FBI email network down for days after virus attack

Their public Website appears to be running on Linux or Unix, the webserver, at least, is Apache.

But I'm pretty sure that if the FBI were running Linux exclusively, there would not have been a problem.

I'd say there a very high probability that they are running Windows on the desktop

For my adult life, the FBI has been absolutely Luddite when it comes to computers. The first thing I can recall seeing about the FBI's use of computers (after I myself became aware of them) was some puff-piece on Tee Vee about the fingerprint identification system. I recall thinking that the use of IBM mainframes wasn't exactly cutting-edge. I can't remember when this was, but it was after I became aware of things faster and easier to use than VM/CMS and TSO.

Later, I recall seeing an article on usenet about how the FBI now had one of those new-fangled "web servers". I did an "nslookup" on it, and found that the FBI's web server ran out of a NASA IP address in California.

Just recently, the "Virtual Case File" fiasco (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08...) gives us all a hint that the luddism hasn't disappeared, despite all the Glowing X-Files pro-FBI propaganda.

> I did an "nslookup" on it, and found that the FBI's web server ran out of a NASA IP address in California.

That would have been '93 or '94, when NASA was the most experienced department for handling public (after the end of 1992 when the prohibition on commercial traffic on "the internet" was lifted) servers.

That's when I was working there. Many government agencies started their web pages at NASA Ames, and the growing pains were very interesting to watch.