Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud' • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#41

Post by Angostura » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #27

This thread is kind of chilling, because everyone within is treating it like it's just chat software or something. With quotes from this thread like "in the meantime the work doesn't get done," and "bid for contracts that [enable] government to make some real progress," you'd never guess this stuff is going to be used to and to enable murder. So many people were focusing on how Microsoft Ɛ> Linux or Open Source or wh…

> you'd never guess this stuff is going to be used to and to enable murder.

This is only true, if you take it as axiomatic that armed forces have one job, which is killing and that all killing in armed conflict is simple murder. That's not a position I take.

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#42

Post by psv1 » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

zip1234 wrote: post #20

robbyt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but in this case, the choice of Azure over AWS was due to government corruption, rather than actual technical diligence.

One could argue that no matter which company is selected.

Actually, only one of these companies has had its CEO personally attacked by the president.

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#43

Post by siffland » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

After 15 years of being a DoD contractor, it is frustrating to see yet another sole source entity getting the contract. Prices will inflate and there is no competition.

HP and Oracle have been reaping the benefits of this for at least two decades now. We put databases on Oracle that should be handled by Postgres or MariaDB since DoD prefers Oracle. We would buy useless HP software because we were a HP shop. I fought to get a non HP solid state array for our data, it was an epic battle (in the end I won, on the extreme we had 6 to 7 hour processes cut down to under an hour, the HP equivalent could not replicate that at the time).

So i can see DoD moving to Azure and then get the vendor lock in and in 10 years if they want to move the cost will be so extreme it will either cause taxpayers a ton of money or not be realistic.

As impossible as it sounds, and somewhat impractical, i would rather see a vendor agnostic approach and DoD spread across multiple gov clouds. i guess years has gotten me jaded with government spending (wait, what, how did we buy 2 extra $50k Cisco chassis and then keep them in storage for 3 years....).

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#44

Post by tracker1 » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #27

This thread is kind of chilling, because everyone within is treating it like it's just chat software or something. With quotes from this thread like "in the meantime the work doesn't get done," and "bid for contracts that [enable] government to make some real progress," you'd never guess this stuff is going to be used to and to enable murder. So many people were focusing on how Microsoft Ɛ> Linux or Open Source or wh…

So, you'd rather we keep spending too much, using too little information, and putting too many innocent people at risk? I mean, it's not like we dropped more ordinance under Obama than every president before him combined, or that the trend didn't decrease by very much after him or anything.

Personally, I do think our foreign deployments and presence should absolutely be dramatically reduced. I also think most federal spending is bureaucratic fluff. That said, I have less problem when there are efforts to stabilize or reduce spending via technology. And I find that people who try to take an ethical stance over companies offering any kind of service to the government is short sighted at best, and dangerous or destructive at worst.

In the end, this will happen, and I'd rather it go to a company that is focused on the problem (technical infrastructure for computing resources) over the government trying to build a bureaucratic mess that costs a significant amount more.

Not that everything should be outsourced. For example, I think privatized prisons are far, far, far worse for society than providing a cloud network for the federal govt.

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#45

Post by james-mcelwain » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #33

kick wrote: post #27

This thread is kind of chilling, because everyone within is treating it like it's just chat software or something. With quotes from this thread like "in the meantime the work doesn't get done," and "bid for contracts that [enable] government to make some real progress," you'd never guess this stuff is going to be used to and to enable murder. So many people were focusing on how Microsoft Ɛ> Linux or Open Source or wh…

Is all defense-related work complicit in murder? Do we not need a military? Nothing is perfect, but we are trapped on a planet with a bunch of violent, highly intelligent apes. Certainly the military does things I disagree with, and things could always be improved, but generally what is the alternative?

There's a huge, gigantic difference between not having a military at all and spending 1 trillion a year to be an imperialist superpower. It's almost like... there's a middle ground.

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#46

Post by Miner49er » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #39

flatline wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is all defense-related work complicit in murder? Do we not need a military? Nothing is perfect, but we are trapped on a planet with a bunch of violent, highly intelligent apes. Certainly the military does things I disagree with, and things could always be improved, but generally what is the alternative?

kick's comment above is absolutely delusional. It's like something a teenager would write. Im starting to wonder if hackernews is turning into Reddit.

From HN guidelines:

> Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#47

Post by claudeganon » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #39

flatline wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is all defense-related work complicit in murder? Do we not need a military? Nothing is perfect, but we are trapped on a planet with a bunch of violent, highly intelligent apes. Certainly the military does things I disagree with, and things could always be improved, but generally what is the alternative?

kick's comment above is absolutely delusional. It's like something a teenager would write. Im starting to wonder if hackernews is turning into Reddit.

A series of ad hominem attacks that don’t address the substance of the parent are superior because...?

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#48

Post by psv1 » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #17

robbyt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but in this case, the choice of Azure over AWS was due to government corruption, rather than actual technical diligence.

That's not substantiated. There are a lot of reasons that Azure could have won this project, highlighted by the fact that they have decades long relationships in terms of executing on government contracts.

Either company could have won the project - this isn't about their merit. It's about whether the decision was personally influenced by Trump because he hates Bezos.

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#49

Post by Filligree » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #39

flatline wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is all defense-related work complicit in murder? Do we not need a military? Nothing is perfect, but we are trapped on a planet with a bunch of violent, highly intelligent apes. Certainly the military does things I disagree with, and things could always be improved, but generally what is the alternative?

kick's comment above is absolutely delusional. It's like something a teenager would write. Im starting to wonder if hackernews is turning into Reddit.

Is it insufficiently cynical?

It's something a teenager might write, yes, because teenagers often aren't hypocritical enough to ignore the murders just because it's a nation-state doing them. That doesn't make it wrong.

Re: Amazon asks court to halt Microsoft's work on Pentagon 'war cloud'

#50

Post by ar_lan » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

psv1 wrote: post #42

zip1234 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that no matter which company is selected.

Actually, only one of these companies has had its CEO personally attacked by the president.

Ironic that it's the white guy that got attacked though, isn't it?