What is Digg?126 Comments
- kman004, on 10/12/2007, -28/+130from Washington Post article..
"The agency said it has helped in the development of the security of Microsoft's new operating system -- the brains of a computer -- to protect it from worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers."
"With hundreds of thousands of Defense Department employees using Microsoft's software, the NSA realizes that it's in its own interest to make the product as secure as possible."
"Other software makers have turned to government agencies for security advice, including Apple, which makes the Mac OS X operating system. "We work with a number of U.S. government agencies on Mac OS X security and collaborated with the NSA on the Mac OS X security configuration guide," said Apple spokesman Anuj Nayar in an e-mail."
Read the ***** article before you make assumptions. Not everyone is out to get you. - HUKI365, on 10/12/2007, -10/+44Apple get's help as well. And there were lines of code from NSA in XP as well.
- halavais, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30The NSA has a long history of "requesting" that large communications companies provide them with backdoors. I would be surprised if the NSA *didn't* request such a backdoor in Vista. That's not paranoia, it's just common sense.
Note that the NSA sponsored a strong encryption version of Linux. We can be a bit more sanguine about their involvement when the specifics are open to all. - wizzerking, on 10/12/2007, -63/+89Just another reason to jump ship and/or never install Vista
Who knows if there is some NSA Backdoor or Not
I and my clients have all but moved to Ubuntu, I still have 12 clients thats are waiting for Microsoft to end of life XP Pro,
as soon as that happens it goodbye to M$Soft and good riddance. - JeffH, on 10/12/2007, -13/+35Exactly. A lot of the brilliant computer security minds of the United States work for the US Government, because their information needs to be as secure as possible. It's not hard to believe the NSA would like an OS that their employees can use (they themselves probably use their own UNIX-based OS) so the information stays as secure as possible. Security gurus get paid much more working for the government than Anti-Virus Company X.
- GeneralFailure0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21@lacronicus
Accepting the government's complete control over us and resolving 'not to worry about it' kind of defeats the whole purpose of representative democracy, does it not? Government for the people, not over them. - jrsims, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Look, unless it's open source, you never really can call it safe. I personally find it hard to believe that there are no back doors built into proprietary operating systems (particularly consumer OSes like Windows and OS X). If not for national security reasons, then simply for the valuable data that can be mined by studying user habits.
And I'm tired of people who think this line of thinking is paranoia. HP has written keyboard drivers that phone home without user consent. Canon has built and sold printers that embed their serial numbers into each and every printed page (supposedly, this was to track counterfeiters). AT&T let the NSA hook into their networks in exchange for contracts. And of course, we all know about Sony's rootkits.
I fully support the notion of making money by selling proprietary software and services. But I think it's in the best interest of humanity that people have ready access to a free, open, and secure OS by default. If the proprietary software you install on this free OS happens to carry certain privacy risks with it, so be it. It's your choice. But when your first and only choice (for many people this is true) is an operating system developed with the primary purpose of making money, I think it's only natural that this operating system will eventually work against you.
Lets not forget that you do not own your copy of Windows. You purchase a license to use it. Microsoft still owns that bytecode you boot up everyday.
Think about that for a minute. - trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19@darkspire The big difference being that it is kind of hard to put hidden back doors in open source code, no?
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21The big difference there being that it is kind of hard to put hidden back doors in open source code, no?
- tagawa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19SELinux is open source. Apples and oranges.
- catalysis, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23So does this mean that the NSA will know that I prefer creampie videos to, say, interracial porn?
- brickbat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18@kman
wtf do you expect them to say? "Yeah we put in a backdoor so we can access anyones files anywhere in the world any time we want. We're are the NSA. Do you have a problem with that....terrorist?"
No, they are going to say "We are helping with security."
So why don't they deny it? Because if (when) hackers find the code, as they did with XP, it's going to be physical proof that they lied. Now they can just say "Yeah, we told you that we were 'helping Microsoft'. This is old news. Nothing to see here. Move along." - shuffle2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17it's funny, because the NSA are supposedly the people that figured out how to hack WEP first, and how to deauth windows clients, and pickup the data packets they spewed forth from being deauthed.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Some Diggers work for government/military contractors. Don't laugh.
And don't doubt for a moment that Digg isn't being monitored by all sorts of agencies and organizations. Mostly commercial-related stuff, but the spooks are out there.
Hello spooks. Please do something about the chimp that's hijacked the White House.
And I would like the $500 billion in tax revenue that he stole returned at some point. - ardenr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16This completely explains flag564's comments on Digg... He works for the NSA!
/Too much credit. - lacronicus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@shuffle
id rather they did it than almost anyone else. anybody can crack wep in like, what is it now, 5 minutes? so its not all that secure anyway. besides, as tom clancy once wrote(yeah not the greatest source for tech, but still valid) do you think the govt would allow any encryption it cant already break? - felderado, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@JeffH
"Exactly. A lot of the brilliant computer security minds of the United States work for the US Government, because their information needs to be as secure as possible. It's not hard to believe the NSA would like an OS that their employees can use (they themselves probably use their own UNIX-based OS) so the information stays as secure as possible. Security gurus get paid much more working for the government than Anti-Virus Company X."
