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Apple Businesses

No Windows Allowed On Ex-Battleship Cruise Liner 84

Posted by timothy from the world-of-recreation dept.
uucee writes "Wired has a story on an ex-warship cum cruise ship. Owner of the ship, Doug Humphrey, on why no Windows aboard his ship: 'We didn't want to have viruses blowing up systems that we depend on for navigation and monitoring engines and other systems. And since nothing seems to be able to stop all of these Windows viruses, the best way to win is to just stop using Windows.' However, it's not clear why Mac programmers can be trusted more than Windows programmers to keep a ship running: USS Yorktown was brought to a halt not by a virus but by bad coding: divide-by-zero. As Windows viruses don't travel through 'the ether,' it's also unclear how mission-critical systems, properly cut off from the outside world, would become infected in the first place."
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No Windows Allowed On Ex-Battleship Cruise Liner More

No Windows Allowed On Ex-Battleship Cruise Liner

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  • First post? (Score:5, Funny)

    by handsomepete ( 561396 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @05:49PM (#4590648) Journal
    They didn't have Windows on the ship because sailors kept opening them and getting all their stuff wet. Ta da!

    (So long, karma.)

  • No windows? (Score:5, Funny)

    by I Am The Owl ( 531076 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @05:53PM (#4590669) Homepage Journal
    But then how do they see where they're going?

  • FUD? (Score:2)

    by cornice ( 9801 )
    Well if the general public is going to base purchase desisions on half truths, marketing BS and FUD then at least this should give them a hint of balance.

  • Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @06:09PM (#4590762) Journal
    1) This is a coastal patrol boat with a 40 mm cannon and two machine guns. It isn't remotely a "battleship".

    2) The owner doesn't mention the Yorktown incident at all. Given the way it's constantly, erroneously invoked here, I'm surprised this is the story picked in which to debunk it.

    3) So, somebody with a fairly sketchy understanding of computers made a billion by selling his startup to someone else before it cratered. It's been a while since people like that were a novety worth expending thought on.

    • Re:Whatever (Score:5, Informative)

      by doughumphrey ( 622590 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @08:05PM (#4591370)
      Some friends said I might want to get in here and correct factual errors, and clarify what we are really trying to do. It's my warship, and I'll do what I wanna ;-) Seriously, it is mine, so I can answer questions on it. 1) it isn't remotely a battleship You got that right - we run it with a crew of 4, you can't do that with a battlewagon. It is a coastal patrol boat, 120ft long, 24ft wide, draws 2 meters of water (yes, it is british, and NATO compliant, which means that there are mixed english/metric measures EVERYWHERE on it. Mine has not 40mm gun on the back deck - a much more mundane but much more useful Seacrane 200 is on there for picking up large items on and off the rear deck. There are mounts for .30 cals (1919's or M60 if it was in the US navy, something in .303 british if in the Royal Navy) There are 2 mounts, one per side, on the upper deck for heavy machine guns, likely the ever popular M2HB .50 cal 2) The Yorktown thing is none of my concern per se - I don't need any extra evidence that windoze is a threat - I have owned companies with many employees and many windows boxes. Evidence abounds. 3) If you are talking to me, I do not have a "fairly sketchy knowledge of computers. I have written PDP-10 code, PDP-11 code, Suns (my first was a 2/120), Vax, and have done IP networking since NCP was around. No, I don't hack code now, but I am pretty well versed on the technology, and on the current state of the security art (my current focus is deep packet scanning - not sure I really BELIEVE in it, but there is a lot of work going on in the area) You don't always have to check your brain at the door to make money, and YOU should be more carefull before making the assumption that someone who owns a strage toy like this might not understand networking. Doug Humphrey doug@joss.com

      • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Henry V .009 ( 518000 )
        Doug, if you have your navigation and engine systems connected to a network and to the internet you are in for some trouble. Especially now that everyone knows about your boat. If you are going to brag about your secure computing solution to the world--well, at least get a set-up that has security as a major focus.

        A Mac isn't that hard to crack--all it takes is one hax0R getting offended, and then sailing your boat to Antartica.
        • :grin:

          And it took YEARS for anyone to win the Hack-a-Mac contest. That person then refused to have their name public (for obvious reasons).

          Oh sure, anything is hackable but, you are talking about something here that is probably behind a Firewall and two probably has little turned on in the way of servers/services to the outside..

