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This is a poorly written article. Under the heading "What's the problem": > IT systems of European governments mostly run on Microsoft software and OS [...] t

by Osiris 9y ago

This is a poorly written article. Under the heading "What's the problem": > IT systems of European governments mostly run on Microsoft software and OS [...] that means that almost all of the data of European citizens — tax information, health records, etc. — along with security related data, are in proprietary file format... > The problem with the proprietary file format is that Microsoft’s software is made to be incompatible with open source, which effectively forces all communicating departments within a government to use the company’s products, in order to ensure compatibility of files and ease of communication. The operating system that runs on a system has no bearing on how the data for various applications is stored. As far as I know, Microsoft isn't providing the applications that store "tax information, health records, etc.", unless the governments are using Excel and Word to keep all that information rather than a database. Even so, if they are using Excel/Word, the Office Open XML file formats are ISO/IEC standards, not proprietary. There may be some problem of vendor lock-in here, but this article seems to have no idea what the real problem is.

kartan 9y ago
> The problem is lack of control over vital parts of state operations, leaving European countries at the mercy of a foreign company and government. This is a very valid point. > This doesn’t only weaken Europe’s ability to stop the US snooping around, it also leaves security flaws for anyone with the know-how to exploit. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/12/hospitals-across-england-hit-by-large-scale-cyber-attack https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/12/hospitals-ac... I agree that it is not a very precise technical article. But the main issues hold true.
alankey 9y ago
It seems like you are unaware of the spyware called "windows 10" and the works of the NSA.
nthcolumn 9y ago
Disagree entirely - for me it hits the nail on the head immediately. And what a timely article given the impact on the NHS today. Are we seeing NSA tools used in the wild? The EU handed Microsoft its biggest fine and still we have this unacceptable state of affairs where we have secret code running public utilities and services, especially of a foreign/extra-judicial entity. Unfortunately getting out of that lock in is going to be tricky.
- Osiris 9y ago
  You think that if an entire government was running a specific *nix operating system that the NSA couldn't develop an exploit to gain access to the OS? Android phones run Linux and get hacked to get root access. Routers, IoT devices, and lots of other hardware run Linux variants and get hacked all the time. This idea that people hold that if only we didn't run Windows we'd all be more secure is silly and naive.
  - smichel17 9y ago
    It would certainly be harder, since they don't have the political option of compelling Microsoft to add a backdoor.
    - skaplun 9y ago
      you're implying that coercing major companies is easier than few hours researching vulnerabilities?
      - sqeaky 9y ago
        I think you are grossly understating the difficulty of penetrating actual defenses. Once a vulnerability is used it is likely to be patched. A group that cannot be coerced to do something for you will close vulnerabilities as it learns of them because they are liabilities. Also, moving away from microsoft will likely lead to the end of software monoculture. You need to research those vulnerabilities for each target. Oh, and it it would be much more than a fewer hours of research.
        mandevil 9y ago
        Gah, this brings me back to the glory days of slashdot. The software monoculture exists because of USERS. The vast majority of users don't want to have to learn three different OS, look+feel, GUI rules, etc. They just want the goddamn excel file that the CPA sent over that they need for their accounts receivable report to OPEN. Trying to convince governments to go to FOSS doesn't well work because the users slip back to things so that they can do their job the way they know how. See, e.g. the city government of Munich, which after a decade of trying never got above about 60% of their users to switch to Linux, and is considering abandoning the effort.
Maken 9y ago
I do see an issue with storing your nation's critical data in a OS with security backdoors enforced by a foreign country.
- type0 9y ago
  I heard that China got a special treatment from MS on that, Windows 10 without the spyware...
  - type0 9y ago
    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3183664/microsoft-windows/microsoft-completes-windows-10-customized-for-chinas-government.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/3183664/microsoft-windo... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-flag-windows-microsoft-modifies-windows-os-for-chinese-government/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-f...
scj 9y ago
I suspect this article is referring to legacy systems written with Microsoft software, that communicate with a server through binary applications that only work on Windows. It is getting harder to remember, but only 10 years ago, having Microsoft as the only supported platform was easily justifiable in most organizations. Even if your software was customer facing!
gvb 9y ago
"[T]ax information, health records, etc." would likely be stored in SQL Server databases. It looks like SQL Server import and export file formats are defined, but I am not aware that the native format is standardized.
Maarten88 9y ago
> This is a poorly written article. This article seems to originate from the Netherlands, drumming up anti Microsoft rhetoric that was very prevalent a few years ago here. It is important to understand with these types of articles, that Microsoft and their local partner companies (disclosure: such as the one I work for) has competitors who stand to benefit from stories like these. Other companies (like IBM, Oracle working with local ISV's and service companies) want to sell their, also propriety, but non-Microsoft based solutions. They promote independence from Microsoft as a feature of their software, and have budget to hire PR firms and run a lobby too, just like Microsoft. But their solutions often come with a worse type of vendor lock-in. The Oracle type. In the Netherlands, most public backend administrative software is not based on Microsoft technology, and it is completely closed, unable to integrate with (Microsoft based) front end systems or web api's. The article states that Microsoft makes 2 billion in the EU public sector, I don't know if that is true, but in the Netherlands spending on Microsoft software is somewhere around 1-2% of total public IT spending, and I'd say they provide relatively good value for that.
- djrogers 9y ago
  > unable to integrate with (Microsoft based) front end systems or web api's. It's not 1992 - Oracle databases can integrate with all sorts of web APIs and front end systems. You may not like how its done or how much it costs, but it's a little over the top to claim that it can't be done.
  - Maarten88 9y ago
    > Oracle databases can integrate with all sorts of web APIs and front end systems Of course, however the problem is not a technical one. IT suppliers simply use their ownership of the software and support/maintenance contracts as leverage to claim a stake in any project connecting to 'their' software, and make their customers pay through the nose for anything they want.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    " You may not like how its done or how much it costs, but it's a little over the top to claim that it can't be done." It can't be done in a business if the vendor decides it costs too much or will be done in a way unsupported for good reasons. Whereas, with FOSS, they might pay someone to fix that or someone might do it themselves. The arbitrary costs and limitations the proprietary vendors can force on locked-in users is an important risk of their model for users.
youdontknowtho 9y ago
Yeah, it's click-bait. There are also lots of non Microsoft systems in use in Europe. It's just as complex of an environment as anywhere else in the world. This was an article for Microsoft haters to upvote each other for saying the same thing they have been saying for years.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> Even so, if they are using Excel/Word, the Office Open XML file formats are ISO/IEC standards, not proprietary. You aren't serious about that, are you?
confounded 9y ago
> The operating system that runs on a system has no bearing on how the data for various applications is stored It's not impossible for a motivated user to go against every UI (dark) pattern to keep work on an open format, but it's so unlikely as to be irrelevant. While the file formats may be open, it's widely known that MS keep enough secret sauce in Office so that an MS Excel nightmare won't open correctly in LibreOffice. Being able to decompress and parse the contents of the file (the open part) is not the same as humans being able to interactively retrieve information from it. The user's intuition is to blame LibreOffice, but as technologists we should recognize that if you won't ship a working reference implementation for effective use of your 'open standard', then it's just malicious marketing.

