If you use Mozilla Thunderbird as your email client, you’re in good company, as not only does the military use it, but they also contributed code to the latest Thunderbird 3. Alright, so it’s the French military…
With 80,000 computers in the military using it, the French government thought it imperative to adapt it to their needs – which Mozilla evidently liked, as they included some of their code in Thunderbird 3 which launched this week.
David Ascher, Chief Executive of Mozilla Messaging, explained:
The primary changes (the military) have made allow them to know for sure when messages have been read, which is critical in a command-and-control organisation.
As well as using the open source Thunderbird, the French government is also adopting Linux as its primary OS, and OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. [Sydney Morning Herald]
Image credit: Isafmedia
Chris S
Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 9:12 PMI wonder if the French military also required them to merge the master password for logins with the security device password? It seems that what used to be separate in 2.0 is now under the control of one password such that you cannot keep certificates secure without also being required to enter the master password to retrieve email. A terribly senseless design change in my opinion that opens vulnerabilities for users who choose automated retrieval without realizing their certificate store is now unprotected.