Aging computers hobble Homeland Security
`Thousands of airline passengers unexpectedly found themselves stranded in line at U.S. border checkpoints in August, after a Department of Homeland Security computer crashed. [..]
The holdups can be attributed in part to the Homeland Security Department’s antiquated computer systems. The agency’s mainframes do not share data and are accessible only by some offices. An upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows 2000 operating system failed because of application incompatibilities, which meant one division had to undertake a cumbersome reversion back to Windows 95. [..]
Not one of the systems can talk with another, according to government reports, and not all offices are equipped to log into the systems they need to update records.’
