Non-compliant 3rd Party Software

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Homer posted the most recent Infoliant findings on vendor software here: Link

I hate being redundant, but my response (also on that thread) bears repeating. Perhaps this will provide someone with new perspective and they will get off the couch and out the door to at least aquire some minimal provisions. We have been misled to such an extreme, it is impossible to believe any of the claims of "compliance".

(reponse to Homer's posting -- Thanks for another timely post, Homer!) It is important to understand that these negative changes are due to continual testing by technical experts working full time for companies who's business it is to provide error free software -- at least as error free as possible.

In corporate America, the remediated "mission critical" custom developed systems were not likely tested as vigorously as vendor-developed software. Think about it -- software vendors' business IS THE SOFTWARE. In corporate America, this is not the case.

Moreover, "non mission-critical" software in corporate America (and the governments) is, for the most part, NOT remediated -- much less tested. Example: In my company, of the hundreds of systems (with 10 to 500 programs in each -- median is 120 programs), roughly one-third were deemed "mission-critical". Of those, some were decided later to have been mis-classified. Likewise, some of the "non-mission critical" systems were decided to actually be mission-critical, due to their "close-connections (data exchanges)" with the other "mission-critical systems".

The reclassification happened too late to fold them into the fast moving Remediation Train. Result: They remain (misclassified)"officially" non-mission critical.

Of the systems that, perhaps rightly, should not have been reclassified from "non-mission critical" to "mission-critical", we can't find a single system owner who will say that their particular system is not crucial to their day-to-day job. There are no viable "workarounds" for the majority of these.

This is a very large communications company (a household name around most of the US and Europe). Our Y2K program ran from late 1997 until 8/31/99. To remain politically correct, and to keep the stocks inflated, we are officially 100% compliant.

Bottom line: I recently bought some Motorola two way radios.

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999

Answers

TA, I recently heard a joke that went like this, what is the definition of "mission critical"? Answer, anything that is compliant.

Not funny is it? But sadly I think it is true!

Hope those Motorola's work, from the list of their noncompliant components at their site, I'd be a little nervous.

-- rumdoodles (rumdoodles@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.


Thanks Rumdoodle. I think the anecdote you gave applies to the majority of companies and governments. (it is funny, in a morbid sort of way :)

Ya know, I am worried about the radios, but couldn't locate any relevant info -- if I had, I'm sure they would be proclaimed "compliant".

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.


Excellent

ON TOPIC

post. Thanks!

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), December 02, 1999.

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