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| New FOSS Policy for Australian Tax Office and SCO Annnounces Conference Call/New Business |
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Monday, February 23 2004 @ 11:26 PM EST
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More good news from Australia. The Australian Tax Office has announced that it is adopting an open source software policy. The policy now will be that GNU/Linux should be considered and used where appropriate, and what's so remarkable is they did it after talking it over with the Gartner Group: "ATO second commissioner Greg Farr said an internal review of open-source software - done in conjunction with the Gartner Group - concluded that the agency should evaluate and use open-source software where appropriate. . . .
"Among the Gartner Group's key findings were that the ATO should develop an open-source policy and review procurement processes to better enable the evaluation, selection and sharing of open-source software." Go Australia. SCO had a small announcement today too, about some new business. Seems someone wants them involved in health care in rural areas. No doubt they will bone up on HIPAA security requirements now. That can only be good. They also announced a conference call.
Here is what the press release says about the conference call: WHAT: The SCO Group, Inc. First Quarter 2004 Financial
Results Conference Call
WHEN: Wednesday, March 3, 2004, 9:00 a.m. Mountain
Standard Time
HOW: If you would like to participate in the live call you may dial
1.800.818.5264 or 1.913.981.4910; confirmation code: 141144.
You may also join the call in listen-only mode via Web cast.
The URL is listed at http://ir.sco.com/medialist.cfm . The news about their new business is this: "LINDON, Utah, Feb 23, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. ("SCO") (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX(R) operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, and Mardon Healthcare Information Systems, a leading provider of turnkey software solutions for the management of rural healthcare facilities, today announced the formation of a strategic alliance between 12 companies. The alliance focuses on providing Mardon clients' a complete selection of options and enhanced world-class solutions; such as nationwide placement of medical staff, medical forms acquisition, document imaging, financial management and leasing, targeted marketing and e-communications, and total system engineering and integration.
"The strategic partners in the alliance are: The SCO(R) Group, DTR Business Systems, Blue Crown Funding, JNC Consultants, ICM, Poiema Systems, Communiform, Anderson & Bates Medical Search, MDE, Thornberry Ltd, and Pharmtrak. Representatives from each organization recently met in Phoenix to discuss the needs of the Rural Healthcare market, and how the Mardon led alliance would address problems and deliver comprehensive solutions.
"'The goal of this alliance is to organize world class companies, like the SCO Group and others with whom we've been doing business for nearly 20 years, and focus our collective energies squarely on the unique issues facing rural American health care,' said President & CEO of Mardon, Don McKeny. 'I am elated by the commitment and quality of solutions our partners have brought to this alliance.'
"'The rural healthcare market is optimal for many of our products and services,' said Alan Raymond, SCO VP of UNIX Sales, Americas. 'The dependability of SCO UNIX, which is the OS foundation for the Mardon system, cannot be stressed enough. For instance, Mardon has a system installed in a hospital in Barrow, Alaska, which is 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and the last section of land before reaching the North Pole. The Barrow hospital serves around 4,500 people spread out over an 88,000 square mile radius, and the only way to travel in or out is by plane or dogsled. The remote nature of this location requires the highest degree of dependability, and SCO is proud that SCO UNIX can provide that level of dependability for these types of healthcare facilities.'" HIPAA rules require that private medical information be kept secure and confidential. There are specific recommendations on how to achieve that goal. Here's an article on the Final Security Rule, which at several places suggests taking a look at various National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) white papers for general guidance as to what constitutes acceptable technological, physical, and administrative solutions: "1. With respects to NIST's recommendation regarding 'using more trustworthy components', this is an important issue to consider. Some operating systems and applications are more easily secured than others, and as SP 800-33 points out: 'System security can be no stronger than the underlying operating system.' Anything that discourages a break-in is a plus. While it's true that on a good day both a Volvo and a Pinto can get you from point A to point B, when there is an accident, you surely will be glad if you chose the Volvo. Choosing software is analogous; you
have choices, but there are also consequences to those choices. One solution is custom code. NASA, for example, does not rely on boxed products. What they are doing has to work, so they develop their own custom code, so as to enhance reliability. Hackers have an easier time exploiting known vulnerabilities in boxed products, which are publicized on the internet in detail, because with custom code, they must first spend time figuring out what you are using and then try to identify and exploit vulnerabilities.
