# Apples for the Army.



## cwwozniak

From Forbes Magazine

The US military is quietly working to integrate Macintosh computers into its systems to make them harder to hack.

http://www.forbes.com/home/technolo...rmy-hackers-tech-security-cx_ag_1221army.html


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## Tstright

Hacking an Apple is no different than Hacking a PC.


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## ferrija1

Tstright said:


> Hacking an Apple is no different than Hacking a PC.


Yeah it is, two entirely different operating systems just to start!


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## GNOME32

How does the Window's Firewall compare to Mac OS's?


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## Empire2500

Well..if they were linuxes theyd be even harder..but its just that the language is different..and less viruses have been written on Mac..but I'm sure anyone can hack a Mac as much as a PC


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## prunejuice

The Army should save money on the notebooks and buy better armor for the troops and their vehicles.

Maybe pump some money into the VA hospitals. They're a disgrace.


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## GoblinCleaver

Empire2500 said:


> Well..if they were linuxes theyd be even harder..but its just that the language is different..and less viruses have been written on Mac..but I'm sure anyone can hack a Mac as much as a PC


This is true. The main reason still being that less Macs are in use, so why work so hard just to disrupt the small (but growing, granted) percentage of Mac users? It's only good sense... Although, scareware just started to show up on Macs... I'm sure ya'll heard about that. Kind of interesting.

Money definitely needs to be put towards helping our wounded troops though for sure. That stuff is just ridiculous.


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## D-Rock

this is bs, if they are going to spend the money to do s*** like that it would be in their best interest to run a custom tri-cored machine with an altered open source OS like an altered linux based os. Just take some of the xbox 360 cores that have already been designed and are in development. They are based on an apple architecture or power pc arch. or something like that. So that will cover the hardware, then alter an open source OS like linux to acknowledge the hardware changes, offer compatibilty, and provide further security as far as software goes.

You guys all say put this money towards the injured and whatnot; and your right. But in all reality, its not costing them a penny really. With all of the people that the military has put through college for computer engineering and related courses are doing this for them on regular based military pay-check. . .because everyone loves their country.

And where do they get the money for hardware? our taxes? where do the military hospitals get money? charity? 

life's a bit** isnt it?

if only the world knew of the corruptions i see.

...ohhhhh knowbody knows the troubles i see.......


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## ferrija1

D-Rock said:


> this is bs, if they are going to spend the money to do s*** like that it would be in their best interest to run a custom tri-cored machine with an altered open source OS like an altered linux based os. Just take some of the xbox 360 cores that have already been designed and are in development. They are based on an apple architecture or power pc arch. or something like that. So that will cover the hardware, then alter an open source OS like linux to acknowledge the hardware changes, offer compatibilty, and provide further security as far as software goes.
> 
> You guys all say put this money towards the injured and whatnot; and your right. But in all reality, its not costing them a penny really. With all of the people that the military has put through college for computer engineering and related courses are doing this for them on regular based military pay-check. . .because everyone loves their country.
> 
> And where do they get the money for hardware? our taxes? where do the military hospitals get money? charity?
> 
> life's a bit** isnt it?
> 
> if only the world knew of the corruptions i see.
> 
> ...ohhhhh knowbody knows the troubles i see.......


I don't think the government wants to run off of Xbox 360s.  I agree, however, that they should be putting their money elsewhere.


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## D-Rock

my point was that they wouldnt have to spend any money for developing an "odd" processing core. It has already been developed, tested, and is in production.


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## ferrija1

What's the "odd" processing core?


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## D-Rock

Something that would be harder to hack than a general intel o AMD cpu. The appl arch cores are available to public for a general proccesing application but whos going to think to use a tri-cored appl based arch for a pc.


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## ferrija1

The software determines how hard it is to hack. While a PowerPC processor may be different from an x86 processor, it can still be hacked. Three cores doesn't change much, either.

Oh, and have fun trying to get thousands of Windows/OS X machines to work with Linux on POWER architecture...it's just not practice.


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## D-Rock

Its just theoretical. nothing more. I know that its no different but i mean, if your going to change the hardware from x86 to mac then why not go all out. A tri core proccessor would be fun. I mean, if they wanted to just change the software then they would go with an opensource os, not just change to a completely different operating platform and new os. They are changing hardware for a reason, i just dont know what reason.


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## monckywrench

Much military computing involves accessing Unix servers, often with annoying Windows client software. Stepping away from Windows is easy (I was in the AF from the green-screen terminal days to last year) as giving the order. 
Unix security and Unix compatibilty are good aspects of MacOS and Linux. Windows allows stupid and malicious users too much power.


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## J_Hanyu

The idea makes sense. You'd think, though that the military would come up with a better plan than to resort to Apple. That would be like a store at the mall, outsourcing their inventory from Wal-Mart, because they can get their stuff cheaper from there.


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## monckywrench

The military mostly buys commodity PCs because that is mostly what it needs. Reasons to spend money on exotic hardware for tasks where commodity hardware is fine are rare. 
Going Apple gets an easy-to-use OS that isn't Windows.


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## D-Rock

never thought of it from that aspect, seems to be a much more sensible change than i thought.


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