They use Linux.
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/ - nbx909, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10they invented SELinux for their own purposes.
- ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23FUD. The NSA helped audit many OS', including Windows XP, Windows 2003, and SE Linux.
Take off your tin foil hats people. - BWhaler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9But the code is open source, so you can read the code and verify each and every function.
WIndows, a closed system, does not allow for this.
Your comment is so far off base, it is breathtaking. - shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11the tinfoil hat gag is getting a little tired if you ask me.
- lacronicus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10honestly, nearly any step that puts windows closer to osx is good, but a few things arent, and those things are enough to keep me on the pc platform, namely open hardware. i cant build a mac, and although the benefit of not having to deal with bad hardware from the likes of dell i seliminated by the non-open hardware apple uses, I still like to know that I dont need a manufacturer to fix my computer. I tried linux, and it simply doesnt work as well as windows. sure, in the future, i will have enough coding experience to write some myself, but that is the only benefit i see in linux when $150 for an OS that i will use for years is a relatively cheap investment.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9[quote]Hey guess what... the NSA has contributed source code to various projects to run on the various Unix variants as well. Specifically take a look at selinux http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/news.cfm[/quote]
Last time I checked, Vista's source code wasn't publically available. It took all of Europe just to force MS to document their APIs!
I would like legal assurance from MS that there aren't any kinds of backdoors in Vista. Backdoors for the NSA *AND* MS! I don't want MS looking around at my files either.
(They would discover I stole Bill Gates' orbital battlestation plans) - mliving, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Boy you Amerikans *****' kill me.
Your President lies to start a war the world didn't need, pisses away three generations of resources while fattening the wallets of his corp buddies and campaign contributors, disappears people who disagrees with him, listens to your phone calls and recently stated with a signing statement that he can read your mail any time he wants yet the stupid *****' intelli-techies on DIGG start telling everyone to put away their tinfoil hats.
Why not put down you shiny toys and shake your empty *****' heads a little harder so you can start counting how many of your precious "constitutional freedoms" have been pissed away by that functioning id10t, paranoid ***** you call your President.
I'll keep my tinfoil hat on thanks and have fun with MSNSA Vista boys!
As for SELinux. What does Linus have to say about these so-called NSA inclusions to the Linux kernel? - tehkain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yea like the government did during the Red Scare. The People in power have never done anything to destroy another person for their own agenda when the person was guilty of nothing at all. Right?
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7[quote]So this is headline FUD even though the article isn't just so you can reach the front page?
He should of added something about tin foil hats to the title for the full effect.[/quote]
Do you have trouble reading? This is an exact quote from the article:
"According to the Washington Post, the agency which was once so secret that it was jokingly referred to as 'No such Agency' has admitted making 'unspecified contributions' to Vista." - funk49, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Boy, I bet the NSA made sure to give MS EVERY SINGLE 0DAY they found in the code. Just so Microsoft could tighten everything up like the nice guys they are....RIGHT.
@mlliving
Please enlighten us as to what wonderful utopian paradise you come from where the politicians are honest and 90 percent of the citizens don't have their proverbial heads up their asses. Newsflash: The govt here has been corrupt for a hundred years and and short of a revolution, change is never going to happen barring some kind of national disaster.
And...I wonder if this NSA connection to Vista has anything to do with Common Criteria evaluation that just about every OS goes through. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Tin foil hats help against non-lethal energy weapons. They're not a joke anymore.
You'd really need more of a tin-foil suit than just a hat for it to be effective though.
"The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72134-0.html
And you call us paranoid? - mushoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Since this "assitance" is at our expese I demand some form of rebate or price drop before I buy it.
- uazzhole, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6If "they" think its OK to open your Mail, tap your phones , check your bank accounts....WITHOUT A WARRANT Then makes you think they wont to put some backdoor or anythings else in Vista....Thats smart thinking there..
- surfactant, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7WP link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/08/AR2007010801352.html
"The Redmond, Wash., software maker declined to be specific about the contributions the NSA made to secure the Windows operating system."
Eek. - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Google up some of the "projects" that public relations companies run for the U.S. government. Yeah, they do astroturf Digg, and you pay for it. People who do that kind of thing are lower than dirt. They are the same kind of people who will staff concentration camps and torture people. Real worthless pieces of *****.
- BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Linux, unlike say... openbsd, is not periodically audited for security holes.
Sometimes it seems nobody reads certain chunks of code. I think it would be pretty easy for someone like the NSA to hide backdoors if they wanted too, assuming the code was obsfucated enough and put in a low-developer-traffic part of the kernel - danrdanny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Taking my tinfoil hat off for a moment - you also have to note that Apple solicited the help of the NSA on OSX (read the Washington Post article). You also have to admit that it's in their best interest to do 2 things - seriously try to find holes to protect US government users and find possible backdoors for their own exploitation in the future.
