Dave Hinz wrote:
Tom Quackenbush wrote:
snip

Good books. I almost didn't read 2 & 3, 'cause I didn't see where he
was going with book one, but I'm glad I did.

Ah, I _didn't_ read book 2 and 3, because, well, I didn't see where he
was going with book one. So it's a book to add to the pile, then?

Well, if nothing else, you'll get some closure. I think you'll find
books 2 & 3 much more enjoyable reads, though. I found myself looking
forward to reading them every day, as opposed to book 1, which I sort
of slogged through.

R,
Tom Q.

--
Remove bogusinfo to reply.

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:21:15 -0500, Tom Quackenbush wrote:
Dave Hinz wrote:

Ah, I _didn't_ read book 2 and 3, because, well, I didn't see where he
was going with book one. So it's a book to add to the pile, then?

Well, if nothing else, you'll get some closure. I think you'll find
books 2 & 3 much more enjoyable reads, though. I found myself looking
forward to reading them every day, as opposed to book 1, which I sort
of slogged through.

Yeah, me too. I finished it out of sheer obstinance (no, really.
Imagine that, of me.) So, 2 & 3 are a bit less sloggy, then?

Dave "I may have just invented a word there..." Hinz

On 12/23/2005 11:22 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:31:20 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 2:29 AM Enoch Root mumbled something about the following:

I don't know, I use Debian (a copy costs you (given a net install)
exactly one writable CD). I'm almost certain* those other distributions
aren't suffering the same design/marketing problems Windows is.

Try selling a platform to a bank without having support for every piece,
hardware, OS, etc. It doesn't happen.

Our experience differs. At least in the mortgage industry...

They want assurance that if
something fails, they have someone they can blame. Free OSes don't cut
it if you don't have support.

Of course you have support. And if you have a problem where your boss
encourages blamestorming rather than solving problems with the
appropriate solutions, you need to upgrade your boss.


Online banking is a lot different than something used by the mortgage
companies internally. Firewalls in front of the web server, firewalls
between the app server and the database with commuications via IPSec.
OSes hardened. I'm sure you don't want your account to be hacked by
someone else.

On top of the banks themselves, we have about 5 or 6 different audits
due to some govt regulation (SOX, SEC, Some California thing, etc). I
probably spend a good 60% of my time handling auditors (running scripts,
answering questions, explaining why we do something one way instead of
another) between the months of Sep and Dec when all these audits go on.

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

On 12/23/2005 11:29 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 23:12:31 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/22/2005 8:42 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

I could swear I mentioned it was behind several firewalls and has
nothing sensitive on it. But, feel free to lecture me on it.

Going back through the thread that I can read, there is no mention of
firewalls or having nothing sensitive on it, just an uptime of an excess
of 3 years.

It's in this very thread, in the part that you snipped out (oddly
enough). Here's the google link:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.w...5?dmode=source
(mind the wrap)
I'll save you a click if you'd like:
"That's nothing. I've got a server, busy little box, that's wrapped
around the 497-day "uptime bug" twice and is nearly to a third time.
It's busy but has nothing sensitive on it, and is behind enough
firewalls that I don't care so much about it being way out of patch."

Now you might have mentioned it in another thread, but I
don't remember every thread I read in the 7 different newsgroups I read.

Nor, apparently, this one.

I didn't reply to your post, I replied to Matt Stachoni.

This is what was in his message that was attributed to you.

One of my busier servers hasn't been rebuilt, and hasn't been rebooted
in (let's see...497+497+199= 1193 days). It was a sunday morning, and
the reboot was due to a clumsy mistake, not a system problem.

Here's what he replied to

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 10:15:57 -0800, Enoch Root wrote:
Matt Stachoni wrote:

XP is the same way, if you know what to tweak and how to tweak it.

As opposed to the *nix* systems, which work out of the box without
constant fiddling.

My
machine was last rebuilt about 8 months ago,

One of my busier servers hasn't been rebuilt, and hasn't been rebooted
in (let's see...497+497+199= 1193 days). It was a sunday morning, and
the reboot was due to a clumsy mistake, not a system problem.

I'm on the net 24/7 and have yet to be infected with a virus or
spyware.

Sure, but if you have to constantly tweak and adjust it, then that's a
lot more screwing around than it should be.

My tweaking days are over. I want the computer to disappear when I'm
working on it. Since (now) I'm writing statistical apps for a genetics
lab I've turned in my sysadmin hat. Hopefully forever.

Ah, so you're a fully-recovered sysadmin, then. A difficult state to
get to.


Now, please try again. You didn't mention it in this thread prior to my
post. You need a serious lesson in reading newsgroups.

