Trump Says He's Looking Into a Pentagon Cloud Contract For Amazon or Microsoft (cnbc.com) 121
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he's seriously considering looking at a Pentagon contract that's said to be worth up to $10 billion for Microsoft or Amazon. From a report: "I never had something where more people are complaining," Trump said, adding that he's going to take a close look at it. "We're getting tremendous complaints from other companies," Trump said in a press pool at the White House during a meeting with the prime minister of The Netherlands. "Some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it." He named Microsoft, Oracle and IBM.
Since April, Microsoft and Amazon have been the only remaining competitors for the contract after IBM and Oracle were ruled out by the Defense Department. The contract, known as JEDI, is viewed as a marquee deal for the company that ultimately wins it, particularly as Microsoft and Amazon are aggressively pursuing government work for their expanding cloud units. While Trump didn't cite Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by name on Thursday, the billionaire executive has been a constant source of frustration for the president. Bezos owns the Washington Post, which Trump regularly criticizes for its coverage of his administration. Trump also has gone after Amazon repeatedly for, as he claims, not paying its fair share of taxes and ripping of the U.S. Post Office.
Since April, Microsoft and Amazon have been the only remaining competitors for the contract after IBM and Oracle were ruled out by the Defense Department. The contract, known as JEDI, is viewed as a marquee deal for the company that ultimately wins it, particularly as Microsoft and Amazon are aggressively pursuing government work for their expanding cloud units. While Trump didn't cite Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by name on Thursday, the billionaire executive has been a constant source of frustration for the president. Bezos owns the Washington Post, which Trump regularly criticizes for its coverage of his administration. Trump also has gone after Amazon repeatedly for, as he claims, not paying its fair share of taxes and ripping of the U.S. Post Office.
Government cloud = bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you entrust the US government "stuff" with a cloud provider?
Buy a bunch of IBM Mainframes, secure it in a government data center, and be done with it. No malware to worry about, you can run lots of different operating systems on that iron, and it's secure.
Also, don't buy Oracle. You know what ORACLE stands for right? One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
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you can run lots of different operating systems on that iron
and it's secure.
That's a contradiction - simply running an OS on a mainframe backed hypervisor does nothing to secure it.
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That's not what I meant and I hope you knew that.
You can run lots of operating systems on today's modern mainframe.
I would assume that what the government is doing (lots of data gathering, analysis and reporting) would be conducive to running z/OS (... MVS), perhaps a bit of VM, CICS, hell maybe even IMS. Heavy duty stuff. Throw in CA/TOP SECRET or whatever the modern equivalent is for extra authentication and the only thing left is the human element. With essentially limitless funds, you hire the righ
Re: Government cloud = bad news (Score:2)
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Says the anonymous coward.
I've worked in secure data centers that had mainframes, racks of x86 stuff, AS/400's (iSeries), you name it. Had the beige box on the floor that if you asked what it was, they'd have to kill you. (Probably not that bad, but it was classified). I've also worked in small MSP's that took security less than seriously. In other words, I've seen "some shit" as they say.
Mainframes may have security vulnerabilities sure, but I'm betting less than Windows and other tinker-toy operati
Re:Government cloud = bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Buy a bunch of IBM Mainframes
Yeah, that always ends the same way; 20 years from now a bunch of generals and majors are testifying before Congress about their hopelessly obsolete, crashing, laughably insecure, ultra expensive mainframe systems that will take 10 years and $200 billion to replace.
No, US cloud providers have shown they are able to provide reliable, secure service and the DOD should leverage this where they can. Does that mean everything should be in the commercial cloud? No, obviously not. But a large fraction of DOD computing needs can live on commercial cloud systems.
And it would make sense and be a win for the US if it were done properly by adopting a competitive model that leveraged ongoing competition among cloud providers. But no, it's yet another smoke filled room scam that produces one winner and forgoes any further competition. One wonders how many Potemkin non-profit "chairman" jobs Bezos had to fund to employ the sons and daughters in-law of Congress persons to secure the DOD contract.