      • Re:Whatever (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 03, 2002 @11:49PM (#4592270)
        Doug,

        If you weren't aware of it before, you probably know it by now. Anything interesting or useful that rears its head on Slashdot will likely be ripped to shreds by what has quickly become the nets most vicious and petty peanut gallery.

        Slashdottians know nothing, they accomplish nothing, and their opinions are worth nothing. They are uniformly bitter, small-minded geeks who overestimate their own importance and their own skillz. They are, for the most part, losers. Their biggest accomplishment is in insulting others' spelling and grammar, attacking the GPL license despite their grade level understanding of it, and tricking people into clicking on goatse.cx links. They are know-it-all blowhards who use their computers primarily for Pornography and online gaming, at which they cheat regularly to offset their complete lack of motor skills.

        Despite touting the wonderous greatness of linux and open source, they all use Windows and Internet Explorer. They like Macs because of OSX, but want it to run on X86 so they can steal a copy and give nothing back. They will eventually buy a Mac due to their inability to run Windows without crashing it constantly by their own stupidity, and become raving unbalanced lunatics who do more harm than good for the Mac community by claiming that the G4 is quadruple the speed of a dual 3Ghz Xeon box.

        They lie about their own experience to make their case, and when you win an argument with them, they post anonymously in order to tell you they've had sex with your mother.

        Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded.

        Signed,
        Yoda the Retard
      • I'm interested although others here might try to shred afterwards.

        I hope you used a Firewall and didn't turn on many services that are connected to the outside.

        That and configured TCPwrappers on the OS X boxes as well as iffw (in 10.2 there is an interface to it in System Preferences).

        You probably did but, I'm concerned as there are all these frothing at the mouth types here.

  • Submission errors/comments (Score:4, Informative)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @06:21PM (#4590849)
    (1) It's not a battleship, it was a patrol ship....quite a small one at that.

    (2) It's not used as a "cruise ship" now -- it's the personal vessel of an entrepreneur.

    (3) As for how viruses would have gotten aboard (because they don't "travel through the ether") -- the ship has satellite Internet and is hooked-up to DSL when moored.

    All that said, it's an ugly fsck'ing boat that dude's got!

    -psy
  • There is no text here. That's what the [nt] means. The filter obviously doesn't like it though.

  • I have to say... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @06:42PM (#4590977) Journal
    "We didn't want to have viruses blowing up systems that we depend on for navigation and monitoring engines and other systems."

    It's note-worthy that this is not a military vessle anymore. Unless I'm reading the article wrong, this boat is a glorified private yacht. I fail to see the importance of the whole issue from this perspective.

    I can see the ads now...

    "My name is Doug Humphrey, and I'm a rich bastard who downsized my company and bought a disused warship-turned-yacht for my own private use!"

    Good for him. Worried about your navigation systems? Get a stand-alone GPS unit (Assuming the Royal navy stripped out the navigation equipment that the ship originally had, that is, which I'm sure didn't run Windows!). And I'm sure an engine room in a ship like that still requires a trained engineer and at least one assistant to operate.

    The only 'critical system' I can imagine on that ship that could possibly rely on the stablility of an OS is his stock-market update streamer.

    Now... if anything, the interesting story here is how they converted his *company* to use Macs, and is supposingly saving the firm a bunch of money on maintainance. That's something to talk about. Now we can have a meaningful discussion on the Mac vs. Windows situation in the business world.

    =Smidge=

    • Re:I have to say... (Score:5, Informative)

      by doughumphrey ( 622590 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @08:15PM (#4591402)
      It is just a private vessel now - nothing official. You can get barebones GPS things with no real OS but we have more sophisticated things for charts and maps, and also we are doing stuff that monitors equipment. Still, really critical things like radar, radios and basic GPS nav have nothing to do with external connections - we are not fools ;-) As to how we got the company to go all Mac, and the evidence that it saves a bundle, that is pretty easy. When you are downsizing things, you don't have the luxury of a big MIS staff - sales people like PC's rather than Macs, but if there is nobody to fix the PCs they are all dead in a few weeks. The Macs are more simple, and they get the job done. Seriously, the only complaints we got were that the games didn't run on the Macs. Boo Hoo. Doug
    • I won't comment on the relativeness of the original article, but just a couple of points about "the real world".

      Get a stand-alone GPS unit (Assuming the Royal navy stripped out the navigation equipment that the ship originally had, that is, which I'm sure didn't run Windows!). And I'm sure an engine room in a ship like that still requires a trained engineer and at least one assistant to operate.

