Windows for Submarines

Quoting:"Tech support: "Can you tell us the problem with your submarine?" HMS Bob: "Das Not Boot.""

Quoting:[Source: Article by Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor, *Sunday Herald* (Scotland), 10 Oct 2004]

......Gerald Wilson, who has 25 years' experience designing naval software, worked for Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS) in a joint venture with Bae Systems and the Italian company Finmeccanica on the combat system for the Type 45 destroyer, which will rely on Microsoft Windows 2000. System failure in action, he says, would leave the ship blind, defenceless, and as good as sunk.

Dismissed after voicing his fears to the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), Wilson wants to give evidence to the parliamentary defence select committee about the software.

Last night he told Channel 4 news that "the use of Windows For Warships puts the ship and her crew at risk, and the defence of the realm".

There are also plans to install a similar Microsoft Windows-based computerised command system on Britain's nuclear submarines. Wilson said: "It is inconceivable that we could allow the possible accidental release of nuclear missiles. The people who survived such an exchange, if any, would certainly regard such a thing as a crime against humanity. And I can't help feeling that even planning to deploy such systems on Windows, with its unreliability and lack of security, is itself some sort of crime in international law." .........

Quoting:So what happens when a virus or something causes a subs twenty or so ICBM's to go off like Roman Candles and half the planet glows in the dark?