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Does that mean everything should be in the commercial cloud? No, obviously not. But a large fraction of DOD computing needs can live on commercial cloud systems.
The commercial cloud is not the only option. [amazon.com]
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The commercial cloud is
For the purposes of this discussion GovCloud is the commercial cloud. GovCloud is the marketing term for AWS that complies with the regulatory requirements necessary to host sensitive applications. It isn't even exclusive to "government"; private companies use it to achieve compliance with government requirements.
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For the purposes of this discussion GovCloud is the commercial cloud
....Except for being in different data centers, with a different version of AWS.
It isn't even exclusive to "government"; private companies use it to achieve compliance with government requirements.
What do you think is going to be happening on the cloud created by JEDI? It's going to have contractors running software on it (at the behest of the government, just like with GovCloud)
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....Except for being in different data centers, with a different version of AWS.
All owned by Amazon. Commercial. Got it now?
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All owned by Amazon.
That isn't actually required. Government pays for it, it can take ownership of it.
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I see. Reality not working... go hypothetical!
Nope, I'm talking about what's literally in government contracts. Even for otherwise COTS products.
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Wow. You're still doing your mental gymnastics on this eh?
it can take ownership of it
what's literally in government contracts.
It hasn't occurred to you that the very existence of contractual requirements that affords the US government the power to assume control over GovCloud proves this is a commercial operation, has it? The government doesn't have to specify such things for its systems, only for commercial ones.
Government pays for it
This is false. Government pays for a service that complies with its requirements. Amazon pays for construction, operation, etc. There is no US Federal budget
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Buy a bunch of IBM Mainframes
Yeah, that always ends the same way; 20 years from now a bunch of generals and majors are testifying before Congress about their hopelessly obsolete, crashing, laughably insecure, ultra expensive mainframe systems that will take 10 years and $200 billion to replace.
No, US cloud providers have shown they are able to provide reliable, secure service and the DOD should leverage this where they can. Does that mean everything should be in the commercial cloud? No, obviously not. But a large fraction of DOD computing needs can live on commercial cloud systems.
And it would make sense and be a win for the US if it were done properly by adopting a competitive model that leveraged ongoing competition among cloud providers. But no, it's yet another smoke filled room scam that produces one winner and forgoes any further competition. One wonders how many Potemkin non-profit "chairman" jobs Bezos had to fund to employ the sons and daughters in-law of Congress persons to secure the DOD contract.
Regarding the price of $200 Billion and 10 years to replace, do you think your estimate is a little on the low side?
Re:Government cloud = bad news (Score:4, Insightful)
US cloud providers have shown they are able to provide reliable, secure service
So far.
The problem with the cloud is not that it's insecure. The problem isn't even that you have all your eggs in the same basket. The problem is that everyone has all their eggs in the same basket.
From a risk perspective (sorry, I do that professionally), the average expected risk of a cloud service can be lower than an on-prem solution (depending on your IT). But the worst-case scenario is several orders of magnitude worse.
If a big cloud breach happens, it will be spectacular. Imagine Office365 hacked by some professional cybercriminals. The value of that data makes every other data breach seem like pocket change. Of course, it would also wipe Microsoft off the face of the business world, which is exactly why the likelihood of it happening is low, but "once in 10,000 years" isn't all that long when you run 400 of the fuckers, like we did with nuclear reactors (where, if you do the math, we actually are well within the range of expected major accidents).
Sooner or later that breach will happen. Most likely with the help of an insider who couldn't refuse that sweet money and was just in the right position to exploit some weakness in their undoubtedly strong internal protections against just that (because it's so obviously an issue).
If you're a company, you can survive all your office documents becoming public. It will damage you, it will destroy a couple business relationships, and for some companies (e.g. large retailers and their supplier contract details) it will be existence-threatening - but you can survive, mostly because you are not alone in that situation.
For the Pentagon, losing your secrets to the enemy is not a scenario you want to seriously evaluate. There's more at stake than business relations. If you're worried about buying chinese hardware, then putting your stuff into the cloud should not be on the list of things you are actually considering. You have to be a complete idiot to believe that enemy powers have not already planted employees into all the big cloud services, just in case they need them in the future. It's a reasonable investment.