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

On 12/23/2005 11:58 AM Larry Blanchard mumbled something about the
following:
Odinn wrote:

Going back through the thread that I can read, there is no mention of
firewalls or having nothing sensitive on it, just an uptime of an
excess of 3 years. Now you might have mentioned it in another thread,
but I don't remember every thread I read in the 7 different newsgroups
I read. Do what you like with your systems, they don't affect how I
deal with mine.

Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

Odinn, could you please trim that signature? As you can see from the
above, it's often more lines than your post.

I believe tradition says one or two lines should be the limit, although
3 or 4 doesn't seen really excessive. But 13?


I'll keep my signature as I see fit. Don't like it, don't read it

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

On 12/23/2005 12:04 PM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 08:58:30 -0800, Larry Blanchard wrote:

Odinn, could you please trim that signature? As you can see from the
above, it's often more lines than your post.

Technically, it's not even a .sig, because it doesn't start with

-- (that's dash dash space newline) ....so even newsreaders which
terminate on a proper sig delimiter, won't on his.
I believe tradition says one or two lines should be the limit, although
3 or 4 doesn't seen really excessive. But 13?

I have a guess as to the nature of his response. Want a little
side-bet?


Then your newsreader is broken because it IS a --(space) newline.

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:

.... snip

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

I'm assuming that those banks don't allow XP either because of the direct
door to Msoft that Msoft won't allow to be closed. I know that in my world
that gave significant headaches to various groups.



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:54:48 -0700, Mark & Juanita
wrote:

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:

... snip

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

I'm assuming that those banks don't allow XP either because of the direct
door to Msoft that Msoft won't allow to be closed. I know that in my world
that gave significant headaches to various groups.

ATMs were predominantly run on OS/2 for a very long time. IBM
dropped support for OS/2 a couple of years ago and ATM networks
started making the move to Microsoft Windows. I'm sure there
are some *nix ATMs.

On 12/24/2005 2:54 PM Mark & Juanita mumbled something about the following:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:

.... snip
It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

I'm assuming that those banks don't allow XP either because of the direct
door to Msoft that Msoft won't allow to be closed. I know that in my world
that gave significant headaches to various groups.

I have no idea what they use at teller stations in branch offices (I
haven't been inside a bank in ages, and they were using green screen
terminals there).

In our hosting center, admins aren't allowed to connect directly to any
server, they connect to a BladeLogic server instead, which connects to
the server on their behalf and limits the commands they're allowed to
run as well as logging every keystroke.

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

On 12/24/2005 4:10 PM George Shouse mumbled something about the following:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:54:48 -0700, Mark & Juanita
wrote:

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:

... snip
It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).
I'm assuming that those banks don't allow XP either because of the direct
door to Msoft that Msoft won't allow to be closed. I know that in my world
that gave significant headaches to various groups.

ATMs were predominantly run on OS/2 for a very long time. IBM
dropped support for OS/2 a couple of years ago and ATM networks
started making the move to Microsoft Windows. I'm sure there
are some *nix ATMs.

Our ATM division has only recently started trying to use Windows, most
are still running OS/2, but almost all development on them is Java.

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 11:22 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

Of course you have support. And if you have a problem where your boss
encourages blamestorming rather than solving problems with the
appropriate solutions, you need to upgrade your boss.

Online banking is a lot different than something used by the mortgage
companies internally. Firewalls in front of the web server, firewalls
between the app server and the database with commuications via IPSec.
OSes hardened. I'm sure you don't want your account to be hacked by
someone else.

Of course not. It's interesting that at least one online bank has gone
to shipping Knoppix (Linux) Live CDs to their customers for use of their
banking site. "Here's a hardened OS for your PC, to connect to us
with". Yeah, I can dig up a cite if you want to be confrontational.

On top of the banks themselves, we have about 5 or 6 different audits
due to some govt regulation (SOX, SEC, Some California thing, etc).

Yes, I'm familiar with those.

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

We must work in very different financial industries. Which is odd since
the banks whose names are probably on cards in your wallet, don't care
what OS we're running anything on. Even the more annoying ones.

5 years ago we had a guy saying much the same thing you are. We made
the changes anyway, where appropriate, and the sky continued to not
fall, the customers (banks) continued not to stay away in droves, the
auditors (internal, government, and "sent by customers") just want to
see the vulnerabilities and what we've done about them; not what kernel
a piece of hardware is running.

Maybe it's not your boss, who needs the upgrading.

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:54:48 -0700, Mark & Juanita wrote:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:

... snip

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

I'm assuming that those banks don't allow XP either because of the direct
door to Msoft that Msoft won't allow to be closed. I know that in my world
that gave significant headaches to various groups.

