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One of the nation's most reliable customers for supercomputing power has been Science Applications International Corp., based in McLean, Virginia. In the past, it's partnered with institutions like the San Diego Supercomputer Center, which currently operates the world's #151 supercomputer, working on projects like simulating the possible origins of solar flares.

SAIC's major customer has been the U.S. Dept. of Defense. Since 1999, the DoD's High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) has tried to align itself with projects that would make computing power less expensive and more accessible to DoD engineers and scientists. And since the project began back then, its roots - naturally - lie outside the cloud, with supercomputers.

At the US Department of Defense, open source and proprietary software are now on equal footing. According to Defense Department guidance issued yesterday (PDF), open-source software (OSS) should be treated just like any other software product. The document also specifies some of the advantages of OSS for the Department of Defense (DoD). These include the ability to quickly alter the code as situations and missions change, the stability of the software because of the broad peer-review, as well as the absence of per-seat licensing costs.

A rapidly spreading network worm, known as Agent BTZ, has prompted the U.S. army to put the use of USB drives and all removable data storage devices on hold temporarily, according to Wired's Noah Shachtman. Given the worm is based on SillyFDC, which has been around for several years and has a low risk factor, the question has to be asked: is this over-kill by the Defense Department?