Microsoft: There is no NSA “backdoor” in Windows 7

Mon Nov 23, 2009
by Christopher Null: The Working Guy
Blog

Microsoft assured users over the weekend that rumors of a secret “backdoor” in Windows 7 which would grant federal authorities access to Windows computers without their users’ permission were completely false.

Reacting to the concerns raised by privacy advocates after it was revealed that the NSA had a hand in the development of Windows 7, the company stated bluntly, “Microsoft has not and will not put ‘backdoors’ into Windows.”

So what was the NSA doing in Redmond? The NSA says it’s simply helping with the “operating system security guide,” which I presume means the NSA says it is aiming to improve security on Windows, not provide an easy means by which it can be broken.

Naturally none of this is convincing the skeptics. Concerns have long been held over whether the NSA and other agencies have worked out deals to be given secret, low-level access to various operating systems, but to date those fears have been largely unfounded. History is on the side of the rational: As ComputerWorld notes, 1993’s Clipper chip was originally proposed as a hardware device that would hard-code a law-enforcement backdoor into the processor, but after massive citizen protest the idea was killed. Clipper ultimately failed completely within three short years.

So, is there really a backdoor in Windows 7? I’m as paranoid as they come but am nonetheless extremely skeptical that Microsoft would do something so foolish as to allow such a thing to happen, and tend to agree with independent analysts that concerns like this are overblown hysteria this time around. Thanks to its reputation, the NSA is probably not the best group to be meddling in security standards on consumer-level computer hardware and software, but I do believe that its goals here are altruistic.

In other words, there’s probably nothing to see here. Hey look, a narwhal!

County waits for the BRAC boom

Planning for the equivalent of four Pentagons on a shoestring budget
By JOSHUA STEWART, Staff Writer
Published 12/13/09

The job surge at Fort George G. Meade will turn the sprawling west county Army installation into one of the largest workplaces in the nation, making it well more than double the size of the Pentagon.

By 2015, an estimated 52,225 people – more people than live in the world’s eight smallest countries and well more than the 36,408 who live in Annapolis – are expected to report to work at the post every day.

But that’s just the beginning.

The Pentagon, one of the world’s largest office buildings, is diminutive in comparison to the office space being built near the installation. In fact, it would fit inside the new facilities four times over.

It will take miles of new roads, a small fleet of buses and more desks and teachers at schools to maintain the quality of life that county residents enjoy today – all paid for with money that isn’t here yet.

There will be growing pains. It will be a period where the number of people working in the county will outstrip what the infrastructure – particularly the roads – can handle.

But there is a safety net. The bulk of the new jobs will be held by people with hefty salaries – paychecks that will bolster state and county governments’ coffers and the economy in general.

Most of the jobs coming to Fort Meade and surrounding offices will be held by civilians, many with advanced degrees and with paychecks pushing six figures. The much-discussed and analyzed Base Realignment and Closure process, or BRAC, is only about a quarter of the new jobs headed for Fort Meade, but the actual job boom area officials are expecting is much larger. More….