I’m always happy to see Linux get on the Common Criteria validated products list. Red Hat is a good product and its good to see the industry picking up on it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a general purpose, multi-user, multi-tasking Linux based operating system. It provides a platform for a variety of applications in the governmental and commercial environment. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available on a broad range of computer systems, ranging from departmental servers to multi-processor enterprise servers and small server type computer systems.

It was given an Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL 4).

Good Article about it at Computer World

Disclaimer: The following is pure speculation on my part. I am simply a private citizen doing my own independent research. I do NOT have access to any confidential information regarding any kind of national ID system. According to the Department of Homeland Security their is no national ID system anyway.

The U.S. Government has put the REAL ID act of 2005 in to motion (it road in on the back of a troop support bill). It specifies the need to consolidate all state ID and driver’s license systems and a standardization of basic features of each card (features such as types of data to data).

This sounds like the first step in making U.S. driver’s licences/ID cards into a national ID card. Something most Americans oppose. Merging all the driver’s license databases together could allow for an Open Grid Service Achitecture (OGSA).

What is Open Grid Service Architecture?
According to Open Grid Service Architecture ver 1.0:
Key to the realization of this Grid vision is standardization, so that the diverse components that make up a modern computing environment can be discovered, accessed, allocated, monitored, accounted for, billed for, etc., and in general managed as a single virtual system—even when provided by different vendors and/or operated by different organizations. Standardization is critical if we are to create interoperable, portable, and reusable components and systems; it can also contribute to the development of secure, robust, and scalable Grid systems by facilitating the use of good practices.

The REAL ID system could be a part of the Total Information Awareness system that DARPA’s Information Awareness system originally released to the public.