

Obama staff arrives at White House stuck in dark ages of technology - pclark
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012104249.html?hpid=topnews

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mattmcknight
I worked with a core group of people that were responsible for IT in the
Executive Office of the President under Bush II, but left in the wake of the
missing email scandal. They were some of the most extremely bureaucratic IT
people I've ever met. They all were incredibly hard workers, but fundamentally
in the box thinkers. The way they implemented Microsoft security could be
classified as insane. Locking down stuff to the point where it just wouldn't
work any more. Forget being an admin as a developer, you had to ask for
temporary permission to launch a service on your server. They had incredibly
cozy relationships with the Microsoft sales team, and many ended up working
for Microsoft after they left.

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gruseom
Do you have the impression that the missing email scandal was a technical
lapse or politically motivated? I know it's widely assumed to have been the
latter, but it's often easy to overestimate these things.

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Maktab
I don't have any insider knowledge of the Bush admin's controversy, but I have
seen and heard of cases in the corporate world where similarly draconian admin
policies that forced users to jump through hoops in the name of security often
had the effect of driving users to adopt easier and less restrictive external
services instead. I suppose it's not impossible that something similar
happened here, but to be honest senior admin officials really should have
known better even if that was the case.

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Hates_
"Maybe it's time for the White House to upgrade to Windows Vista?"

Or let the Mac-savvy team, continue to use Macs?

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ars
The actual washington post article is quite different from this blog post. Yes
the title on the blog post is catchy - but it's also not accurate.

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pg
Replaced it with the original.

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Hoff
Who here can walk into a data center now devoid of its IT staff, and be fully
up to speed with a whole new staff?

Even if you're starting out with a detailed and valid plan of the IT
transition, you'll still end up wiping and reloading the various boxes
involved, resetting the network access control, resetting the switch and
controller and server passwords, re-launching whatever mail server(s) you're
going to be using, tracing out the occasional unmarked wire or busted
connector, and a whole litany of minutia.

And you can't do any of the client-site transition until the old staff and the
old IT staff is out of the building, and you have the keys to the facility.
Even if you're running your new servers and such remotely and completely in
parallel and need only flip DNS and thus you're staging your client gear, how
long does it take to carry in and unpack and install and connect it all?

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pclark
surely the "support" staff of the whitehouse remain?

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pasbesoin
It would be a good question: What is the boundary between political/term
positions and career positions, for this stuff?

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biohacker42
Sans blog spam: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/01...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012104249.html?hpid=topnews)

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patrickg-zill
Pros know how to use both. Six years old = Windows 2003 server, or XP.

Now if they really wanted to impress me, they would have installed Debian on
all of them!

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trickjarrett
This seems like a detail which should have been examined prior to the handoff.
If the domain changeover happened, they obviously considered technology, but
somehow overlooked the PC data systems in the White House IT dept.?

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icey
I hope if they are thinking about doing an upgrade, they consider Linux. I
mean, there is already a large government investment in SELinux; might as well
use it.

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icey
I can't update my earlier comment, but it looks like they are at least looking
into it:

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10147920-16.html>

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tlrobinson
[http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.blackberry/inde...](http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.blackberry/index.html)

This article explains Bush was forced to give up email, and instant messaging
will not be allowed in the Whitehouse due to security concerns.

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tlrobinson
Perhaps it's best to limit the number of laptops in the Whitehouse. People
tend to lose laptops containing sensitive information...

Though surely the NSA could provide them with pretty damn secure laptops.

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siculars
icanhasimacpwease!

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theklub
Boo-hoo. Are they going to waste tax money on upgrading to new Macs because
they can't figure out the "hard to use" windows machines?

~~~
mkuhn
I think the cost for new computer hardware would be negligible if you compare
it with the upside of increased productivity. But of course to get the system
running (with or without new hard- and software) will need some time...

