Microsoft Denies Windows 7 Has NSA Backdoor
No backdoor action for Windows 7, assures Microsoft.
Earlier this week we learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been working with Microsoft to improve the security measures of Windows 7.
"Working in partnership with Microsoft and (the Department of Defense), NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user's ability to perform their everyday tasks," said Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's Information Assurance Director. "All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later in the product cycle."
This cooperation by the two bodies led some to theorize that the NSA and Microsoft may have somehow built a backdoor into Windows 7.
Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center (EPIC), expressed his concern as the NSA has an interest in surveillance as as a part of its efforts in security.
"The key problem is that NSA has a dual mission, COMPUSEC, computer security, now called cyber security, and SIGINT, signals intelligence, in other words surveillance," Rotenberg said in an e-mail.
Microsoft quickly responded to such concerns.
"Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company spokeswoman said to Computerworld. "The work being discussed here is purely in conjunction with our Security Compliance Management Toolkit."
Of course, that's the expected response and conspiracy theorists won't likely be set easy with just that statement.
"The key point is that the NSA is not the right agency to promote computer security in the private sector," Rotenberg argued. "The risks to end users are real -- the original NSA key escrow proposal, 'Clipper,' was a terrible idea -- and there is too little transparency about these arrangements."
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Another good reason to move to opensource...
nice to see another article that has F all to do with a the UK on the .co.uk site...
It has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE UK.
This would mean that the United States' NSA would have access to Windows 7 computers operating not only in the US, but in every other country too. Now i dont have anything against GCHQ looking through my computer, hell i have nothing to hide and i trust my country.
Other country's though. Especially the US! im not so sure.
ITT: Denying something makes it true.
It would be a VERY POOR business decision to put backdoors in the operating system, if discovered it would wipe them out, they would have zero credibility and people would abandon Windows overnight.
Obviously if there were backdoors they would deny it, but it is still somewhat reassuring to have an official statement to that effect... and as I said it would be commercial suicide to implement anything of the sort...
Lol if this is true then it illegal for them to sell it anywhere in the world. surley to god the goverment of USA cannot keep this sercert anylonger otherwise there in one HUGH heap of trouble
I'd say any Wester security agency would have a vested interest in being involved in supporting the security arrangements of Windows or any other major OS.
1. They can hope that way that foreign powers will have a harder time breaking the security
2. The knowledge gained could be useful in breaking the security / knowing weak spots etc
3. They could possibly make a pirate version with a tweak or two to the security that would give a backdoor (not that a security service would do anything illegal ever) - but only to people willing to illegally acquire software, which is rather large in China etc iirc
Years ago Microsoft was caught with a specific crypto key in the OS (might of been Win 95) labeled NSAKey (or something similar, my memory fails me) in addition to the usual OS crypto key when someone reverse engineered the OS code. Seems to me, NSA and Microsoft are probably just continuing their working relationship.
There are bacdoors in every o/s produced or security flaws that can enable another remote user access your IP address is the biggest one of them all