      While GPS and radar units themselves have nothing to do with Windows or PCs. But instead navigation systems unfortunately quite often do. I'm talking about a complete system with autohelm, mapping and the lot integrated.
      I was working on the bridge of a passanger creise ship just after the modernisation of the bridge. The minute we passed out of the harbour the PC systems went nuts. 5 buzzers started screaming at the same time, and the main display of the system gave an unfriendly error while slave displays only froze. I wont write here what the comments were onboard, as there might be kids reading this. Anyway, the solution was easy. Go to manual and rip out all the cables going to that damn PC. (No time to try out nice ways to shut it down...)
      So, we did that trip with manual helm and no maplines on the radars, otherwise everything else was back to normal. But the call the skipper gave to the company that sold the equipment was quite hilarious to hear. I've never heard anyone insult someone over the phone that badly...

      And a note about engineering too. While most newer small cargo vessels (under 150m), and some bigger new ones too, run with E0 (engineering zero) it doesn't mean you could do it (cheaply) with an old warboat. It is quite possible to run a ship with only one person on watch. All the alarms are linked to the bridge and there is a separate engines monitor for the (deck)officer on watch. But you do need an engineer on stand by (at cabin) to fix the problems. But as I said, its a question of money only... ...I don't know how much of the old warboat is left on that cruiser? Is it just a hull with all new gadgets refitted or just minor modifications with interface to the new computer gear?

      Although I would be interested to hear what navigation software they use on that boat? I do have Macs myselft and would like to use them for navigation too, but until now I've only fount PC software...
      • we are using MacSea which has all the scanned in charts for charting/plotting - works about as good as the windows packages. we feed it with many sources of data - gps/dgps, gyro, flux gayes, loran-C so we notice when DoD plays with GPS accuracy ;-) we are still researching data collection software doug

  • eh (Score:1, Troll)

    by Ecko_viLAn ( 258523 )
    "... the only complaints were from people who couldn't play games on their machines any longer. So sorry, no games at work. We are so mean...I don't play computer games so that might help explain why I don't miss the Windows box." I didn't know only windows had computer games... chris.
  • you know, it doesn't need to be clear. it's his ship, he can use whatever rules he wants. seems like pretty wise rules really.

  • Keeping Out Viruses the Easy Way (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @06:55PM (#4591047) Homepage
    Why don't they just isolate the network that the ship's computers are on (the important ones like navigation) from all other computers. Don't connect it to the internet. And have every computer on it locked down, take out disk drives/etc. It would be very hard to get a virus that way, and you could run whatever you want for an OS.
    • why don't they just isolate the network that the ship's computers are on..... this works well in theory, but since there are a number of people working on the systems, networks, etc. there is the possibility that they will get exposed to the outside world (internet access is a requirement because I use it for my day job(s) and guests like to have access too. Better to take an active role in maintaining security than to simply count on nobody plugging the wrong rj45 into the wrong place. Or I could turn IPSEC on and just break everything..... ;-) I can not assure that guests will not bring on dirty machines - that would be real friendly, taking their laptops and examining them... Doug

  • Games (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Daleks ( 226923 )
    "We forced everyone to go to Macs for the desktops," he said. "The support load dropped to almost nothing and the only complaints were from people who couldn't play games on their machines any longer. So sorry, no games at work. We are so mean."

    "I've used Macs for the last six years," he said. "I had a PC before that, but Macs were fun and more reliable. I don't play computer games so that might help explain why I don't miss the Windows box."

    "We avoid the Windows operating system since it is such a huge security risk," he explained. "We didn't want to have viruses blowing up systems that we depend on for navigation and monitoring engines and other systems. And since nothing seems to be able to stop all of these Windows viruses, the best way to win is to just stop using Windows."

    Two paragraphs noting that Mac's don't have as many games, and one noting that Mac's are more secure that Windows machines. If I hadn't read the Slashdot headline I would've thought this article was about a game-hating sailor.
    • If you read the Wired article you would see that is not the case.

      The Slashdot submitter was itching to start a flamewar or something.
      • If you read the Wired article you would see that is not the case.

        Er... I quoted from the article. I obviously read it.
        • Not entriely true.

          There was lots of misleading commentary in the Slashdot submission.

          Like, "battleship", "cruise", etc.

          It was designed to start a flamewar.

