-=> Mike Ross said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "WATTS UP? KILOWATT-HOUR M" on 09-02-03  21:31.....

 MR> But don't they use a ruggerized version for the military, i.e. with
 MR> all the "back doors" taken out? 

Yes, the military version would have a lot of the "back doors"
closed, or at least we would hope so.

But bear in mind that there are a lot more people in the
"normal" world who use the "normal" version, and quite a few of
these are knowledgable enough to look for weaknesses in M$'s
products and offer feedback.

This might amount to thousands of feedback messages to M$ each
year regarding weaknesses that need to be fixed.

The number of updates coming out of M$ would indicate that they
are taking notice of this feedback. This would tend to strengthen
the "normal" product.

I would guess that the number of people using the military
version who would have the ability, knowledge and time to look
for "holes" in the software would be close to zero, and the
feedback to M$ would be very little.

In fact such feedback from military personel about a military
product might be considered to be "disclosure of military
secrets" and a punishable offence!

So any weaknesses that might exist in the "ruggedized" product
might never be corrected.

 MR> Just heard on the evening news of yet another massive power failure
 MR> down the coast of Mexico and in particular Cancun where next week will
 MR> be held a WTO meeting. It's really starting to smell...

There are a lot of people who are against the WTO, and most of
them are from places other than the Middle East....

From Greg Mayman, in beautiful Adelaide, South Australia
   "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E

... That's fine in practice, but it'll never work in Theory.
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30

--- FLAME v2.0/b