"2. NIST suggests what it calls a layered, 'compartmented' security approach, which it compares to 'water-tight doors on a ship' for every level of security -- physical, technological, and administrative -- and it's the ideal approach. Your goal is to ensure that if one obstacle is breached, another remains in place, protecting the data; that if you have a vulnerability, you have applied layered protections and architectural designs to prevent exploitability; and, if a vulnerability is exploited, you limit the extent of the security breach, thereby reducing loss." All of NIST's white papers are available here.
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| Authored by: RSC on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 03:26 AM EST |
It's good living in Aussie......:)
RSC
---
----
An Australian who IS interested.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: the_thunderbird on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 03:29 AM EST |
Damn, just as I was logging in someone took the first comment,
Good to hear that the aussies are going Linux in a big time. But the shocking
news is that The SCO Group actually got a client??? LOL thats a shocking horror,
have the RHealth people been living in caves for the last 2 years???[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Maple Syrup on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 03:38 AM EST |
The strategic partners in the alliance are: The SCO(R) Group, DTR
Business Systems, Blue Crown Funding, JNC Consultants, ICM, Poiema Systems,
Communiform, Anderson & Bates Medical Search, MDE, Thornberry Ltd, and
Pharmtrak.
Cynical question: does anyone know (or can find
out) how many of these companies are funded by Canopy?
-Maple(too
much time served in corporate politics)Syrup
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 03:54 AM EST |
Is it possible that the whole FUD campaign was just an attempt to pump the stock
and build a "war chest" of funds to rebuild the company after the
Monterrey fiasco?
What I'm getting at is: does SCO intend to use the money they've already made
(and might make in the future) from this attack on OSS to simply launch some new
business ventures in different areas. Possible areas might be niche markets
like this.
The "shoot the moon to fund a migration" strategy has been used
before.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Misdirection - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 04:07 AM EST
- unlikely - Authored by: Sgt_Jake on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 09:46 AM EST
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| Authored by: Powerin on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 04:03 AM EST |
Common sense from our Tax Office? Wow! This must surely be the end of
civilisation as we know it :-o
PZ[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Chris Cogdon on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 04:05 AM EST |
| The SCO/Mardon healthcare partnership is not a 'new' partnership at all, but one
that has been going on for some time, and is just being 'rehashed' as a new
partnership. For example, the following are Googled entries for SCO/Mardon
articles, with dates.
The
Chinese SCO website, dated 9th June, 2003.
A
translation: "our majority of clients are the village clinic and
the health
station, often because obeys HIPAA, the zone, the state and
the
federation rules and regulations, the report change requirement and
other
profession development, the experience change. "the Mardon
healthy information
system, the world leading economy health care
information management system
solution supplier, CEO Don McKeny said
that, the" TSG CONNEKT2 product, based on
SCObiz, provides for us to
be convenient, the economical website solution, and
enables us to the
site unceasing enhancement, carries on the safeguarding and
the check.
"
(none others found at the moment)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 04:10 AM EST |
Hackers have an easier time exploiting known vulnerabilities in
boxed products, which are publicized on the internet in detail, because with
custom code, they must first spend time figuring out what you are using and then
try to identify and exploit vulnerabilities.
Are they really
advocating security through obscurity?? Tsk tsk tsk. My opinion of NIST
just went down the drain. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 04:38 AM EST |
| So there are apparently a bunch of you lawyer types that read Groklaw. The
consensus among most of you from what i've read here is that what SCOG is doing
with their SCOG IP license violates the GPL. So the FSF is unable, won't or
can't aford to do something about SCOG selling their IP License while
continueing to distribute Linux and other software under the GPL.
What would
it take for some entity to put a cease and desist order for SCOG to sell their
IP license? Perhaps, one of you Opensource activist could organize a GPL
defense fund to protect all the effort that Opensource community has put
into developing all GPL's Opensource software.
america now is the time to
act rather than react to attacks on the Opensource Community. .. ... .....
....... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 04:52 AM EST |
I work at the ATO in an IT related field.
The ATO uses mainframe COBOL/CICS/DB2 for its back-end "heavy lifting"
systems that manage tax collection and administration. A lot of ATO system use
model-based code generators such as COOL:GEN rather than coding in straight
COBOL.
