> why the fuck is our critical infrastructure running on WINDOWS
Because it’s cheaper.
I feel like many in this thread are obsessing over the choice of OS when the actual core question is why, given the insane money we spend on healthcare, are all healthcare systems shitty and underinvested?
A sensible, well constructed system would have fallbacks, no matter if the OS of choice is Windows or Linux.
The difference is that lots of different companies can share the burden of implementing all that in Linux (or BSD, or anything else) while only Microsoft can implement that functionality in Windows and even their resources are limited.
Very little healthcare functionality would ever need to be created at the OS level. The burden could be shared no matter if machines were running Windows or Linux, they’re mostly just regular applications.
Not talking about the applications - those could be ported and, ideally, financed by something like the UNDP so that the same tools are available everywhere to any interested part.
I'm talking about Crowdstrike's Falcon-like monitoring. It exists to intercept "suspicious" activity by userland applications and/or other kernel modules.
Cheaper? Well, perhaps when you require your OS to have some sort of support contract. And your support vendor charges you unhealthy sums.
And then you get to see the value of the millions of dollars you've paid for support contracts that don't protect your systems at all. But those contracts do protect specific employees. When the sky falls down, the big money execs don't have a solution. But it's not their fault because the support experts they pay huge sums don't have solutions either. Somehow paying millions of dollars to support contractors that can't save you is not seen as a fireable offense. Instead it is a career-saving scapegoat.
Within companies that have been bitten this time, the team that wasn't affected because they made better process decisions will not be promoted as smarter. Their voice will continue to be marginalized by the people whose decisions led to this disaster. Because, hey, look, everyone got bit right? Nobody looks around to notice the people who were not bitten and recognize their better choices. And "I told you so" is a pretty bad look right now.
> I feel like many in this thread are obsessing over the choice of OS when the actual core question is why, given the insane money we spend on healthcare, are all healthcare systems shitty and underinvested?
Because it's basically impossible to compete in the space.
Epic is a pile or horseshit, but you try convincing a hospital to sign up to your better version.
Because it’s cheaper.
I feel like many in this thread are obsessing over the choice of OS when the actual core question is why, given the insane money we spend on healthcare, are all healthcare systems shitty and underinvested?
A sensible, well constructed system would have fallbacks, no matter if the OS of choice is Windows or Linux.