Well, sure. Whatever you have, especially exposed, needs to be secure.
But I don't know of anyone who suggests that Linux is less secure than
Unix, what with them all running the same stuff for the most part
anyway.

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:01:31 -0500, Odinn wrote:

In our hosting center, admins aren't allowed to connect directly to any
server, they connect to a BladeLogic server instead, which connects to
the server on their behalf and limits the commands they're allowed to
run as well as logging every keystroke.

How's bladelogic working for you guys? We're _this_ close to buying;
it's in the budget for '06 and I'm looking forward to it. We should
probably make sure we don't work for direct competitors before comparing
notes, though.

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:14:39 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 12:04 PM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

-- (that's dash dash space newline) ....so even newsreaders which
terminate on a proper sig delimiter, won't on his.

Then your newsreader is broken because it IS a --(space) newline.

Today, it is, yes.

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:13:12 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 11:29 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

It's in this very thread, in the part that you snipped out (oddly
enough). Here's the google link:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.w...5?dmode=source
(mind the wrap)

Now, please try again. You didn't mention it in this thread prior to my
post. You need a serious lesson in reading newsgroups.

Google confirms that it's all one thread. Please check your facts
before trying to give anyone a "lesson", because you look like an
arrogant twit when you get it wrong. Hint: There is more than one page
of results on the thread search in google.

On 12/26/2005 10:02 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:01:31 -0500, Odinn wrote:

In our hosting center, admins aren't allowed to connect directly to any
server, they connect to a BladeLogic server instead, which connects to
the server on their behalf and limits the commands they're allowed to
run as well as logging every keystroke.

How's bladelogic working for you guys? We're _this_ close to buying;
it's in the budget for '06 and I'm looking forward to it. We should
probably make sure we don't work for direct competitors before comparing
notes, though.


Using it for the admins and pushing out patches is great. Using it for
CRC checks to make sure nothing has changed sucks. Seems it will still
check files that you've told to ignore, triggering flags that auditors
just LOVE to look at.

--
Odinn

On 12/26/2005 10:00 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 11:22 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

Of course you have support. And if you have a problem where your boss
encourages blamestorming rather than solving problems with the
appropriate solutions, you need to upgrade your boss.

Online banking is a lot different than something used by the mortgage
companies internally. Firewalls in front of the web server, firewalls
between the app server and the database with commuications via IPSec.
OSes hardened. I'm sure you don't want your account to be hacked by
someone else.

Of course not. It's interesting that at least one online bank has gone
to shipping Knoppix (Linux) Live CDs to their customers for use of their
banking site. "Here's a hardened OS for your PC, to connect to us
with". Yeah, I can dig up a cite if you want to be confrontational.

Doesn't matter to me. Connecting to the bank's web interface is
considerably different than the server running the apps.

On top of the banks themselves, we have about 5 or 6 different audits
due to some govt regulation (SOX, SEC, Some California thing, etc).

Yes, I'm familiar with those.

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

We must work in very different financial industries. Which is odd since
the banks whose names are probably on cards in your wallet, don't care
what OS we're running anything on. Even the more annoying ones.

2 of the banks who's cards are in my wallet I KNOW won't allow us to run
the apps/database on Linux unless we have a software assurance agreement
in place (we have to have it for ANY OS we have for them). RedHat and
SuSE (the only 2 64bit Linux versions we have working) both cost well
over $1200 a year for their server licensing.

5 years ago we had a guy saying much the same thing you are. We made
the changes anyway, where appropriate, and the sky continued to not
fall, the customers (banks) continued not to stay away in droves, the
auditors (internal, government, and "sent by customers") just want to
see the vulnerabilities and what we've done about them; not what kernel
a piece of hardware is running.

It's not about the kernel, it's about having someone responsible for an
issue. Running Linux isn't the problem, it's running a version with no
support.

Maybe it's not your boss, who needs the upgrading.


I just go by what we are told. We were told we had to have licensed
software for those reasons I mentioned. I'm not the one paying for
them, it's ultimately the bank that pays for those licenses, so they
dictate what they want to pay for.

--
Odinn

On 12/26/2005 10:03 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:14:39 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 12:04 PM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

-- (that's dash dash space newline) ....so even newsreaders which
terminate on a proper sig delimiter, won't on his.

Then your newsreader is broken because it IS a --(space) newline.

Today, it is, yes.


And it always has been.

--
Odinn
RCOS #7 SENS BS ???

