Caspar Bowden, former Microsoft Privacy Chief no longer trusts MS

[Teunis]

Until two years ago Caspar was the MS privacy officer, he has certainly turned a corner...
http://hothardware.com/News/Former-M...s-The-Company/
His presentation for a comity of the EU parliament:
http://youtu.be/qa83l2_ZzEo
As pdf:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdo...ingnote_en.pdf

[tek_heretik]

I became suspicious of Microslop's OS embedded 'spyware' years ago, way before this NSA scandal, shameful, George Orwell was right. Thanks for posting , interesting reading. Lest we not forget Intel jumped on the bandwagon for a while, while traceable CPU identifiers. It's things like this that force people 'underground', I've been predicting there will be two internets in the future.

Edit: With the US government consistently letting MS off the hook (in the courts) or mere slaps on the wrist, it's no wonder MS is so 'co-operative'.

[woodsmoke]

Nice post Tenuis.

I will merely indicate:

a) compare the map to a post that I made in another thread a couple of months ago that "the U.S. "controls" internet traffic"., it may be a "direct" control or a "defacto" control but it is in large part that.

b)

Long term, the problem could lead to the construction of digital firewalls, in which the United States is effectively isolated behind protective nodes built by local governments to scrub and redirect traffic away from potential capture points.

How many times have I posted that the U.S. started constructing such a "firewall" around itself concerning "media".since during the Bush administration...

BUT at least Bush put a stop to the much coveted(by Dems and BUSINESS) idea of having to have a "talk radio" station PROVE it was working in the "public interest"....

but.....the digital firewall statted under BUSH...

about........the "non - royalty paying" evil internet streaming media people...

The extreme case that I cited was that a man that had developed an internet radio station that went to ALL of the rest of the world but had to get a "key" to get into the U.S.?

And under the NEWLY EXPANDED UNDER..... Patriot Act......under Pres. OBAMA.... any "attack" on the "BUSINESS" interests of a U.S. company is considered terrorism?...... such as..... you downloading a youtube video?

Because of the POSSIBILITY that YOU downloading a video would POSSIBLLY reduce royalty payments to a media company ...?

"We" in the U.S. always think in terms of the "U.S. government" building a "firewall" around the U.S. to help the U.S.

hmmmmm seems that the rest of the world may not think like we do....

but.... hmmmmm....

which is the "go to country" that has the capability for country XYZ to ask to..... snoop on it's citizens...FOR them.....? hmm

methinks that the REALY PREGNANT SENTENCE....

is he does not carry a cell phone.

again, Tenuis, great post

woodsmoke

[Feathers McGraw]

Watching the youtube video now, it's fascinating. And scary.

A related topic - EFF's "Who Has Your Back 2013" report

Thanks for posting.

Feathers

[Feathers McGraw]

Just finished it. A lovely little free software gem there at the end..

http://youtu.be/qa83l2_ZzEo?t=1h2m5s

Feathers

[Robtygart]

The bigger problem here is that due to the way the Internet routes traffic, there's no guarantee that a message from Point to Point B doesn't travel over US networks. Obviously that's not going to happen if you're sending data from one small town to another in Europe, but a message from, say, Brazil to Canada almost certainly passes through the United States. A message from South or Central America to Europe or China? Same deal.

Since phones work using "Voice over IP" its a lot more then "Internet Traffic"....

[GreyGeek]

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...l=1#post332719

[SteveRiley]

Caspar is one of the good guys. This news is disturbing.

[GreyGeek]

The PDF has this statement:

The first section provides a historical account of US surveillance programmes, showing that the US authorities have continuously disregarded the human right to privacy of non-Americans. The analysis of various surveillance programmes (Echelon, PRISM) and US national security legislation (FISA, PATRIOT and FAA) clearly indicates that surveillance activities by the US authorities are conducted without taking into account the rights of non-US citizens and residents.

I beg to disagree. US authorities are disregarding EVERYONE'S human rights, including US citizens. Just today, priests and preachers were warned that they would be jailed IF they administered religious services to people in the armed forces! Folks, these people (extremists for sure) aren't trying to repeal just the 2nd Amendment, they are going for the whole document.

[Feathers McGraw]

Just today, priests and preachers were warned that they would be jailed IF they administered religious services to people in the armed forces

Interesting... got a reference for that please?

[GreyGeek]

http://www.milarch.org/site/apps/nln...99&ct=13344123

Military personnel enjoy, like all Americans, the First Amendment guarantee of the “Free Exercise” of their particular religious faith. But because military personnel are considered a “captive audience,” the laws of our country require the government to provide access to that faith. This is why we have a military chaplaincy. This all becomes very clear when one thinks of a military family stationed in Bahrain or Japan. They cannot walk down the street to the local synagogue, church, mosque, etc.

There is a chronic shortage of active duty Catholic chaplains. While roughly 25% of the military is Catholic, Catholic priests make up only about 8% of the chaplain corps. That means approximately 275,000 men and women in uniform, and their families, are served by only 234 active-duty priests. The temporary solution to this shortage is to provide GS and contract priests. These men are employed by the government to ensure that a priest is available when an active duty Catholic Chaplain is not present. With the government shutdown, many GS and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer. During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.

It's the same for protestant ministers as well.

[Feathers McGraw]

That's such a strange situation, would never have thought the shutdown would have effects like this.

At least it's not intentional, just an unintended consequence.

You'd have to be an absolute jobsworth to arrest someone who is volunteering to do that. Is the reason they aren't permitted to minister that while they aren't being paid they're not technically military personnel (and only military personnel are allowed to preach on the bases)?

Feathers

[Roguehorse]

To be honest, I haven't trusted Microsoft since about 2007. There just seems to be something fishy going on with a system that requires 3rd party software to be semi-secure and allows no one to view the code on top of trying to monopolize on every desktop and laptop in the world. Too many people getting boot viruses that require scrubbing a pre-installed software causing them to have to go out and buy yet another copy of the software. More money spent to the same company that makes the software as well as more money spent to the companies who code to protect that software that didn't in the first place. All the while the user is blamed for not taking proper precautions.

I don't even do dual boots anymore. Keep it in a VM and turn off the NAT.

[tek_heretik]

To be honest, I haven't trusted Microsoft since about 2007. There just seems to be something fishy going on with a system that requires 3rd party software to be semi-secure and allows no one to view the code on top of trying to monopolize on every desktop and laptop in the world. Too many people getting boot viruses that require scrubbing a pre-installed software causing them to have to go out and buy yet another copy of the software. More money spent to the same company that makes the software as well as more money spent to the companies who code to protect that software that didn't in the first place. All the while the user is blamed for not taking proper precautions.

I don't even do dual boots anymore. Keep it in a VM and turn off the NAT.

Great post, thank you, well said.

[Roguehorse]

@tek_heretik,

Thank you for you kind words!

I should go on to elaborate that I do not bash on Microsoft much anymore as I used to. Some of the software they produce is actually pretty good however, compared to the quality of the open source alternatives I believe it is over priced. Their business model could use a makeover and hopefully this re-org they are supposedly going through will turn the company around. I still prefer Linux and the open source model and believe Microsoft would do well to produce a Linux based "openWindows" version of their OS as an alternative to the closed license model. As we know this will probably never happen and they will have to figure out how to sustain growth or cut back some other way.