Let’s face it, some of us still keep our Nokia 5110 … forgotten in a drawer next to an old 56k modem. Most of the public have embraced new technologies rather quickly, but n or necessarily large companies and government entities.
Since control centers that need nuclear missiles diskettes 8.5 to the analog system and centenary of the New York subway control, there is still a lot of outdated technology that refuses to die. Welcome to a return to the technological future.
The control systems of the US nuclear arsenal
According to an official report of the US executive, the Pentagon continues to use computer systems of the 70s, with 8.5″ diskettes. This type of support was beginning to be obsolete in the next decade as they were being replaced by diskettes 3.5″ and 5.25”.
Systems of nuclear and ballistic missile in general, the United States still use outdated technology. And that leads them to spend 89.000 billion in the maintenance of outdated computer systems for the rest of the world although, apparently, in 2017 the renewal shall be full of these systems.
The operating system of the financial sector is still using COBOL
Today, the banking sector still uses internally written language systems with COBOL. It is a language created in 1959 for use in business environments. Why they continue to use it despite possible failures with millions consequences, as in the case of RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland)?
According to Bill Curtis, head of software analysis and measurement firm CAST ** COBOL applications are not the problems of security and development that appear with new languages like Java **.
The Orion spacecraft NASA and Apple iBook G3 chips
The NASA has retired the space shuttle we all know and is developing its substitute. On December 5, 2014, he took off from Florida on Orion for a flight test unmanned. The objective of Orion is to carry the man to Mars, back in 2021. And for that, you think, it would require the latest technology. Well, no.
The three flight systems Honeywell Orion are the same as used Boeing in its 787. Each consists of two computers IBM PowerPC 750X processor single core, i.e. the same as used Apple for its computers, such as iBook G3, until 2006. There are computers with processing speed of a smartphone, but chose them for their resistance to the intense vibrations and radiation on a long journey in space.
The McLaren F1 and Compaq LTE 5280
The McLaren F1 is still a very special car. When it was released in 1992, it was a revolution. It was the fastest in the world (a record he held until July 2013) car and was the most technologically advanced car on the market. And in some ways it still is.
However, as the brand continues to offer on-site maintenance or factory that jewel of automotive the hundreds of customers who have one, the brand has been forced to restock on portable Compaq LTE 5280 and their hard drives 20MB capacity. And that is the only computer that McLaren can configure their electronic control unit; only he can insert the CA card, for once configured to install in the car.
ATMs with Windows XP
In 2014, Microsoft stopped supporting your operating system Windows XP and since January 2016, no longer provides security patches or updates for XP. For most PC users it was not relevant news, because many had already made the leap to newer operating systems. However, for the entire user or a computer- world it remains a major problem. And is that the vast majority of ATMs in the world still using Windows XP operating system, but when you take money you see the corporate bank interface. Obsolescence that threatens the security of transactions made at an ATM.
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Previous NPPs with Windows XP and
The company that owns the Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), has saved 30 million dollars by not updating the 18,000 computers in use in its nuclear power plant. The Japanese government, hearing of it after an audit, forced TEPCO to update its computer system for security, because there is no support for Windows XP. The company is committed to do so from 2016.
The Fukushima plant is not an isolated case, as several nuclear power plants worldwide would be neglected against cyber attacks with outdated operating systems due to the false belief that are isolated from the Internet. And though they are, are not free of an operator to plug a USB key with malicious software and infect the internal network, as happened in 2010 in two central Iranian and Russian.
US air traffic control
Today, many of the US air traffic controllers still use a system designed in the 70s, the HOST. The system is safe, but it seems very inefficient, since it has a limit on the number of aircraft it can handle. In addition, drivers cannot see what happens with the plane when it enters the airspace of the adjacent region, for example the Chicago cannot see what happens in the space of New York.
Aware of the problem, the FAA has taken the progressive system upgrade since 2004, however, when a new technology seems too many problems, as in Los Angeles in April 2014, when the system detected a military U2 airspace city flying at 60,000 feet altitude. As any civil aircraft can fly at that altitude, the system is overloaded and collapsed. Therefore, the old host system remains. Just in case.
New York Metro and technology of the 30s
When traveling on the subway in New York is evident that the subway in the Big Apple is not recent. Infrastructure you what you can expect, but not its traffic management system. The control panel where the location of the trains displayed is the same as in the 30s. So are electromagnetic relays that control the passage of trains. It is said to be the oldest still in operation date from 1952.
Operating System IRS (US Treasury)
The United States Department of the Treasury maintains fiscal data of its citizens in a computer system “mainframe” IBM created 56 years ago, with the computer language of the time. There are preserved more than the names of contributors, they are also updated income, debts, refunds (when “out to return”), etc. of all taxpayers. And apparently they do not intend to update.