Its in news that India developing its own OS to prevent data theft and cyber attacks. It is being developed by DRDO(why???) . The reason being source code the western OS is unknown to us so we cannot know what our systems really do. If we have our own systems, with own source code, no one will know how to exploit it. So if they somehow manage to make one, and if the country shifts to that OS, the entire government data will be in a so called secure-because-no-one-else-has-the-source-code OS written by 50 people using Microsoft software working under an agency that is incompetent to do its own work before handling an entirely different domain.
They (V. K Saraswat, Director General of DRDO) somehow never learned that people(crackers) do not have access to source code of windows to exploit windows based system. Its time we open the eyes of people high up in power and tell them they can never create a so called secure OS in a given time frame, with 50 people working on it, to be as secure as GNU/Linux system. No government develops it own OS from scratch to make its system attack proof. The so called secure OS might never be developed or if somehow they manage to do so, it will have more security holes than in a windows based system. Can we influence the higher ups in the government who are behind this OS project to go ahead in the FOSS way? Or perhaps use SELinux or develop more secure alternatives instead of reinventing the wheel? Plus there is localization in many Indian languages when it comes to implementing a GNU/Linux based system. Government can employ GNU/Linux hackers and pay them for the thing that they love to do and come up with a truly secure, bug-free system. Check out: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/software-services/Security-threat-DRDO-to-make-own-OS/articleshow/6719375.cms http://expressbuzz.com/nation/drdo-to-build-proprietary-operating-system/213833.html -- Regards, Vipin Nair NIT Calicut [email protected] [email protected]
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