Army Buys Macs to Beef Up Security 342
agent_blue writes "The Army is integrating Macs into their IT network to thwart hack attempts. The Mac platform, they argue, is more secure because there are fewer attacks against OS X than Windows-based systems. 'Military procurement has long been driven by cost and availability of additional software--two measures where Macintosh computers have typically come up short against Windows-based PCs. Then there have been subtle but important barriers: For instance, Macintosh computers have long been incompatible with a security keycard-reading system known as Common Access Cards system, or CAC, which is heavily used by the military. The Army's Apple program, created [in 2005], is working to change that.'"
CAC on OS X has been working for a while... (Score:5, Informative)
Support is built into Safari, and it is possible to set it up to log into a Windows domain, I believe.
Re:OpenBSD??? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OMG Terrorists will attack Macs! (Score:4, Informative)
Bah, MI-5's been doing this for years (Score:3, Informative)
But on the more serious note:
Why not Linux?
A: http://www.openbsd.org/ [openbsd.org]
Which at one time was a DARPA funded project.
Beg to differ, OS X at install pretty secure (Score:5, Informative)
2) On install, OS X makes you chose a username so you have to log in to use the system.
3) OS X by default is suspicious of all content coming in from the web.
OS X already starts out with a high level of security, and doesn't do anything that would lead a user to weaken that without need (say opening a port for printer sharing).
No open ports (Score:3, Informative)
2) Bonjour is ZeroConf is Open Source. And included in Darwin...
You don't have to assume anything, you can see it right there on a stock install.
Aqua really is a lot more of a window manager, it's not there to handle things like Bonjour.
Re:one point of failure (Score:1, Informative)
Out of the 30 or unix sys admins in our organization (primarily Solaris and Aix with a little bit of IRIX in there) there's probably only 2 who would be capable of providing functional support to our organization's windows team. Vise versa as well.