I Feel Safer Already ...
The recent Washington Post story about how the NSA "helped" Microsoft to build Windows Vista makes me feel safer already ...
For the first time, the giant software maker is acknowledging the help of the secretive agency, better known for eavesdropping on foreign officials and, more recently, U.S. citizens as part of the Bush administration's effort to combat terrorism. 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."Our intention is to help everyone with security," Tony W. Sager, the NSA's chief of vulnerability analysis and operations group, said yesterday.
Why would I think that the NSA - of all people - would assist in making a computer "more secure" if it would thwart their efforts against the "War on Terror"?
Why is it that I suspect that the NSA intervention in this case is to ensure that in order to prosecute the "War on Terror" - they will cripple any form of security enhancements to enable a "back door" into Vista machines?
After all - if Windows Vista is as secure as Microsoft says it is - then the NSA and everyone else is going to have a harder time extracting evidence from the computers they examine - and not only that - but will also make it harder to plant Trojans and monitoring programs on the computers of terrorist suspects they are monitoring.
It doesn't make sense for the NSA to contribute technology that is a true "security enhancement" - because the last thing the NSA wants - is to make it harder for them to gather information.
Now there's a new slogan for Microsoft Vista - "I feel safer already" - except you are not.
Already Alex Ionescu is claiming to have cracked the "Driver Signing" problem.
If a well motivated hacker can crack this - for fun and all the right reasons - then think how many other people are working on this to provide us with a whole new generation of AdWare, Trojans and Monitoring software ..
Not to mention the NSA of course ...
Have I mentioned yet that I feel safer already ....
Tags: vista, nsa, washington post, drm, security, new cold war, alex ionescu