Whether be it the countless attacks by Chinese hackers on key government websites or be it Snowden reports, it has exposed the vulnerabilities in the cyberspace. The Government of India has decided to go its own way and has decided to create its own operating system (OS) and replace all other OSs. This could be a major set-back to the most popular Microsoft Windows, that has so far dominated the operating systems market in India.
Developed by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), a highly improved version of BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions) will be revealed and discussed in an internal meeting in union home ministry this week.
During the past three months of trial, BOSS has successfully fended itself from all kinds of attacks, including vicious attacks planted by the Indian army, who was given the task to attack it to test its vulnerability status.
“It answers government’s need have a fully secure network. Fresh codes unique to the system have been written for the OS. Its source code that makes it safe and secure will have to be guarded at all cost,” sources said.
According to the Snowden reports, India was the most closely inspected nation by the US intelligence agencies. While other countries like China started carrying out R&D on news forms of attacks like the Smart dust, Nano technologies and Al, India still lagged far behind.
India can take an important step to get ready in this direction with the help of the new OS, as both the individual computer as well as the networking can be taken care by it.
For a past few years, the government has been planning to have its own operating system. However, due to absence of proactive and systematic approach and funding, it has it has not been able to take off. The development could not go beyond BOSS which besides being unsafe, in comparison to Microsoft Windows is also not as flexible, user friendly, and adaptable.
According to the sources, the new Linux based OS has been developed with the help of Gujarat Technical University and is totally indigenous, DRDO and private computer geeks has more or less all the features and simplicity of Microsoft Windows. Ever since the Government of India decided to adopt open source software, Microsoft has been losing ground in the government vertical for a while now.
To further smooth the rough edges and prepare it for the use of government ministries, it is believed that the OS would be handed over to department of electronics and information technology (DEITY).
To develop it further, the government can collaborate with indigenous industry giants later to create an open source OS along with other hardware and network systems that would convince and stimulate individuals and other entities to move from other OS like Windows, BlackBerry, Macintosh, RIM etc., sources added.