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshiped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Reeky's unofficial homepage ... http://www.reeky.org
'03 FLHTI ........... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/ElectraGlide
'97 VN1500D ......... http://www.sloanclan.org/gallery/VulcanClassic
Atlanta Biker Net ... http://www.atlantabiker.net
Vulcan Riders Assoc . http://www.vulcanriders.org

rot13 to reply

My favourite:

"So many stupid people-so few comets"

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 09:43:55 -0500, Odinn
wrote:

On 12/26/2005 10:00 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:05:48 -0500, Odinn wrote:
On 12/23/2005 11:22 AM Dave Hinz mumbled something about the following:

/snip/

It's not my boss who encourages blaming, it's the banks who want
assurance. They won't allow us to use Linux unless we pay for support
on it, and only a small portion of the banks we host will even allow
Linux (we host over 2000 banks online presense).

We must work in very different financial industries. Which is odd since
the banks whose names are probably on cards in your wallet, don't care
what OS we're running anything on. Even the more annoying ones.

2 of the banks who's cards are in my wallet I KNOW won't allow us to run
the apps/database on Linux unless we have a software assurance agreement
in place (we have to have it for ANY OS we have for them). RedHat and
SuSE (the only 2 64bit Linux versions we have working) both cost well
over $1200 a year for their server licensing.

5 years ago we had a guy saying much the same thing you are. We made
the changes anyway, where appropriate, and the sky continued to not
fall, the customers (banks) continued not to stay away in droves, the
auditors (internal, government, and "sent by customers") just want to
see the vulnerabilities and what we've done about them; not what kernel
a piece of hardware is running.

It's not about the kernel, it's about having someone responsible for an
issue. Running Linux isn't the problem, it's running a version with no
support.

Maybe it's not your boss, who needs the upgrading.


I just go by what we are told. We were told we had to have licensed
software for those reasons I mentioned. I'm not the one paying for
them, it's ultimately the bank that pays for those licenses, so they
dictate what they want to pay for.

I work for one of the top 100 corporations in the world that
happens to be a bank. Their policy is the same in large part
due to SOX & OCC requirements. Open Source including Linux can
be used for non-monetary and non-reporting applications like
analytics or campaign management. If it is mission critical,
customer facing, handles monetary transactions or participates
in external reporting there must be a vendor support agreement
in place.

Smaller banks within a single state and especially community
banks can play a lot faster and looser.

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 16:34:10 -0600, George Shouse wrote:

I work for one of the top 100 corporations in the world that
happens to be a bank. Their policy is the same in large part
due to SOX & OCC requirements. Open Source including Linux can
be used for non-monetary and non-reporting applications like
analytics or campaign management. If it is mission critical,
customer facing, handles monetary transactions or participates
in external reporting there must be a vendor support agreement
in place.

You say those two things like they're related somehow? Of course you
can get a support contract for Linux. Anyone saying otherwise is
spreading FUD, either through ignorance, or due to an agenda.

Smaller banks within a single state and especially community
banks can play a lot faster and looser.

The company I work for (for the next two weeks; just gave notice) is,
let's say, a large name in the mortgage insurance business. We've got
the same governmental requirements, and were temporarily delayed on
several Linux projects by the whole SCO idiocy thing, but I stand by my
statement that the SOX and other folks want to know about recordkeeping
and policies and procedures, how vulerabilities are handled, and all
that, more than what type of Unix we're running.

On 31 Dec 2005 00:21:24 GMT, Dave Hinz
wrote:

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 16:34:10 -0600, George Shouse wrote:

I work for one of the top 100 corporations in the world that
happens to be a bank. Their policy is the same in large part
due to SOX & OCC requirements. Open Source including Linux can
be used for non-monetary and non-reporting applications like
analytics or campaign management. If it is mission critical,
customer facing, handles monetary transactions or participates
in external reporting there must be a vendor support agreement
in place.

You say those two things like they're related somehow? Of course you
can get a support contract for Linux. Anyone saying otherwise is
spreading FUD, either through ignorance, or due to an agenda.

You snipped a little too much. Odinn typed "won't allow us to
use Linux unless we pay for support" which is true for us,too.
We actually have some Linux supported by IBM.

Smaller banks within a single state and especially community
banks can play a lot faster and looser.

The company I work for (for the next two weeks; just gave notice) is,
let's say, a large name in the mortgage insurance business. We've got
the same governmental requirements, and were temporarily delayed on
several Linux projects by the whole SCO idiocy thing, but I stand by my
statement that the SOX and other folks want to know about recordkeeping
and policies and procedures, how vulerabilities are handled, and all
that, more than what type of Unix we're running.

I've been audited by OCC, PwC, E&Y, and the 2 internal groups.
All but the internal groups are interested in the supportability
of the OS and all other software as a SOX control point. I
suppose that it might be possible to argue that the necessary
support exists within the organization but I've generally heard
from other bank IT guys that the path of least resistance with
the highest level of CYOA is hire that control point out. I've
always gotten away with convincing them that we are purely
analytic.