>>4741135

To be fair, that is probably a good thing at this point.

These old systems are often much simpler and task-specific. You don't need (or WANT) windows 10 and octa-core 64-bit processors to do the kinds of computation that ballistic missiles need to do.

In fact, the more integrated you make them with modern networks, the more exposed they become to network attacks/exploits.

Although with them being that old and using public systems, it is still possible for attacks to occur - specifically breaking the encryption on launch/arming codes, if those have not kept pace.

>>4741207

Different branches of the government are upgrading to various systems at intervals they choose - but I am not one who is aboard the "new is better" brigade.

Windows XP is well explored and is not a security nightmare. It is simply one of the longest-running OS platforms and the most heavily targeted for exploits. Also one of the most heavily studied for software security.

Contrast to Windows 8 and 10, which are effectively spyware for Microsoft with ad-service coding woven into the framework - I am absolutely terrified that our government could be "upgrading" to these modern platforms which are data collection systems for Microsoft.

Even with the government having pull as an OEM customer who could leverage special consideration - I am very skeptical that this framework has been disabled, or that the new design focus by Microsoft has somehow improved security.

Sure, we could argue "there is Linux!" - but realistically for large government operations, their OS options are what generation of Windows to install. It would take an entire sub-branch of the military to develop and maintain a linux distro used by the whole government as a standard.