          Now the actual article on Wired, is quite a bit different than the submitter makes it out to be.
  • It's clearly a terrorist organiztion!
  • how are they using a satellite connection without going through a PC running Windows? Every report I see at DSLReports.com indicate that there is no way to connect directly to a Mac (or linux). You need Windows to do the ICS because there are no Mac/linux drivers for the satellite modems available.
    • how are they using satellite comm without going through a pc.... ? not using consumer gear - there are inmarsat systems that are dedicated hardware - there is a realtime os in there, but not windoze. connection is 10baseT. doug
    • Hmmm...

      My Iridium connects very nicely to my Psion Revo (EPOC/Symbian OS). The Iridium phone looks like a slow AT command-set modem to the Psion.

      With the Psion and Iridium - I can shh while anywhere in the world, and the whole pacakge is less than 3.5 pounds.

      • With the Psion and Iridium - I can shh while anywhere in the world, and the whole pacakge is less than 3.5 pounds.

        ...per minute if the last satellite phone charges I saw on a bill were correct!
        • Iridium is cheep now - $1.50 a minuit ~1.60 Euros. The high use plans can get down to $1.00 a min.

          It's cheaper for me to use my Iridium phone in Europe to call the US, then it is to use a GSM phone. $1.50 vs $2.75

    • Read the article. The guy owns a company that provides broadband access via satellite. You can certainly connect a Mac to such services (the sat modem just looks like a router), but most companies that provide that service are just too lazy to provide config scripts for platforms other than windows.

  • Link to the ship's home page (Score:4, Informative)

    by ckd ( 72611 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @08:21PM (#4591426) Homepage

    Welcome Aboard the Badtz Maru! [joss.com] has more photos and details of her history.

  • Found this on his company's website (http://www.cidera.com/):

    The Internet: A Brief Timeline
    1968 ARPA--the Advanced Research Projects Agency--contracts for the Arpanet, a network of linked computers for the military and also academia.

    1975 The first do-it-yourself computer kit: the Altair 8800.

    1989 The World Wide Web is born.

    2000 Worldwide users on the Internet exceed 300 million.

    Yeah, I'd say that pretty much sums it up ;-)

  • Unclear? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rebill ( 87977 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @09:16PM (#4591657) Journal
    it's also unclear how mission-critical systems, properly cut off from the outside world, would become infected in the first place

    That's easy - unless the machine is unplugged, sealed in cement and at teh bottom of the ocean, *someone* is going to bring his special program from him and will install it on the box.

    Unless you post a guard on every box at all times, someone is going to play with it and screw it up.

    Or steal it. One guy was so brazen that he came into a training class, and removed RAM from the machines while the class was going on. We found out about it a little while later when the person giving the class called us to ask when were were going to send the guy back to "finish working on the machines."

    "Uh, what guy?"

    "The guy that you sent out, earlier!"

    "We didn't send anyone out . . ."

    The point is, with 5000 employees in a manufacturing plant, we had the occasional problem where one of our critical systems would drop off-line because someone wanted to plug in their coffee machine, or play his solitaire on OS/2, or decided that they really wanted to chill down their alcohol in that nice, air-conditioned cabinet during the summr months . . . and Cruise Ships will have that many employees. All it takes is *ONE* idiot, and you end up in the press . . .

  • Wired has a story on an ex-warship cum cruise ship.

    Whoa, hold on! Did you just say "cum cruise ship"? Can I get a ticket?

  • READ THE FREAKIN STORY!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SensitiveMale ( 155605 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @09:24PM (#4591699)
    Here is the BIG REASON!

    When the firm underwent a drastic downsizing recently, he moved his entire staff to Macs because it was too expensive keeping a fleet of Windows machines shipshape.


    "We forced everyone to go to Macs for the desktops," he said. "The support load dropped to almost nothing and the only complaints were from people who couldn't play games on their machines any longer.


    I expect slashdot reader to comment on the story before reading it, but shouldn't the SUBMITTER read it first?

  • "We avoid the Windows operating system since it is such a huge security risk," he explained. "We didn't want to have viruses blowing up systems that we depend on for navigation and monitoring engines and other systems. And since nothing seems to be able to stop all of these Windows viruses, the best way to win is to just stop using Windows."

    Man this entire story would make a good Apple switch ad :).

