Chinese Military Wants to Develop Custom OS
Citing security concerns, the Chinese military wants to replace Windows with its own custom operating system:
Thanks to the Snowden, Shadow Brokers, and Vault7 leaks, Beijing officials are well aware of the US’ hefty arsenal of hacking tools, available for anything from smart TVs to Linux servers, and from routers to common desktop operating systems, such as Windows and Mac.
Since these leaks have revealed that the US can hack into almost anything, the Chinese government’s plan is to adopt a “security by obscurity” approach and run a custom operating system that will make it harder for foreign threat actors—mainly the US—to spy on Chinese military operations.
It’s unclear exactly how custom this new OS will be. It could be a Linux variant, like North Korea’s Red Star OS. Or it could be something completely new. Normally, I would be highly skeptical of a country being able to write and field its own custom operating system, but China is one of the few that is large enough to actually be able to do it. So I’m just moderately skeptical.
EDITED TO ADD (6/12): Russia also wants to develop its own flavor of Linux.
Vesselin Bontchev • June 6, 2019 7:35 AM
1) Brand new OS == brand new vulnerabilities, unless the Chinese have figured out how to produce complex software that’s bug-free.
2) When (not if) the Five Eyes find a vulnerability in it, there will be absolutely no need to reveal it to the industry; they would exploit it with glee.
So, while they certainly can do it, I don’t think that this will turn out being a smart idea for the Chinese…