HP Holds Navy Network ‘Hostage’ for $3.3 Billion

* "Worse, HP — which acquired Electronic Data Systems and its Navy contract in 2008 — still operates under performance metrics set a decade ago. A typical workstation on the network costs the Navy $2,490.72 per year."

A secure workstation with full outsourced support costs $2,490.72 a year? That sounds pretty damn good to me.

* "That includes an e-mail inbox with a 50-MB capacity (Gmail’s: 7,500 MB), and 700 MB of network storage (compared to Evernote’s unlimited, free plan). Anything above that is extra."

Most corporations give their staff 150mb inboxes. Let's see Google meet the military's requirements at 7,500mb per inbox. Better yet, let's see Evernote give the military unlimited storage space. I bet they could meet all of those requirements for free! The public market client is exactly the same as the Department of the Navy, so it should be a quick switcher-oo! Problem solved!

* "A year’s use of a “high-end graphics” workstation sets the Navy back $4,085.64. Extra applications on a laptop or desktop computer can run anywhere from $1,006.68 to $4,026.72 annually. A classified Ethernet port — $9,300 to $28,800 per year, depending on where it’s located."

Yup, that sounds about right. High-end graphics workstations and their software are expensive. So are classified networks.

* "What’s more, HP isn’t required to take security measures like hard disk encryption, threat heuristics, and network access control that are common today, but were exotic in 2000.

Really? They're not taking any security measures?!

“Anti-spam services” runs the Navy $2.7 million per year under the contract."

It costs $2.7 million to filter spam on the second biggest network in the world? Oh, only the ENTIRE INTERNET is bigger? $2.7 million is a steal.

* "Cleaning up a “data spillage” – classified information that got placed an unclassified network – costs $11,800 per incident. In 2008, the Navy paid about $5 million to wipe the data from 432 compromised computers. That’s “almost 10 times the cost of simply destroying the affected machines and replacing them with new ones,” the Washington Times reported."

Security incidents are expensive. The Navy sets the protocol for how these incidents are handled, you can't simply dump a computer into an incinerator and certify that the data is destroyed. Well, I suppose you could, but running an incinerator at the level of heat required to completely destroy data is FREAKING EXPENSIVE, TOO.

In the several parts of the article that they mention lack of what sounds like quality response tie and botched security updates/software roll outs there isn't enough evidence on the incidents to make any comment. Those incidents are asserted in a manner that is hear-say rather than official reports.

I've been really disappointed with Danger Room's tech in National Security reporting.

We only called contractors when we couldn't figure out a problem (which was pretty rare with the team we had). We set up our own network security monitoring and router ACLs, even though we were not authorized to do so, since we were going into a combat zone (Operation Enduring Freedom) and damn the procedures when your ship is at stake. We had it running so tight that when our battlegroup did penetration testing before deployment, they accused us of cheating because they couldn't get in (even though they had a hole poked in the NOC firewall for them and we weren't supposed to have an incoming ACL on our side).

NMCI rolled out a few months after I got out of the Navy, and ever since then all I've seen coming out of there since then is hugely incompetent ITs who don't even know what the OSI model is, let alone how to put together a disaster recovery plan or manage network security. All they know how to do is put in a trouble ticket when someone can't send an attachment or they see "NTLDR is missing".

I joined the Navy to get the kind of experience that I did, and I feel terrible for the thousands of ITs in there now who have their hands tied for anything harder than resetting someone's password.

That's a bargain.

Imagine if Google had to provide whole infrastructure plus support - with their legendary customer support. They wouldn't last a day.

When Government tries to do it itself- It will cost 20 Billion.

While HP is a competitor to me here, we work cooperatively more than not, and I've never had an issue where another contractor was the impediment.

Conflicting, or impossible-to-meet requirements are the norm from the government. Schedules shift in ways that aren't humanly possible to complete. The government competes the work out to contractors, establishes a contract for the work, and then refuses to live up to the terms of the agreements made.

As part of a video collection effort I was working on, the government wanted to use a reporting tool in place of a document management system... as a document management system. When we explained that we could not purchase that software for them in good faith, they bought it anyway, and then insisted that we use it instead of the document management system we'd proposed (but had not yet purchased) -- citing that we should 'leverage existing resources'.

Rest assured, even at the best of times, the government is a difficult customer, and impossible to comprehend. I understand that DOD-agencies are supposed to be a little better, but I've yet to see anything even remotely close to what I'd consider rational in a business sense.

They can't even do their own negotiating. How impotent.

But do you ever notice how things that please both political parties tend to be the worst, like the DMCA? Well, that explains this. The Republicans want a huge military. The Democrats want to give a ton of money to the private sector.

The compromise? Outsourcing the military's IT. Bigger navy == bigger IT contract == both sides content.