Should it bother me that the National Security Agency has a website? Or even stranger, that it has a special website just for kids?
I mean, we’re talking about a government agency that was once so secretive that “NSA” was supposed to stand for “No Such Agency.” Weird.
Hmmmm… even weirder, I just noticed that the NSA website is running—of all things—Cold Fusion, and according to Netcraft, it’s actually sitting on Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0. What the hell? One of the premier spook agencies of the United States and they’re running Cold Fusion on Windows???
To further enhance the cognitive dissonance experience, check out question number 16 from the FAQ:
I’ve seen NSA/CSS in movies and on TV. Do you assassinate people? Do you secretly perform experiments on us?
Because we work with highly sensitive information, we are frequently the subject of speculation – and highly imaginative and creative fictitious pieces in the media. However, it is important to distinguish fact from fiction. The fact is that the Executive Order 12333 (EO 12333) strictly prohibits any intelligence agency from conducting these unethical activities, and we strictly abide by that Order.
Most of the gov’t security agencies have kids areas on their sites. I remember seeing a thing in Wired about them a while back — they’re trying to make the gov’t more Kid-Friendly.
But what’s wrong with ColdFusion on Windows? Yes, I know it’s not PHP on Apache, but ColdFusion on Windows 2003 is better than ColdFusion on *nix or previous versions of Windows.
You’re kidding, right? Right?
About the ColdFusion? Sadly, no. I haven’t had personal experience with it, but my college roommate is a heavy duty CF programmer, and he says that he’s had better luck on Windows than *nix. So take my opinion with a grain of salt 🙂