Microsoft Gets Help From NSA for Vista Security 233
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Microsoft received help from the National Security Agency in protecting the Vista operating system from worms and viruses. The Agency aimed to help as many people as they could, and chose to assist Vista with good reason: the OS still has a 90 percent lock on the PC market, with some 600 million Vista users expected by 2010. From the article: 'The Redmond, Wash., software maker declined to be specific about the contributions the NSA made to secure the Windows operating system ... Microsoft said this is not the first time it has sought help from the NSA. For about four years, Microsoft has tapped the spy agency for security expertise in reviewing its operating systems, including the Windows XP consumer version and the Windows Server 2003 for corporate customers.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
90% market share? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! And it's not even out yet!
Buy! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Let me guess.. (Score:3, Funny)
Help from the NSA? (Score:1, Funny)
Were they having problems getting the new NSAKEY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY [wikipedia.org] to work?
Re:BWHAHA (Score:3, Funny)
If Microsoft made toasters... Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a Microsoft toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Its Toaster XP and its new Toaster Vista would take up so much counter space in your kitchen that you'd have to buy a larger kitchen, plus they would draw enough electricity to power a small city. Both models would claim to be the first toaster that let you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. If the appliances were made by another company, the Microsoft toaster would send a signal through the electric wiring in your house to disable them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but would buy them anyway since most of the good bread only works with Microsoft toasters. Microsoft would claim that it doesn't have a monopoly on toasters, but stores that sold other toasters would have to pay a lot more for Microsoft's toasters.
If the NSA made toasters... Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case its agents needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security.
All Your Entropy Are Belong To Us! (Score:1, Funny)
Ha-ha-ha.
Love,
NSA
Re:wouldn't it be nice? (Score:5, Funny)
Now thats SPYWARE! (Score:2, Funny)
Actually, its kinda creepy...
Wrong helper (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wouldn't it be nice? (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see the problem.
For the same money as you paid for your hard drive 10 years ago, you get a drive with 500 to 1000 times more storage.
For the same money as you paid for Windows 10 years ago, you get a product that uses up 500 to 1000 times more storage.
Re:Let me guess.. (Score:3, Funny)
(tinfoil hat mode = on)
No need, the backdoors are already in place, they just needed to strenghten the password to:
M0z1LLA3nG1n33r$aR3w33N13$
According to their own standards.
HTH
(/TFH off)
Re:Wrong helper (Score:3, Funny)