Comment
Comment by ranadomo
This is an absurd statement to make about a DOD program. Securing communication is communication in the most adversarial environment imaginable. There are thousands of problems that only emerge once cryptographic authentication and authorization are enabled. This isn't a b2b sass app where you can just add an "auth layer" once the api is built out. It's passing mission-critical messages through signal-jamming and unimaginably hostile imitation scenarios. Many DOD programs are built as prototypes that don't ever factor security in the architecture, and then have massive problems and delays trying to implement it later.
DOD cyber acquisition is run by the most incompetent clowns on earth. The only reason they don't know how terrible their software is, is because they're not capable of detecting how fundamentally compromised their systems are, and China and Russia are not exactly white-hats looking for a bounty.