  • Navy carrier to run Win 2000 [gcn.com]

    Newport News Shipbuilding is constructing CVN 77, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, for the Navy in Newport News, Va. In January (2000), the shipbuilder chose Lockheed Martin Corp. to develop the carrier's integrated warfare systems, said Jerri Fuller Dickseski, a company spokeswoman. Lockheed Martin officials chose Microsoft for the project.

    • Anyone know any reliable contractors who have experience building bomb shelters? Just asking.

    • There are so many systems on a modern warship - some are not all that important (inventory for the commisary for example) and some are life and death (aiming for the SeaWiz which, if wrong, could result in one ship hosing another with 20mm rounds) Clearly your OS requirements are different on those. I would not mind WinWhatever doing the former, but I expect that it will not be in charge of the later. Embedded control systems are good in that they can be more reliably verified and then NOT altered. One of many problems of having a commonly available OS doing this kind of work is the possibility of contamination from the "commercial" world by someone who doesn't know better and decides to update a file or two from their laptop or other non-vetted source. doug
      • One of many problems of having a commonly available OS doing this kind of work is the possibility of contamination from the "commercial" world by someone who doesn't know better and decides to update a file or two from their laptop or other non-vetted source.

        And actually, this happens more often than not. When you consider that many corporations tend to suffer "corporate Alzheimer's" on projects as people involved with them turn over or the jobs are contracted out, you often can have functionality losses in your software that may go un-noticed for a while and sometimes its too late to fix it. For instance, when Microsoft decided to get their own version of Excel for Windows (after Excel/multiplan for the Macintosh was contracted), there was a wonderful feature that allowed you to retain linking with graphs and the data in your tables. At some point in Office 95 or 97 (I can't remember which), this functionality was lost with the recompiling and it has never come back.

        Unfortuantely, there is a movement within the US Navy to migrate most systems including command and contol to Windows despite the concerns for security and stability that many seem to be voicing. Granted, there are "trusted" versions around, but they are not as stable as UNIX OS's (which also have trusted versions).

  • goddammit timothy... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BiOFH ( 267622 ) on Monday November 04, 2002 @01:51AM (#4592724)
    What the fuck is that all about? Half the facts in the headline are wrong (battleship, cruise liner, yadda yadda) and then you strike off on a tangent that's just plain inflammatory and, from the looks of it, shows off your ignorance of closed system infections.

    Argh! I've so had it with this bullshit. Slashdot has become incredibly unreliable. You guys fucking lie in your headlines (let's call it what it is.. it's no merely "inaccurate", it's fucking lying for the sake of sensationalism) and then just go on about your business when half your [huge] readership makes note of it.

    ARGH! I defy you [Slashdot editorial staff] to address this issue. I defy you. Go ahead... prove that you all aren't the true 'anonymous' cowards hiding behind your 'code of silence'.

    Headline: Slashdot makes shit up just for shits and giggles. Facts secondary to inflaming the masses.
    • Headline: Slashdot makes shit up just for shits and giggles. Facts secondary to inflaming the masses.

      Yeah, sure.
      But, if they didn't what would you have to post?

      Thanks Timothy for another timely and informative /. article.

      Kinda takes all the fun out of it.

  • Wargames... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mshiltonj ( 220311 ) <mshiltonj AT gmail DOT com> on Monday November 04, 2002 @03:34AM (#4592958) Homepage Journal
    And since nothing seems to be able to stop all of these Windows viruses, the best way to win is to just stop using Windows.

    The immediately brought to mind a line from the old Wargames [imdb.com] movie: "Strange game: the only winning move is not to play."

  • Ha! (Score:2, Funny)

    by sparkleytone ( 561198 )
    So like, I was gonna fire my cannon and stuff....and my ship started going BEEEBEEPBEEEPBLIPBEEEP...and I missed. Then I had to try and shoot again but it wasn't as good...cuz I was dead. It was kind of....a bummer.
  • According to the article :

    They have satelite uplink to the internet.

    So they can get viruses.
  • Now repeat after me: Stupid shit happens. Sure you're only supposed to trust tested and validated CDs from reputable places. Sure that's the way it's supposed to happen. Aren't all CDs from Microsoft trusted? Surely they wouldn't let a virus slip out their door on one of their own CDs. If you think that you're wrong. Microsoft distributed copies of Visual Studio .Net that were infected [slashdot.org] by Nimda! Companies do dumb shit. IT workers don't always scan incoming media for viruses on isolated machines. Weird shit happens. Dumb shit happens. Eliminating one of the most common conductors of the effects of dumb shit makes sense.

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