Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple's security
Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple's security
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple's security
- From: Amanda Walker <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 20:04:51 -0500
On Feb 25, 2006, at 1:45 PM, David Poteet wrote:
I'd agree w/ you on many of the points you make, in spirit. But I
still do not think of Apple's security as a belly-flop.
Oh, I don't either, and I apologize if that's how I came across. I
was responding to the observation that "managers read the press
reports, and we don't have a good way to counter their
misconceptions." MacOS X is, indeed, more secure by nature (even on
an x86) than Windows, just because of differences in how the OS is
constructed, and how many fewer network services run by default. And
to be fair, DISA, NSA, etc. even confirm this impression in their own
published configuration guides.
I do think that non-technical issues often end up trumping technical
ones, though. As an engineer, I often find this frustrating ;-).
[...] The Dell was the equivalent of Typhoid Mary. But the IS
support person was comfortable w/ the cleanup [...]
I'll even go so far as to say that is a factor that should not be
discounted completely.
With about 50% of the VHA IS staff taking retirement in the next 5
years, it will be a long time before skilled, platform-fluent IS
workers arrive.
Indeed. And this is not just true for VHA--I've heard similar
stories about the armed services, the forest service, DOJ and DOC,
and so on. There is a certain merit to using stuff your staff knows
how to fix, even if it breaks down a lot more than what you'd rather
be using instead. I actually saw an Apollo UNIX workstation still
limping along (at a facility which shall remain nameless) last year--
it has taken until 2005 for its functionality to be migrated to
Windows XP (I think they're running out of machines to cannibalize
for spare parts). They're moving to XP because that's what their
programmers are familiar with. This is true even though porting it
to MacOS X would be much less of an effort--if, that is, they still
had UNIX fluency in house. but that team is long gone, so they work
with who they have on staff now.
But I'm not asking for the total replacement of PCs w/ Macs, just a
little diversity. The famililarity you mention is not hard to
achieve w/ Macs... just use them in the right place and the people
will learn. Even so, the learning curve is not that great between
the Windows desktop and the Finder, and the various Mac apps vs.
Windows apps.
This is true enough, though the last couple years have given me a new
respect for the power of inertia when it comes to federal IT
deployments :-).
Apple Federal could use some cleanup... I've read that all over the
net. On that subject, I completely agree with you.
I don't know if I'd call it "cleanup"; they have some really sharp
people (several of whom are active on this mailing list). But the
team in Reston could sure use better support from Cupertino, or so it
appears from the outside. There are some great success stories to be
told, but it'll take more than some case studies on www.apple.com
filed under "IT Pro" to get the attention of people who aren't
already customers.
Hmm. I seem to be channeling a marketing analyst. Sorry about that...
Amanda Walker
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