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    Why we can no longer trust Microsoft...

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421733,00.asp

    John Dvorak opens up on Microsoft:
    Microsoft, despite denials, appears to be in bed with the NSA. Apparently all encryption and other methods to keep documents and discussions private are bypassed and accessible by the NSA and whomever it is working with. This means a third party, for whatever reason, can easily access confidential business deals, love letters, government classified memos, merger paperwork, financial transactions, intra-corporate schemes, and everything in between.
    With that said, do you really want to buy a Microsoft product? Do you want to buy anything that gives easy access to snoops poking around at their leisure? If you'd think twice about this, then why would a foreign government rely on Microsoft Office with any confidence? Personally, if I were any foreign government or corporation, I'd stop using all Microsoft products immediately for fear of America spying on me. Nothing can be secret.


    If I was a shareholder in any public company, I'd get up at the annual meeting and ask if the company was using Microsoft products and if so, I'd demand to know why it has not dumped them for something else. (And Google Docs is not an option.) And by the way, the Windows operating system is corrupted too. Smart money now uses Linux. The Linux code is open and available and you can look for yourself to see if the OS is sending messages to a spy agency or not.


    This is a financial disaster waiting to happen. Microsoft is oblivious if it is not doing something to divorce itself from the NSA.
    Apple, on the other hand, could have come out smelling like a rose, but following the death of Steve Jobs, who apparently refused to play ball with the NSA, it stupidly jumped on board to join the PRISM club.

    Curiously, we've all known about the possible links between NSA and Microsoft since the Windows 2000 era when odd DLLs began to appear, which observers surmised were some back-door codes. The leaked PowerPoint slides reveal that Microsoft was the first on board with PRISM, which tells me that the company had already been doing business with spies and was most eager to continue. Does this make you feel good about the company and its products? Is this how Microsoft looks after its customers?
    "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
    – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

    #2
    Said similar to another post around here some where. About what they did to No-IP.

    Comment


      #3
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      Microsoft was the first, SEVEN years ago.
      "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
      – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by MoonRise View Post
        Said similar to another post around here some where. About what they did to No-IP.
        In their blog they claim that their court approved takeover of 23 NO-IP domains was to "prevent crime". Now we know it was to help the NSA spy on those who used the free DNS by re-routing their access through Microsoft's sinkholes.
        http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014...re-disruption/

        Perhaps something like "TextSecure" might be of interest:
        https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ecuresms&hl=en

        Description
        TextSecure is a messaging app that allows you to take back your privacy while easily communicating with friends.

        Using TextSecure, you can communicate instantly while avoiding SMS fees, create groups so that you can chat in real time with all your friends at once, and share media or attachments all with complete privacy. The server never has access to any of your communication and never stores any of your data.

        ★ Private. TextSecure uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time.

        ★ Open Source. TextSecure is Free and Open Source, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. TextSecure is the only private messenger that uses open source peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe.

        ★ Group Chat. TextSecure allows you to create encrypted groups so you can have private conversations with all your friends at once. Not only are the messages encrypted, but the TextSecure server never has access to any group metadata such as the membership list, group title, or group icon.

        ★ Fast. The TextSecure protocol is designed to operate in the most constrained environment possible. Using TextSecure, messages are instantly delivered to friends.
        Get it here:
        https://whispersystems.org/#encrypted_texts
        Last edited by GreyGeek; Jul 16, 2014, 08:38 AM.
        "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
        – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

        Comment


          #5
          OK, I'll be Devil's Advocate here......

          If I was a terrorist....I would JUMP ALL OVER THIS APP.....

          So, the pregnant question then is.........

          What if............ it really is an app that the NSA developed, specifically so that they can scan messages of people who "might be terrorists"...

          What if....it is encrypted on your phone..... then routes through a "server" that is say....don't know... Verizon.... and that particular server then has a decrypting algorithm.... after all they WROTE the encryption algorighm, so back engineering is at least a "possiblity"... scans the message, and then re-encrypts and sends it out...

          On "either end" the message is encrypted and "nobody can see it"...so they would not be lying...

          just a paranoid question.
          woodsmoke
          Last edited by woodsmoke; Jul 16, 2014, 12:51 PM.

          Comment


            #6
            And probably a valid one too!
            Last edited by MoonRise; Jul 16, 2014, 07:59 PM.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by GreyGeek View Post
              John Dvorak opens up on Microsoft:
              Dvorak is a well-known hyperbolic Microsoft hater. This is a year-old editorial that doesn't shed any new light. The arguments he makes are really thin. Don't use Microsoft office because NSA. Don't use Google Docs because reasons. Linux is open and you can look at the code to see if it's chatting with spy agencies -- in practice, no one does because very, very few compile the code from source. And he still drags out the _NSAKEY variable myth, 13 years later? What a moroon.

