1-13-07 MS Vista
For over a decade, the Justice Department has had the hots for Bill Gates' little business up in Redmond, Washington. Maybe they had a lot of reasons for that long series of legal actions in the anti-trust litigation over the years, but the hype machine was all about "protecting the consumer" from the big blue monopoly. It wasn't until the high profile of this activity slowly submerged into the background that I began to wonder and speculate.
Around the time that Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition came out, it occured to me that the main thrust of the US government going after Microsoft needn't be viewed as any sort of "consumer protection" activity, but rather as the big power in DC going after an emerging power in Washington state. After all, the Windows operating system is everywhere, and I'm sure that the big power in DC wouldn't want anything so ubiquitous to be entirely beyond their control. It's the inevitability of the US government's evolution into "Big Brother" that I'm talking about here.
OR, maybe it could be viewed as a coincidental opportunity.
Either way, my speculative musings about this began around the turn of the century, before the world changed on 9-11. Now that the world has changed I can hardly say that my suspicions regarding the Justice Department's settlement with Microsoft have been, in any way, allayed. Today, I found that the Washington Post published an article on Monday that, essentially, says the sort of things that spin the revelation of NSA involvement in the development of Windows over the past several years as a sort of "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." The article is all about how, yes, there's been a lot of security flaws in the various iterations of Windows over the years, but now they've got the NSA "helping them" to really put the security flaws to bed, once and for all.
Compare that spin today with the lack of "spin" in this article from 1999, and the fact that NSA involvement had been revealed up to seven years ago. Why is Microsoft only now coming around to this willingness to publicly admit it? Well, I guess they finally have a willing shill in the Washington Post to spin it as the "NSA seal of approval" for security.
Gee! They sure must've done a fantastic job "helping" Microsoft with security issues! A month ago, you could have done a google search on "Vista flaws" and found virtually nothing. Today, however, a Google search for "Vista flaws" turns up 23,100 hits, and a Yahoo search turns up 27,900 hits! And the software still hasn't even been released for sale to the general public yet!
It's apparent to me that "Vista flaws" and Windows' ever burgeoning lack of security over the past ten years are all about enabling back door access, rather than ensuring that it can't be done. For the consumer, real security would be the ABSENCE of any "back door access" at all. That the NSA has been "helping" Microsoft with this for at least seven years can hardly increase my feeling secure about the software in any way at all. The whole point has been to ENABLE that back door access, all along!
Frankly, this is NOT in the public interest to have the very things that hackers need to continue to subvert and damage internet activity, namely, the presence of INTENTIONAL SECURITY HOLES FOR BACKDOOR ACCESS, actively being developed and included in every iteration of Windows. In the name of "protecting the public" this situation clearly enables DECREASED security. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this misguided activity can be seen for what it is every time "security flaws" are reported, every time hackers succeed with some damaging worm or virus running rampant across the internet because of the Windows operating system's security flaws.
If NSA was such a great "seal of approval" then how come the whole time they've been involved, this problem has only GOTTEN WORSE???
Around the time that Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition came out, it occured to me that the main thrust of the US government going after Microsoft needn't be viewed as any sort of "consumer protection" activity, but rather as the big power in DC going after an emerging power in Washington state. After all, the Windows operating system is everywhere, and I'm sure that the big power in DC wouldn't want anything so ubiquitous to be entirely beyond their control. It's the inevitability of the US government's evolution into "Big Brother" that I'm talking about here.
OR, maybe it could be viewed as a coincidental opportunity.
Either way, my speculative musings about this began around the turn of the century, before the world changed on 9-11. Now that the world has changed I can hardly say that my suspicions regarding the Justice Department's settlement with Microsoft have been, in any way, allayed. Today, I found that the Washington Post published an article on Monday that, essentially, says the sort of things that spin the revelation of NSA involvement in the development of Windows over the past several years as a sort of "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." The article is all about how, yes, there's been a lot of security flaws in the various iterations of Windows over the years, but now they've got the NSA "helping them" to really put the security flaws to bed, once and for all.
Compare that spin today with the lack of "spin" in this article from 1999, and the fact that NSA involvement had been revealed up to seven years ago. Why is Microsoft only now coming around to this willingness to publicly admit it? Well, I guess they finally have a willing shill in the Washington Post to spin it as the "NSA seal of approval" for security.
Gee! They sure must've done a fantastic job "helping" Microsoft with security issues! A month ago, you could have done a google search on "Vista flaws" and found virtually nothing. Today, however, a Google search for "Vista flaws" turns up 23,100 hits, and a Yahoo search turns up 27,900 hits! And the software still hasn't even been released for sale to the general public yet!
It's apparent to me that "Vista flaws" and Windows' ever burgeoning lack of security over the past ten years are all about enabling back door access, rather than ensuring that it can't be done. For the consumer, real security would be the ABSENCE of any "back door access" at all. That the NSA has been "helping" Microsoft with this for at least seven years can hardly increase my feeling secure about the software in any way at all. The whole point has been to ENABLE that back door access, all along!
Frankly, this is NOT in the public interest to have the very things that hackers need to continue to subvert and damage internet activity, namely, the presence of INTENTIONAL SECURITY HOLES FOR BACKDOOR ACCESS, actively being developed and included in every iteration of Windows. In the name of "protecting the public" this situation clearly enables DECREASED security. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this misguided activity can be seen for what it is every time "security flaws" are reported, every time hackers succeed with some damaging worm or virus running rampant across the internet because of the Windows operating system's security flaws.
If NSA was such a great "seal of approval" then how come the whole time they've been involved, this problem has only GOTTEN WORSE???
posted by Jeff Barnard at 7:17 AM
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