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Now yours is a comment I can get behind.
Corruption is always present in government it seems. It would be helpful to make it "fair".
I still stand behind my statement thought that the back end should be some big iron. Put the front end in the "commercial cloud" if you must, but as I used to say when I worked for a bank, "where the money is stored" is the big iron.
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Just look at the numbers in the top 4 US breaches...
4. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM): 21.5 Million (June 2015)
3. U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs: 26.5 Million Affected (May 2006)
2. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): 76 Million Affected (October 2009)
1. U.S. Voter Database: 191 Million Affected (December 2015)
corp over govt any day.....
Re:Government cloud = bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you ignoring all the corporate systems that got hacked for not only user data, but corporate data too?
The military has a pretty good record WRT intrusion detection. Those other groups are less concerned.
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Didn't they get hacked by an autistic British kid looking for evidence of aliens, then try to extradite him because they had egg on their face?
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Didn't they get hacked by an autistic British kid looking for evidence of aliens, then try to extradite him because they had egg on their face?
By hacked, I assume you mean "he guessed a password" because that's exactly what he did.
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I wouldn't. No one in their right mind would.
Additionally, doesn't Trump hate Bezos? Why would he give Bezos any government business? Trump makes no sense most of the time. It literally gives me a headache.
Re:Government cloud = bad news (Score:4, Insightful)
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Buy a bunch of IBM Mainframes,
There is an old sales trope that goes something like "Nobody ever got fired for buying an IBM."
It used to be true, but it's not anymore. These days, buying a bunch of IBM mainframes might make the junk dealers with scrapped 360's sitting in their warehouses happy, but if somebody actually buys a bunch of mainframes from IBM, they NEED to be fired. It's just now how things are done....
Or maybe you don't really mean "mainframe" ?
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Buy a bunch of IBM Mainframes, secure it in a government data center
The good old "I know better" approach. What would experts know anyway. The government is the smartest and the best.
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Nope. Been a proponent of big iron/mainframes for years, where it makes sense. In this case IMHO it would work.
Government wastes money hand over fist and that's not likely to change, so why not spend those large amounts of money on something that works?
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Why would you entrust the US government "stuff" with a cloud provider?
Because 1) They've been doing it quite well in the commercial world, and 2) if you do it in-house you won't get one government cloud. You'll get 27, each operated as its own isolated kingdom, and each about 5-10 years behind the commercial world in both hardware and software.
Also both Amazon and Microsoft have existing "government clouds" that are isolated from their commercial cloud services. This is adding a new one with some additional regulations so that classified stuff can be on it.
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Why would you entrust the US government "stuff" with a cloud provider?
I'm not sure you know what "cloud" means in this context. It's (1) a load of software, process controllers, monitors, switches, load balancers, resource accounting etc. for running jobs on a load of VMs. Those VMs will be hosted either "on-prem" on machines that your own company owns, or "off-prem" on machines you rent in a data-center.
The typical scenario for using "on-prem" is when legislation requires that you retain actual possession of your data at all times. But you still want to take advantage of the
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The DOD should design their requirements to allow all major US cloud providers that are willing to invest in complying with DOD requirements to get a piece of the pie. No good will come from limiting ourselves to only Amazon and Microsoft. Demanding that service be fungible among providers will a.) pressure prices downward, b.) encourage providers to adopt interoperable APIs, c.) keep all participating providers in alignment with US defense prerogatives as they pursue lucrative opportunities with the DOD.
They should make requirements that meet their needs, which they did, and only Amazon and Microsoft could meet those requirements.
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No, they didn't. What they did is that they copy-pasted AWS's specs, called that their requirements, and put them out there. (Specifically they copy-pasted the specs from GovCloud, an Amazon product based on AWS that's basically AWS + a bunch of US government regulations.) So far only Microsoft has been willing to call them on their bluff but it's pretty clear that only Amazon was ever really in the running.
