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On Wed, 2006-06-21 at 16:09 -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Jerry Westrick wrote:
Nuclear Power plants running on Microsoft Windows platform? Gives a whole new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death"! Damn, that is scary!
Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:
Yellow glow of death at midnight. Then you really know MicroSoft crashed another one.
I don't care what the OS is, when you connect private control system networks to LANs, bad things happen. These networks are supposed to be standalone and not connected to anything else. The stupidity is in IT departments doing otherwise. Or support personnel arguing they need access from their desk. You don't just keep control system networks "up-to-date" like generic PCs. You also have no reason to have them connected to generic PCs. There is no need for general access.
There is no need for a n on-*nix OS on the control systems.
We really need some regulatory, but peer-reviewed statues here in the US. Unfortunately, the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) and their state boards continue to view Software Engineering and most other EE-based engineering as "not real engineering."
No matter how much the American Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET), IEEE and key "technology" US states (like Texas, who has a huge semiconductor and control systems industry) argue that "Software Engineering" is a true and separate EE discipline from Electrical, Controls, etc..., the "bridge builders" and other "civil engineers" that control the NSPE and state boards think it's not.
Environmental engineers had the same problem in the 1970s as well. But eventually they got their statues and licensing.
It'll take a serious, internal financial compromise and major impact to the US economy -- or a nuclear power plant meltdown for this to happen. I was hopeful the NE-US/Canada blackout would have changed the NSPE and Ohio's BoPE attitude, but it didn't.
The Ohio power grid snafu was because their grid monitoring system had locked up (again). Why it was allowed to go on is a good question. That one system failure costs millions if not billions of dollars. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com