Putting my tinfoil hat back on - it is pretty scary that the NSA and other unnamed government agencies get a serious first crack at developing exploits. It also wouldn't be completely surprising if they installed software of their own and/or advised certain development methods which they could exploit in the future.
And don't think the US is the only government interested in setting up backdoors or having a first shot at exploits. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Inclusions into the Linux kernel are reviewed so it wouldn't matter if Stalin wrote code for it. Not to say sneaking in a useful buffer overflow is impossible, but it's much more difficult to do than have MS compile in NSA disk encryption keys and special tcp/ip fingerprint triggers activating ghost servers to download any information they want using the dead space in the packets while you visit msn.com or google.com.
- rstevens, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Bugs in homes?
Why not plant video and audio bugs in every home? They already tap our phones, read our emails and can break in when they want and arrest us.
America, Mark Twain once said, is a nation without a distinct criminal class "with the possible exception of Congress." Does anyone believe today's government is just a "possible exception"? People, had enough yet? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9People, before starting to bitch at Microsoft, read the article.
"Microsoft is not the only one to tap the spooks. Apple, with its Mac OSX operating system, and Novell with its SUSE Linux also asked the NSA what it thought of their products. The NSA is quite good at finding weapons of mass destruction that are not there"
People all the time complain about security flaws in Windows. Nobody cares / knows how many exist in Linux or Mac OS. If Microsoft takes a proactive steps in consulting a government agency to try find security holes, people complain again.
Do you really think Microsoft will be so stupid to release an OS with backdoors to NSA. They will get sued their ass off.
Now, nobody wants to should about Apple is it ? What about all the small GPS devices in your cellphones ? Oh yes, people don't bother about it because that was not made by Microsoft. - shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5this was off topic and really long so I deleted it -sorry
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Did you miss the first 100 times this was answered already?
- rotarychainsaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I was going to reply with a joke, but decided not to for fear of retaliation by the men in black suits.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You people don't realize how easily the political climate can change. You also don't realize where some of the industry is heading. They want to make your hardware be registered to you and strictly regulated just like a car, or a firearm. They want your hardware to leave tracks they can monitor. They want to know what you data you have. They want to track your purchases, your political affiliation, and your religion. They want to track you, they want every single human being instantly accessible, indentifiable--and targetable.
This is not paranioa, this is the so-called Trusted Computing, and companies like Intel, Microsoft, as well as the Hollywood MAFIAA are actively pushing for it to become the de facto standard so they can have full control over your lives. Open-sourced software and "unauthorized" hardware would be blocked.
That's their plan at least. I don't think it will succeed, but only if consumers stop it before it can. I hope by now George W. Bush has taught you all you need to know about complacency. And what would the next Bush be like? Can you trust the government and the corporations with such control over your lives?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing - Wootery, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4As trogdoor put it twice already,
"The big difference there being that it is kind of hard to put hidden back doors in open source code, no?" - rodgerdodger5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rendon_Group - onimusha115, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Too many things seem to be wrong with vista, from being far too compliant with drm, to the all too high computer specs required to simply run it. I switched to linux (fedora core) when my hdd ***** out on me and I didnt want to pay for xp again since I had lost my copy, and from what I have read about vista I see no need to go back. Linux does everything I need, yes, its a little complicated at times, but generally once your regular use programs are set up is smooth sailing from there. Plus my computer runs 24/7 with absolutly not lagging down over time like i had with windows, I no longer worry about/get viruses or spyware, and you just cant beat the price of the OS or its supporting programs. I am defanitly a linux convert from now on.
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Without source code to audit the operating system, and with the history of confirmed NSA backdoors in windows products, I'll be using OpenBSD and GNU/Linux and I hope many of you do too.
It's not so much the NSA I'm afraid of, it's more so that some lamer will find these exploits and make a program for script kiddies then before you know it every 14 year old "haxor" ***** that can operate a mouse, the ones that won't leave you alone when you get out of 4th period class for lunch because you have Tux or the Daemon (and because you aren't nerdy like them), on your back will be in ur computerz lookin at ur pornz if you're stupid enough to use proprietary software. =) - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Hello spooks. Do something about the federal reserve and the 13 or so private families that own and operate it. We've been taken over by Europe. More of your average joes know about this than you'd expect.
. . your time will come. =) - tagawa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5At your expense, not mine - I live outside the US.
I demand some form of supplement or price hike before I buy it. - JusticeAK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Right, Nobody is tapping your phone, reading your mail, until you start speaking out in your town square about over taxation or political corruption. All the sudden your at the top of the list.
I guess we should just all lay low, try not to attract any attention. - jimbo92107, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For those who say conspiracy theories about Microsoft and spook agencies are the stuff of delusions, I have one question:
How do you know? - tehkain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Oh and if the market switched then games would be developed natively for that OS. Did you honestly think that all games needed to be virtualized on non windows systems? You sir are a moron.
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