              Originally posted by GreyGeek View Post
              In their blog they claim that their court approved takeover of 23 NO-IP domains was to "prevent crime". Now we know it was to help the NSA spy on those who used the free DNS by re-routing their access through Microsoft's sinkholes.
              Yes, they fscked up their approach with No-IP -- the net was cast way too wide. But riddle me this: what other software firm does as much to try to rid the Internet of some of the largest botnets ever constructed? They have no fiduciary responsibility for doing this. In fact, the investigations and take-downs cost a lot of money; it could be argued tihs "investment" returns zero value to shareholders. Yet Microsoft persists in their efforts to thwart really big bad guys. Surely they deserve some credit for this?

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
                Dvorak is a well-known hyperbolic Microsoft hater. ....
                yup. Remember that cellphone video taken when he was talking about how he plays Apple fans (and Linux fans) to garner page hits?



                Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
                Surely they deserve some credit for this?
                Well, yes. But remember, Al Capone received praise for taking out his competitors as well. Al wasn't protecting public interests, he was protecting his income stream.
                "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
                – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by GreyGeek View Post
                  yup. Remember that cellphone video taken when he was talking about how he plays Apple fans (and Linux fans) to garner page hits?
                  I'm not surprised -- at least he's honest about being a dishonest twerp!

                  Originally posted by GreyGeek View Post
                  Well, yes. But remember, Al Capone received praise for taking out his competitors as well. Al wasn't protecting public interests, he was protecting his income stream.
                  Comparing Microsoft to the Mob? What income stream does Microsoft preserve by taking down botnets?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
                    ... Comparing Microsoft to the Mob? What income stream does Microsoft preserve by taking down botnets?
                    A virtual monopoly in the OEM desktop guarantees Microsoft an income stream. However, if increasing numbers of public, military and governmental users began considering the Windows OS too risky or unstable to use Microsoft's income stream would definitely take a hit, so it is to their advantage to bring down these farms. Especially if the NSA asked them to do it to protect their own spy network.

                    By taking down the bot farms Microsoft isn't removing the insecurity of its OS, it is reducing the number of bad guys in the public domain utilizing those insecurities. Their takedowns produces an aura of security but the OS insecurities that hackers are tapping into remain and the still active bad guys, many of whom are untouchable Chinese and Arab hackers working in the security of their own government agencies, are still a threat. Chinese hacking into our military-industrial complex is probably how the Chinese were able to short-circuit the development time of their advanced military aircraft and their supersonic cruise, precision targeting devices, missile technology, etc. Windows used to control the US spy drones until the Iranians hijacked the Windows OS on one and took control. Those drones are now controlled by a Linux OS. Several foreign government and military services have switched from Windows for security reasons, to protect against malware and to secure industrial and state secrets. Chinese hacked the technology necessary to shrink the size of nuclear weapons. Now they, too, can product an atomic weapon the size of a thermos bottle.
                    "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
                    – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Jerry, my friend, I think you're looking for a conspiracy where one doesn't exist. There are bad-acting elements within Microsoft that collude with governments, yes. I have ranted about such activity here before, and even expressed my own shame. There are also good elements within Microsoft that actually care about increasing the safety of computing for everyone. I spent most of my 11 years at Microsoft working in that organization. These botnets are used by criminals to extort money, perpetuate fraud, dupe unsuspecting people into scams, and perform large (read: expensive to recover from) distributed denial-of-service attacks, among other things. We should be glad that Microsoft invests a not inconsiderate amount of time and resources into bringing these things down.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
                        We should be glad that Microsoft invests a not inconsiderate amount of time and resources into bringing these things down.
                        Even by taking over another companies services?

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by NickStone View Post
                          Even by taking over another companies services?
                          Well, the way they handled No-IP was unusual and poorly executed. They acted too fast and made some shady legal arguments. If they could have properly nuked only the 18,000 botnet nodes rather than wiping out 5,000,000 subdomains, then this action would have been fine. I hope Microsoft learns a lesson from this.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by SteveRiley View Post
                            I hope Microsoft learns a lesson from this.
                            You really think Microsoft learns from its mistakes?

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by NickStone View Post
                              You really think Microsoft learns from its mistakes?
                              With Ballmer in charge, no. He's gone now, so there is hope.
                              "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
                              – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

                              Comment

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