by Osiris 9y ago

kartan 9y ago

> The problem is lack of control over vital parts of state operations, leaving European countries at the mercy of a foreign company and government. This is a very valid point. > This doesn’t only weaken Europe’s ability to stop the US snooping around, it also leaves security flaws for anyone with the know-how to exploit. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/12/hospitals-across-england-hit-by-large-scale-cyber-attack https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/12/hospitals-ac... I agree that it is not a very precise technical article. But the main issues hold true.

alankey 9y ago

It seems like you are unaware of the spyware called "windows 10" and the works of the NSA.

nthcolumn 9y ago

Disagree entirely - for me it hits the nail on the head immediately. And what a timely article given the impact on the NHS today. Are we seeing NSA tools used in the wild? The EU handed Microsoft its biggest fine and still we have this unacceptable state of affairs where we have secret code running public utilities and services, especially of a foreign/extra-judicial entity. Unfortunately getting out of that lock in is going to be tricky.

Osiris 9y ago
You think that if an entire government was running a specific *nix operating system that the NSA couldn't develop an exploit to gain access to the OS? Android phones run Linux and get hacked to get root access. Routers, IoT devices, and lots of other hardware run Linux variants and get hacked all the time. This idea that people hold that if only we didn't run Windows we'd all be more secure is silly and naive.
- smichel17 9y ago
  It would certainly be harder, since they don't have the political option of compelling Microsoft to add a backdoor.
  - skaplun 9y ago
    you're implying that coercing major companies is easier than few hours researching vulnerabilities?
    - sqeaky 9y ago
      I think you are grossly understating the difficulty of penetrating actual defenses. Once a vulnerability is used it is likely to be patched. A group that cannot be coerced to do something for you will close vulnerabilities as it learns of them because they are liabilities. Also, moving away from microsoft will likely lead to the end of software monoculture. You need to research those vulnerabilities for each target. Oh, and it it would be much more than a fewer hours of research.
      - mandevil 9y ago
        Gah, this brings me back to the glory days of slashdot. The software monoculture exists because of USERS. The vast majority of users don't want to have to learn three different OS, look+feel, GUI rules, etc. They just want the goddamn excel file that the CPA sent over that they need for their accounts receivable report to OPEN. Trying to convince governments to go to FOSS doesn't well work because the users slip back to things so that they can do their job the way they know how. See, e.g. the city government of Munich, which after a decade of trying never got above about 60% of their users to switch to Linux, and is considering abandoning the effort.

