Security NT vs AS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi all

Thought you all would like to hear what's going on with NT security,  
since the platform is in alot 
of our shops.    Just read this(Below attached).       BTW,   has anyone
seen any full page ads for the AS/400  maybe a picture of a AS/400 with
what looks like a combination lock on it's side?

John Carr
EdgeTech

BTW,   the site is an open forum if you'd like to comment.

---------------------
http://forums.infoworld.com/threads/get.cgi?63055

Open letter to Microsoft

Posted by: siteadm
Date posted: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 

              Ed Curry ran a company called Lone Star Evaluation
Laboratories in
              Texas, the company Microsoft chose to write the security
diagnostics
              software that led to Windows NT certification. Ed Curry
alleges that
Microsoft misrepresented Windows NT to government customers by telling them
versions other than 3.5 with service pack 3 were C2 certified. 

Here is a known fact: Only one version of Windows NT has ever met with U.S.
C2 certification --
Windows NT 3.5 with service pack 3. Even then, NT is only certified as a
stand-alone system (no
network connection) on the Compaq Proliant 2000 and Proliant 4000 Pentium
systems, and a
DECpc AXP/150. 

Ed has the advantage of credibility. Ed supplied me with a number of
documents to support his case.
Those documents verify Ed's qualifications, and they support his claim to
some of Microsoft's
promises, although some of the promises are only implicit in the written
agreements and not
spelled-out as they should have been. But if you've spent any time
conversing with Ed Curry (he
contributes to these forums at times), you'll know he isn't a rabid
anti-Microsoft hate monger by any
stretch of the imagination. 

So I called my contact at Waggoner Edstrom to arrange an interview with a
Microsoft representative
by phone so I could get Microsoft's side of the story. They agreed, but
they didn't want the
conversation taped (I tape all my interviews because I'm terrible at taking
notes). So I e-mailed a list
of questions. (As an aside, I want to praise my contact at Waggoner
Edstrom, who went to great
lengths to accommodate me and present my questions.) On the advice of their
attorneys, Microsoft
refused to answer. 

I asked my contact at Waggoner-Edstrom to filter the questions any way she
liked -- even if it meant
removing the issues surrounding Ed Curry -- in order to get some answers.
Once again, Microsoft
refused to answer anything. You can read this week's full column for a
subset of the issues they will
not confirm or deny. 

What's going on here? If Ed Curry's claims really don't have two pennies to
rub together, surely
Microsoft isn't afraid of him. So why the secrecy? Why not simply deny the
charges? Doesn't
Microsoft realize its silence looks like a tacit admission of guilt? If our
tax dollars have paid for
thousands of copies of Windows NT that should never have been purchased
because they didn't
meet government security requirements, I think we have a right to know.
Don't you? 

Nicholas Petreley

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