In recent years there's been a vogue to move to what is internally called
"midrange" systems, meaning Microsoft/MSSqlServer/VB/C#. This has been
driven heavily by a senior ATO director who has been pushing a "move to
Microsoft" line. A few tiny little systems have been implemented on the
midrange, and these are being used as "proof" that it is time to move
the mainframe apps over. This group want to redevelop the entire ATO systems
using MS .NET
Little consideration is given by that group to the immense amount of processing
that the mainframe gets through, and how many MS .NET servers we'd need to
replace the mainframe, and how complex the resulting systems architecture would
be.
It is true that there are long lead times for changes to the ATO's current
mainframe systems, but these lead times are mainly due to the complexity of tax
legislation and the need to preserve continuity with current datasets and
historical processing. You'd have exactly the same specification and design
problems if we were using MS .NET; but the pro-MS group somehow feel that a
change of coding architecture will solve the analysis and design problems.
The main problem with the current push to rewrite our systems using MS .NET is
that they lock the ATO into a specific vendor's toolchain for a generation. We'd
be much better off to rewrite in Java so that we could choose a vendor rather
than being locked into one.
The ATO would be a big win in Australia for MS .NET if they get in. The ATO's
current "change program", a modernisation push, is worth hundreds of
millions of dollars, and it'll produce thousands of developers who will be
trained up in .NET ready to move onto to other government sites.
So, that's some background. The bottom line is that powerful internal interests
have their careers lined up behind MS. MS are pushing their line hard, but
no-one is pushing the OSS line. A consulting group have been brought in to
advise on strategy, and they stand to make tens if not hundreds of millions of
dollars on the deal if .NET is chosen.
As much as I hate to say it, it sounds like a done deal for MS.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: grahamt on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 05:30 AM EST |
| ...owner of the UNIX(R) operating system...
This is the clearest case
of trademark infringment yet. They acknowledge that it is trademarked by the (R)
symbol, but nowhere do the acknowledge that the Trademark UNIX is owned by the
Open Group. The clear implication is that the SCO group owns the
trademark.
If the Open group don't defend it now, they'll lose the
trademark!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: NZheretic on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 05:39 AM EST |
| The SCO Group getting involved with a Medicare provider, Hmmm. Time to acquaint
yourselves with the Federal False Claims Act.
What is the False Claims Act & Why is
it Important?The False Claims Act is the single most important tool
U.S. taxpayers have to recover the billions of dollars stolen through fraud by
U.S. government contractors every year.
Under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733, those who
knowingly submit, or cause another person or entity to submit, false claims for
payment of government funds are liable for three times the government’s damages
plus civil penalties of $5,500 to $11,000 per false
claim.
The False
Claims Act by Kaiser Saurborn & Mair, P.C. It is immaterial
that [United Labs] did not deal directly with the Government. That they were one
step removed from direct contact with the [Government] does not vitiate or
diminish their liability
U.S. JOINS FALSE
CLAIMS ACT CASE AGAINST COMSAT CORPORATION The employees'
complaint alleges that since at least 1989, EMS and its employees have defrauded
the government by charging costs incurred on its commercial contracts to its
contracts with the Navy for the refurbishment and restoration of radar
pedestals, cones, reflectors and skis for radar used on U.S. Navy warships. The
complaint also alleges that the mischarging by EMS substantially increased the
prices paid by the Navy under its contracts with EMS.
Federal False Claims
Act
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: NZheretic on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 05:42 AM EST |
| The SCO Group getting involved with a Medicare provider, Hmmm. Time to acquaint
yourselves with the Federal False Claims Act.
What is the False Claims Act & Why is
it Important? The False Claims Act is the single most important
tool U.S. taxpayers have to recover the billions of dollars stolen through fraud
by U.S. government contractors every year.
Under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733, those who
knowingly submit, or cause another person or entity to submit, false claims for
payment of government funds are liable for three times the government’s damages
plus civil penalties of $5,500 to $11,000 per false
claim.
The False
Claims Act by Kaiser Saurborn & Mair, P.C. It is immaterial
that [United Labs] did not deal directly with the Government. That they were one
step removed from direct contact with the [Government] does not vitiate or
diminish their liability
U.S. JOINS FALSE
CLAIMS ACT CASE AGAINST COMSAT CORPORATION The employees'
complaint alleges that since at least 1989, EMS and its employees have defrauded
the government by charging costs incurred on its commercial contracts to its
contracts with the Navy for the refurbishment and restoration of radar
pedestals, cones, reflectors and skis for radar used on U.S. Navy warships. The
complaint also alleges that the mischarging by EMS substantially increased the
prices paid by the Navy under its contracts with EMS.