Do you think Amazon created Gov Cloud in a vacuum? They didn't build the service and then tell the governemnt "Hey, we think this would be great for government computing", they built Gov Cloud with input from government agencies (presumably including the DoD) to meet specific government security standards, so it only makes sense that the DoD would use it as the basis for their requirements. Since Microsoft's own Gov Cloud apparently meets the DoD needs, it's not like there's anything AWS specific in the req
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with input from government agencies
Whom else had the benefit of this "input?" Anyone? Or was this more regulatory capture?
If you don't know don't make stuff up; suspicion is entirely justified here and doesn't deserve your derision unless you can cite credible sources. A well run government would foster as many competitors as possible, even subsidize more if necessary, and avoid sole source dependency as all costs. To the surprise of no one that doesn't appear to be happening here.
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with input from government agencies
Whom else had the benefit of this "input?" Anyone? Or was this more regulatory capture?
I'd think that everyone building a Gov Cloud had the benefit of that same input if they are large enough to attract interest from agencies -- there are some high profile agencies on Azure's Gov Cloud. Oracle and Microsoft already have DoD contracts and thus likely have an advantage over AWS in courting government agencies.
If you don't know don't make stuff up; suspicion is entirely justified here and doesn't deserve your derision unless you can cite credible sources. A well run government would foster as many competitors as possible, even subsidize more if necessary, and avoid sole source dependency as all costs. To the surprise of no one that doesn't appear to be happening here.
Why is it ok to make up "suspicion", but not to counter that suspicion with speculation about how it could be overblown? Do you have hard evidence that shows that the contract is slanted
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When Donald Trump looks into something (Score:3)
everyone involved should be very scared.
Re:When Donald Trump looks into something (Score:5, Insightful)
When Donald Trump *says* he's going to look into something, the one thing you can be certain of his that he's not going to actually look into anything.
Re:When Donald Trump looks into something (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, this will be looked into alright - the entire point of this is to damage Amazon and Bezos, because of the fight that is ongoing between Bezos and Trump.
Trump will try his hardest to exclude Amazon from the award - it will go to Microsoft or Oracle will be reinstated.
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I just hope there is some way they can BOTH lose.
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That's because after he looked into the sun during the eclipse [theatlantic.com]
he couldn't see anything.
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When Donald Trump *says* he's going to look into something, the one thing you can be certain of his that he's not going to actually look into anything.
And that is what should scare you the most... He's planning to do something without actually knowing anything about it.
You know what *that* means (Score:2)
I never had something where more people are complaining.
So of course he's going to do it.
Trump look into the contract? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, maybe he can read after all...nah, he'll have the Pentagon look into it:
la Presidenta Tweetie: Who's my acting SecDev this week...you, flunky, get to the bottom of this!
Flunkie: Errrmmm....what precisely do you want me to do?
lPT: Figure out how to screw Bezos out of the contract.
Flunkie: But the only other option is Microsoft, need I remind you about their reputation for security?
IPT: Nobody knows more about security than I do. They do good security work, now go out there and screw Bezos.
Flunkie: Okay you Pentagon Guys, how do we screw Bezos?
PGs: Ummm...tell you what, we'll set up a joint committee from the services to get to the bottom of this. In the fullness of time, we should have it sorted out.
Flunkie: But I have to tell IPT something soon.
PGs: You remember them tanks we shipped to the 4 of July Reality Show? We'll double the number and have a Brand New Parade for Labor Day....it's be big, really huuuuuuggggeeely. Fighter plans, space troopers, UAVs, the works!!
Flunkie: Gee thanks, just as long as I have something bright and shiny to report.
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Doing it wrong (Score:3)
The gov't doesn't do anything well with IT resources, hence the billions they invest in outside firms to do it for them.
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Politics (Score:2)
A government contract practically designed from the ground up for political corruption.
A politician who comments on it.
I know Trump's name seems to make everything more glamourous/evil depending on your prejudices, but I'm not getting what all the excitement is about.
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Well, that's what the actual JEDI contract does.....so yes.
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