How NSA access was built into Windows

[Claude Jones]

On Mon January 15 2007 10:40 am, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> As you meanwhile noticed this incident took place in 1999.
>
> May-be you're too young, may-be it had escaped you, but it had shattered
> earth then ...
>
> Googling still provides many links originating from this time reflecting
> this. For example:
> http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/03/windows.nsa.02/
>
Ralf: I'm not sure what you're getting at. I've mentioned a couple of times in 
this thread that I've heard this story before - as for being young, well, 
some say you enter second childhood at a certain age, so if being nearly 60 
qualifies me, then I'm young...

> >  and I've wondered
> > why. Being an American, and living in my country under the current
> > administration, the matter has certainly raised questions in my own mind.
> > I'm not personally concerned about who sees what on my machines, but the
> > broader issue involved is still relevant concerning questions of
> > over-reaching govt. and erosion of civil liberties, and protections
> > against unsupervised warrantless surveillance
>
> Well, then you probably will have difficulties to imagine the impact
> this incident had on MS outside of the US.
>
I've no such difficulty - I'm well aware about concerns raised by other 
countries regarding matters such as this - much more aware than your average 
American. What I meant by "not being personally concerned" was that I don't 
do things on my machines that could remotely be construed as threatening to 
anyone, nor do I keep data on them that I don't want accessed - but just 
because my life is an open book, it doesn't mean that I want someone else 
having the right to database it secretly...

> It's not an exaggeration to state it had shattered trust into Microsoft
> products and had been one reason amongst others which had caused major
> institutions (e.g. governments) to switch away from Microsoft products.
>
> > I mostly find it curious that the matter just hasn't even come up...
>
> I recall it (and the fact the NSA is involved into SELinux + RH
> promoting it actively) having come up several times before on this list.
>
Fair enough - I hadn't noticed it in over 3.5 years, but I don't necessarily 
read every single post - it's a busy list

> One thing I can tell for sure: There is still a noticible group of Linux
> users in Europe, for whom this incident and the NSA's involvement into
> SELinux is an argument for "not choosing" Fedora.
I'm not surprised, and I have heard that myself - in fact, that comes up quite 
frequently in other forums and lists - I just haven't seen much discussion of 
it here...

-- 
Claude Jones
Brunswick, MD, USA