Feeling Secure

Is Microsoft co-opted by Big Brother? Once, PC users only had to worry about spying by the Redmond behemoth. Now, who else is secretly snooping on your PC - recording activities, recording hard drive contents, or planting code to send all of your communications to - where?

For many years it was only wild speculation. But now Microsoft has confirmed: "Yes, we have collaborated with the National Security Agency (NSA),: which is the most secretive of all U.S. intelligence services, in the development of their new Vista operating system. The company claims that this will enhance security for PC users, but critics fear there is an entirely different motive.

The U.S. National Security Agency has participated in the development of the new Windows operating system, called Vista....... "For some time, we have been cooperating with the intelligence services," said Thomas Baumgärtner, a spokesman for Microsoft Germany. With the support of the intelligence services, the goal is to make the operating system more secure against hacker attacks.

It is the first time that Microsoft has publicly admitted to cooperating with the secret services, but privacy advocates and critics have assumed as much for years. They fear that the NSA has built back doors into the operating system, so that PC’s around the world can be surveilled - including those owned by private individuals...................Tony Sager, the NSA chief of vulnerability analysis and operations, told the Washington Post, “Our intention is to help everyone with security”

Sure, and I have some nice, dry land in Florida for sale......
Posted on The Human Stain