The USS Zumwalt getting a coat of paint at Bath Iron Works. The ship is exotic in many ways, but it runs on off-the-shelf computing technology. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works When the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) puts to sea later this year, it will be different from any other ship in the Navy’s fleet in many ways. The $3.5 billon ship is designed for stealth, survivability, and firepower, and it’s packed with advanced technology. And at the heart of its operations is a virtual data center powered by off-the-shelf server hardware, various flavors of Linux, and over 6 million lines of software code. On October 10, I flew up to Rhode Island to visit Raytheon’s Seapower Capability Center in Portsmouth, where engineers assembled and pre-tested the systems at the heart of the Zumwalt and are preparing to do the same for the next ship in line, the USS Michael Monsoor—already well into construction. There, Raytheon’s DDG-1000 team gave me a tour of the centerpiece of the ship’s systems—a mockup of the Zumwalt’s operations center, where the ship’s commanding officer and crew will control the ship’s sensors, missile launchers, guns, and other systems. Over 20 years ago, I learned how to be a ship watch stander a few miles from the Raytheon facility at the Navy’s Surface Warfare Officer School. But the operations center of the Zumwalt will have more in common with the fictional starship USS Enterprise’s bridge than it does with the combat information centers of the ships I went to sea on. Every console on the Zumwalt will be equipped with touch screens and software capable of taking on the needs of any operator on duty, and big screens on the forward bulkhead will display tactical plots of sea, air, and land. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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The Navy’s newest warship is powered by Linux
After the customary six months of incubation, Ubuntu 13.10—codenamed Saucy Salamander—has hatched. The new version of the popular Linux distribution brings updated applications and several new features, including augmented search capabilities in the Unity desktop shell. Although Saucy Salamander offers some useful improvements, it’s a relatively thin update. XMir, the most noteworthy item on the 13.10 roadmap, was ultimately deferred for inclusion in a future release. Canonical’s efforts during the Saucy development cycle were largely focused on the company’s new display server and upcoming Unity overhaul, but neither is yet ready for the desktop. Due to the unusual nature of this Ubuntu update, this review is going to diverge a bit from the usual formula. The first half will include a hands-on look at the new Unity features. The second half will take a close look at the Ubuntu roadmap and some of the major changes that we can expect to see over the course of the next several releases. Read 46 remaining paragraphs | Comments 
For nearly a decade now, TrueCrypt has been one of the trusty tools in a security-minded user’s toolkit. There’s just one problem, though. No one knows who created the software, and worse still, no one has ever conducted a full security audit on it—until now. Since last month, a handful of cryptographers have newly discussed problems and alternatives to the popular application, which lead on Monday to a public call to perform a full security audit on TrueCrypt. As of Tuesday afternoon, that fundraiser reached over $16,000, making a proper check more likely. Much of those funds came from a single $10,000 donation from an Atlanta-based security firm. “We’re now in a place where we have nearly—but not quite enough—to get a serious audit done,” wrote Matthew Green , a well-known cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University, on Twitter. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments 
