Government spooks helped Microsoft build Vista

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36814

 

Do not doubt that possibility at all. The "Men in Black" are here.

 

Did you catch the bit about the assistance is at the taxpayers expense?

 

Since the Government produces no resalable product of their own they have no cash of their own. Everything they do is at the taxpayers expense.

 

I say worry about the real issues... In this case it makes sense, to me anyway. I'm not american, but i'd say tax expenses well explained
If they used this for other reasons, well what's the difference? NSA i guess will do what it pleases with any computer

 

That is my exact concern. I am well aware of the history of my Government. If the ability for abuse (however one defines "abuse") is there, eventually it will be used.

 

I forgot about this, on the link's link to the Post:

"-- the brains of a computer --" , that's, that's, wow I'm not able to comment. Who are they writing to?

 

I don't think your US Government is alone in this and especialy not the one we have here.

 

Is that why I get a refund?

 

My initial reaction was MS should pay for its governmental help. I think the government may have been helping itself.

Your tax status doesn't exempt you from this picture.

 

It's not hard to guess what the NSA's contribution is for, and I doubt that M$ or Apple had much choice in the matter. I have no doubt that Vista is spyware in the truest sense and any "security improvements" added by the NSA are for "national security", not user or system security.
Rick

 

100% agreement Herbalist. <TZ donning his flame retardant suit>

 

That more than explains why they chose to "lock" security software out of the kernel without really securing it. It's not to keep malware out but to prevent someone from seeing what is or will be running, completely concealed.
A win-win situation, for them anyway. The NSA gets a powerful spyware tool that will end up in most homes and businesses, paid for by those being spied on, and Microsoft gets an ever expanding monopoly with almost no limits on where it expands to or how they dominate the competition.
If I had to choose between Vista and no internet, I'd go offline before I'd use it.
Rick

 

Agreed 110%. I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

and what one may consider a wild "couldnt possibly happen here" conspiracy theory foisted by tinfoil wearing Linux nutz


is actually a valid and pressing concern to many foreign governemnts
to the point they have started adoption or are studying adoption of transparent opensource systems
having the NSA caught spying on their diplomatic communications didnt help
neither did the illegal mass monitoring of communications since 9\11

 

If that is true, its impact not just on issues of privacy and security, but on society as a whole would be tremendous. A subject worth investigating

 

Unfortunately I see Suse as well as Mac mentioned in that article. To what extent the NSA had a hand in it is unclear......
D\l`ing Ubuntu as we speak. Will be looking into dual booting very soon.

 

I am sure it is and will be for quit some time, but my people with far more knowledge and capability then I.

 

'How NSA access was built into Windows':
A pre-9/11 article from the Heise archives

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html

 

however researchers have access to the source code at least in openSuse
makes all the difference

 

Just more incentive to stay with my modified pre-9/11 operating system and encryption software, not to metion Russian HIPS software.

I have to wonder about the legal repercussions if one did find spyware running in a "locked" kernel and published it, the way they worded the laws.
Rick

 

also archived in techweb
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990903S0014

I just hope my previous assertion is still valid


and an excerpt of a thread Im in at CGTalk (newly edited thanks Pinga)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
lets add a bit more context to the why and how

http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/
free culture (flash presentation)
Lawrence Lessig Prof of Law Stanford University Copyright & Fair Use Center

there are a handful of media giants that have damn near a stranglehold on mass communications, they are also the holders of the majority of financially viable copyrighted material, while copyright is vested in the creator, more and more its now created under a contract where the creator holds little to no rights or is part of a team, and even when they do hold full rights terms are generally set by the monopolistic giants as to its value.

Vista acts as a proxy enforcer for a very large portion of this media, so its not unusual to see damn near every media outlet pushing this, some of the writers with at least a bit of self respect and a reputation to protect are slipping in qualifiers, there were likely more of them before editing, what you dont see is a single mass media tied author denouncing this as a pig in a poke. We have no independent mass media any more. This became obvious to many in the recent political arena.

the NSA's involvement with development was mentioned before...
but before you dismiss that terse warning as the rantings of some tin foil wearing conspiracy nut consider its actually a valid and pressing concern to many foreign governments
to the point they have started adoption or are studying adoption of transparent open source systems
having the NSA caught spying on their diplomatic communications didn't help
neither did the illegal mass monitoring of communications since 9\11

further consider that the security structure of Vista while lauded as "more secure" is actually a means to lock out most legitimate security researchers (at least legally and keep them from developing products legally) but thats not true for malware authors, they didnt really secure the kernel just employed alot of slight of hand misdirection.
its a move designed to consolidate the security industry to only the players with a relationship to Microsoft, and pave their way into the market as a major vendor themselves

in that context reconsider this statement
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=190

 

I clicked, and:

So i went to just http://www.cryptonym.com/ and:

Boo?
weird

 

Strange(?) that the site, http://www.cryptonym.com/ , mentioned at the end of the article, is for all intents and purposes no longer in existence.

 

silly wabbits

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cryptonym.com/hottopics/msft-nsa/ReplaceNsaKey.zip

you know they make a nice FireFox extension called cache view

might consider a refresher course as well
http://www.searchlores.org/

of course actually employing the exe......
need to study this
wouldnt think the biggest spy agency around would totally miss this

might ask him