Maken 9y ago

I do see an issue with storing your nation's critical data in a OS with security backdoors enforced by a foreign country.

type0 9y ago
I heard that China got a special treatment from MS on that, Windows 10 without the spyware...
- type0 9y ago
  http://www.computerworld.com/article/3183664/microsoft-windows/microsoft-completes-windows-10-customized-for-chinas-government.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/3183664/microsoft-windo... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-flag-windows-microsoft-modifies-windows-os-for-chinese-government/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-f...

scj 9y ago

I suspect this article is referring to legacy systems written with Microsoft software, that communicate with a server through binary applications that only work on Windows. It is getting harder to remember, but only 10 years ago, having Microsoft as the only supported platform was easily justifiable in most organizations. Even if your software was customer facing!

gvb 9y ago

"[T]ax information, health records, etc." would likely be stored in SQL Server databases. It looks like SQL Server import and export file formats are defined, but I am not aware that the native format is standardized.

Maarten88 9y ago

> This is a poorly written article. This article seems to originate from the Netherlands, drumming up anti Microsoft rhetoric that was very prevalent a few years ago here. It is important to understand with these types of articles, that Microsoft and their local partner companies (disclosure: such as the one I work for) has competitors who stand to benefit from stories like these. Other companies (like IBM, Oracle working with local ISV's and service companies) want to sell their, also propriety, but non-Microsoft based solutions. They promote independence from Microsoft as a feature of their software, and have budget to hire PR firms and run a lobby too, just like Microsoft. But their solutions often come with a worse type of vendor lock-in. The Oracle type. In the Netherlands, most public backend administrative software is not based on Microsoft technology, and it is completely closed, unable to integrate with (Microsoft based) front end systems or web api's. The article states that Microsoft makes 2 billion in the EU public sector, I don't know if that is true, but in the Netherlands spending on Microsoft software is somewhere around 1-2% of total public IT spending, and I'd say they provide relatively good value for that.

djrogers 9y ago
> unable to integrate with (Microsoft based) front end systems or web api's. It's not 1992 - Oracle databases can integrate with all sorts of web APIs and front end systems. You may not like how its done or how much it costs, but it's a little over the top to claim that it can't be done.
- Maarten88 9y ago
  > Oracle databases can integrate with all sorts of web APIs and front end systems Of course, however the problem is not a technical one. IT suppliers simply use their ownership of the software and support/maintenance contracts as leverage to claim a stake in any project connecting to 'their' software, and make their customers pay through the nose for anything they want.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  " You may not like how its done or how much it costs, but it's a little over the top to claim that it can't be done." It can't be done in a business if the vendor decides it costs too much or will be done in a way unsupported for good reasons. Whereas, with FOSS, they might pay someone to fix that or someone might do it themselves. The arbitrary costs and limitations the proprietary vendors can force on locked-in users is an important risk of their model for users.

youdontknowtho 9y ago

Yeah, it's click-bait. There are also lots of non Microsoft systems in use in Europe. It's just as complex of an environment as anywhere else in the world. This was an article for Microsoft haters to upvote each other for saying the same thing they have been saying for years.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago

> Even so, if they are using Excel/Word, the Office Open XML file formats are ISO/IEC standards, not proprietary. You aren't serious about that, are you?

confounded 9y ago

> The operating system that runs on a system has no bearing on how the data for various applications is stored It's not impossible for a motivated user to go against every UI (dark) pattern to keep work on an open format, but it's so unlikely as to be irrelevant. While the file formats may be open, it's widely known that MS keep enough secret sauce in Office so that an MS Excel nightmare won't open correctly in LibreOffice. Being able to decompress and parse the contents of the file (the open part) is not the same as humans being able to interactively retrieve information from it. The user's intuition is to blame LibreOffice, but as technologists we should recognize that if you won't ship a working reference implementation for effective use of your 'open standard', then it's just malicious marketing.