Federal False Claims
Act
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 07:09 AM EST |
"Among the Gartner Group's key findings were that the ATO should develop an
open-source policy and review procurement processes to better enable the
evaluation, selection and sharing of open-source software."
And how much did the Australian taxpayer pay for this pearl of wisdom?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 08:55 AM EST |
| ...is so hard to find these days. Especially if you're SCO, looking for someone
to write a good press release.
"The Barrow hospital serves around 4,500
people spread out over an 88,000 square mile radius,..."
Either the
Barrow hospital serves all of planet Earth (88,000 mile radius) or it
serves people who live within 167 miles of Barrow, approximately an 88,000
square mile area.
I live in a rural part of the US. I'd be SO scared
of visiting one of those health centers... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sbungay on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 09:12 AM EST |
Barrow Alaska is, according to this web-page:
http://www.welcometoalaska.com/barrow.htm, not 400 miles north of the arctic
circle, but 340. They missed the target by 60 miles. Thats quite a difference,
there are entire nations that aren't 60 miles long AND wide (Singapore for
example) but I suppose we should expect innacuracies from SCO. heh heh.
---
Programmer: A red eyed mumbling mamal that converses with inanimate objects.
IANAL IAAP[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: TZak on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 09:27 AM EST |
Although it has already been brought up that this business "alliance" isn't a
new customer or even a new sale, I thought I'd add one little tidbit.
Go to the contact page for Mardon and see how big of a partner these
guys really are. You will find a picture of the house that they work out of and
the e-mail addresses of their three employees.
http://www.mardonhis.com/conte
ntbuilder/layout.php3?contentPath=content%2F00%2F01%2F16%2F40%2F39%2Fuserdirecto
ry45.content [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 12:55 PM EST |
| Interesting: Opera reports this cookie as being set when I visit
http://www.mardonhis.com/
This value will only be sent to documents on
the server www.mardon.biz.sco.com, and paths that are starting in
/.
[foo@bar /home] $ dig @greatwall a
www.mardon.biz.sco.com
; > DiG 9.2.1 > @greatwall a
www.mardon.biz.sco.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got
answer:
;; ->>HEADER
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1,
AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; QUESTION
SECTION:
;www.mardon.biz.sco.com. IN A
;;
ANSWER SECTION:
www.mardon.biz.sco.com. 21051 IN A
216.57.205.210
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
biz.sco.com.
20584 IN NS ns calderasystems.com.
biz.sco.com. 20584
IN NS ns2.calderasystems.com.
biz.sco.com. 20584 IN
NS nsca.sco.com.
biz.sco.com. 20584 IN NS
nsuk.sco.com.
And...
[foo@bar /home] $ dig @greatwall
a mardonhis.com
; > DiG 9.2.1 > @greatwall a
mardonhis.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;;
->>HEADER
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2,
ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mardonhis.com.
IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mardonhis.com. 41899 IN
A 216.57.205.210
;; AUTHORITY
SECTION:
mardonhis.com. 41899 IN NS
ns2.vista.com.
mardonhis.com. 41899 IN NS
ns1.vista.com.
So it would seem that some aspect of Mardon's site
is actually hosted by SCO...
A snippet from their <meta
name=keywords..>
content="Mardon, healthcare, medical,
emergency, rural, health...sex..., UNIX, SCO..."
I bet "sex"
gets them a lot of hits...
...or not.
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| Authored by: Ted Powell on Tuesday, February 24 2004 @ 02:39 PM EST |
"For instance, Mardon has a system installed in a hospital in
Barrow, Alaska, which is 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and the last
section of land before reaching the North Pole."
Last
section of land before reaching the North Pole?
What about the communities
of
Pond Inlet, Resolute, Grise Fiord, and Alert,
all in Nunavut, Canada, all on
solid ground, and all
closer to the North Pole than Barrow?
In particular,
Alert
is the "most northern permanently
inhabited settlement in the world."
It seems there's no end to what these
people will lay claim to.
Arctic Map
---
Truth is
not determined by majority vote. [ Reply to This | # ]
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