tech/article/3011660/microsoft...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-
tech/article/3011660/microsoft-said-stop-accepting-new-orders-huawei-it-moves-
comply-us)

[1] [https://nokiamob.net/2019/02/09/sailfish-os-is-now-aurora-
os...](https://nokiamob.net/2019/02/09/sailfish-os-is-now-aurora-os-in-
russia/)

~~~
powerapple
Huawei is not developing desktop OS. It has been developing a mobile/IoT OS.
And I don't think anyone would develop a OS from scratch given the obvious
option Linux.

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siffland
I would not be suprised if it is an offshoot of FreeBSD. That way they could
get away from the GPL license altogether and wont violate any licensing
agreements.

If they based it off Linux, unless it was avalible to download online, it
would probably infringe on the GPL somewhere. Assuming they care about those
things.

~~~
adriantam
if they moved that way, why they would care about GPL violation?

~~~
kazinator
Because each of their copy of Windows is properly licensed now, and they
wouldn't want to blemish their saintly compliance record when they switch to
something else.

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notimetorelax
I read somewhere that Soviet Union fell because it spent all its funds on
projects like this. I wonder if this is beginning of the end or if they will
be able to pull this off?

It might be a good sales pitch for “US-hardened equipment”.

~~~
JamesBarney
Chinese is in a much different place economically than the Soviet Union was.

~~~
notimetorelax
With the cheap labor coming from rural areas it has similarities with USSR in
50 and 60s. Found some research on the topic:
[http://www.centrosraffa.org/public/bb6ba675-6bef-4182-bb89-3...](http://www.centrosraffa.org/public/bb6ba675-6bef-4182-bb89-339ae1f7e792.pdf)

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exabrial
I mean... every country should.

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bigato
I am surprised that some comments state that it "has to be linux". Since they
can't magically reduce the time it would take to develop something that
complex nowhere near their time constraints, it obviously has to start with
something that already exists. But Linux is not the only open source OS out
there, folks. If I were charged with this task, i'd start with OpenBSD, given
its focus on security. The fact that most of base is BSD licensed also helps
because no changes would be legally required to be opensourced. It also can
run modern web browsers and libreoffice, which is a significant part of what
goes for "desktop" computing these days.

~~~
Junk_Collector
Why would a Chinese Linux derivative need be open source? It's not like you're
going to go into China and force the government to comply with your license.

~~~
bigato
It would be legally required to be opensource, whereas with BSD it wouldn't.
That's all I argued. Whether some country will try to enforce it via whatever
means is another question altogether.

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RyanAF7
Lot of the comments seem to miss the point.

It's for the military, not consumers. It won't need driver support or features
like a consumer OS.

The more foreign the layout probably the better as you can train new habits
more easily when the environment for old ones doesn't exist.

Have a feeling the end result will be the same, "We built it!"

 _spy leaks code_ _hacked_

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bradhe
> Beijing officials have decided to develop a custom operating system that
> will replace the Windows OS on computers used by the Chinese military.

Okay. Good luck with that.

~~~
craftyguy
You act like it is hard to run an OS on a computer that is not windows (hint:
it is not.)

~~~
bradhe
Creating a custom OS from scratch that's somehow more secure than a system
that's 40 years old will be a real interesting feat.

If they base it on Linux (didn't see evidence of that but didn't get that far
in to the article) then that'll give them some head start.

~~~
craftyguy
Who said they were creating one from scratch?

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Manjuuu
They could just license Red Star OS.

~~~
unicornfinder
It's certainly an interesting OS. Reading up on it it supposedly tags all
files it comes into contact with.

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tantalor
Is this news from 2002?

