Microsoft no longer supports Win7 XP wink wink, yet there are still thousands of State Federal computers running this sh1t. The frinking Social Security admin has COBAL code still................
Facts ! 7 has been unsupported for what 2 years now ? Don’t even get me started on the rest running off 5.25 and backing up to tape. But yeah every “credible” publicly traded enterprise updated in the last couple years mandatory 10 / 2016 etc - because of wait for it (security concerns). Not the government with the biggest most bloated budgets available... I’m guessing taxpayers sunk billions into this voting software / hardware and it probably cost about the same as used Honda Civic with 250k miles and salvage title to roll out.
Edit to add: Back in the 1990s I heard a computer science professor point out that "If you're a student today there is COBOL code running right now that is older than you."
Can confirm. For the Y2K prep, I worked on cobol programs written in the late 60's. Beautiful program. Nobody knew what the hell it did. It had 10,000 lines of code and 2000 GOTO statements.
Hoe-lee carp! That must have looked like a bowl of spaghetti!
When I first started CDC still had FORTRAN-66 as the default compiler. My favorite test (it worked) was using a GOTO to RETURN from a subroutine. My favorite obscure error (it took me forever to find the cause) was "Inner loop not outer."
The FORTRAN 77 compiler reined in GOTO pranks a lot...
thennuclear missiles launch codes ran on cobal on 8 inch floppy disks until recently. it was extremely safe becuase very hard to hack or recreate or spoof that old tech.
Microsoft no longer supports Win7 XP wink wink, yet there are still thousands of State Federal computers running this sh1t. The frinking Social Security admin has COBAL code still................
That Cobol code may be the most secure code in the agencies.
Cuz no one knows how to write cobol so they can’t hack it
Facts ! 7 has been unsupported for what 2 years now ? Don’t even get me started on the rest running off 5.25 and backing up to tape. But yeah every “credible” publicly traded enterprise updated in the last couple years mandatory 10 / 2016 etc - because of wait for it (security concerns). Not the government with the biggest most bloated budgets available... I’m guessing taxpayers sunk billions into this voting software / hardware and it probably cost about the same as used Honda Civic with 250k miles and salvage title to roll out.
I mean, Linux would be so much better. They aren't using it as a computer, it should be the interface to the voting software and nothing else.
Yep, stripped down linux, netbsd or similar kernel with all the net drivers drivers stripped out.
Or seL4 kernel with GenodeOS? We are talking about security here.
*COBOL*
COmmon Business-Oriented Language
Edit to add: Back in the 1990s I heard a computer science professor point out that "If you're a student today there is COBOL code running right now that is older than you."
Can confirm. For the Y2K prep, I worked on cobol programs written in the late 60's. Beautiful program. Nobody knew what the hell it did. It had 10,000 lines of code and 2000 GOTO statements.
Hoe-lee carp! That must have looked like a bowl of spaghetti!
When I first started CDC still had FORTRAN-66 as the default compiler. My favorite test (it worked) was using a GOTO to RETURN from a subroutine. My favorite obscure error (it took me forever to find the cause) was "Inner loop not outer."
The FORTRAN 77 compiler reined in GOTO pranks a lot...
cobal is safer than most modern stuff.
thennuclear missiles launch codes ran on cobal on 8 inch floppy disks until recently. it was extremely safe becuase very hard to hack or recreate or spoof that old tech.
modern tech is easy to spoof.