Posted on 03/04/2006 6:22:54 AM PST by Panerai
Windows Vista won't have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed.
In February, a BBC News story suggested that the British government was in discussions with Microsoft over backdoor access to the operating system. A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication to gain access to a computer without to the PC user knowing.
But Microsoft has now quelled the suggestion that law enforcement might get such access.
"Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company representative said in a statement sent via e-mail.
The discussion centers on BitLocker Drive Encryption, a planned security feature for Vista, the update to the Windows operating system. BitLocker encrypts data to protect it if the computer is lost or stolen.
This feature could make it harder for law enforcement agencies to get access to data on seized computers.
"The suggestion is that we are working with governments to create a back door so that they can always access BitLocker-encrypted data," Niels Ferguson, a developer and cryptographer at Microsoft, wrote Thursday on a corporate blog. "Over my dead body," he wrote in his post titled "Back-door nonsense."
Microsoft is talking to various governments about Vista. However, the talks are about using the new operating system and BitLocker for their own security, Ferguson wrote. "We also get questions from law enforcement organizations. They foresee that they will want to read BitLocker-encrypted data, and they want to be prepared," he wrote.
"Back doors are simply not acceptable," Ferguson wrote. "Besides, they wouldn't find anybody on this team willing to implement and test the back door."
Windows Vista, the successor to Windows XP, is slated to be available by year's end.
ping.
Yeah, right. I'm sure that'll happen.
I wasn't worried about it until Microsoft assured us that it wasn't going to happen.
Gee--I guess that's about the time I'll finally get around to upgrading to XP.
As if that's some type of giant 'obstacle'...
pings
They don't need to add a back door because there will already be several included in the initial release!
I miss Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.
I don't.
Hackers willl have one in about a week.
Anyone want to bet how long it will be before they cave in to China's demand for a "back door"?
Nope, they will just use a frontdoor, sidedoor, trapdoor, window ...
It is to laugh.
...porthole, tunnel, worm hole, conduit, passage, gaping hole...
"I miss Windows 3.11 for Workgroups."
Oh, not me. It was OK for its time, but that time has passed.
...hatch, gateway, arch...
That's like the feds saying they're not going to add a Mexican border crossing in order to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
Windows is a security sieve. The government just has to know about the exploits before the general public does. In Microsloth's case, since they are refuse to voluntarily publicize flaws and are slow to fix them, that window of opportunity is quite large indeed.
..I bet you can still crack any security with Linux...
LOL! Ain't that the truth.
" Gee--I guess that's about the time I'll finally get around to upgrading to XP."
What's XP, I thought Windows 95 was still cutting edge.
I'm one of Windows' biggest critics here, but even I have to admit that from all the tech articles I've read Vista will be a LOT more secure than XP or 2K3.
But whether that relative leap of security will leave it being more secure than OS X or Windows is another matter.
You mean Linux, right? 8^)
Fingers faster than brain. I actually meant to write *NIX.
Tried (and use) Linux, Tried FreeBSD (and use the Live CD). Haven't tried commercial *nix.
I suppose I'm not that hardcore--yet...
yes, for digitial rights management - to lock down media content for the MPAA and RIAA. they can keep it.
And I thought X-windows was a bloated pig of an application!
Is that not the exact same thing they were saying about XP before it was released?
omfg lmao... is that video for real? the screaming is just hilarious! a Deniac moment! lmao
IMHO, backdoors would be stupid. Anything they deliberately put in for government could probably be exploited more efficiently and effectively by bad guys anyway.
It will have backdoors and it will include heavier DRM that will police what you computer will allow you to listen to, watch or do in general on top of the OS. Big brother comes home with you and sets up shop as it were. Just gives you the warm fuzzies doesn't it.
No. XP's jump was stability and usability, bringing 98's ability to run games to NT4's better core, it was more secure than 98 but slightly less secure than NT4. 2K3's was security, and 2K3 is pretty secure, unfortunately they implemented all the security in ways that annoy the hell out of the user so the first thing almost everybody does is turn 90% of that crap off, but if you leave it alone it's pretty secure.
Anybody who believes that, stand on your head.
The pre-edited statements of the press liason.
When referring to Microsnot products, it's proper etiquette to place "upgrading" in quotes.
Of course, and they were lying, since XP is just NT 5.1, but it is a pretty big leap to NT 6, with major changes under the hood. Of course there will be vulnerabilities, but I think MS finally realized it was getting its ass kicked in the security area.
Maybe because the voice-over used Microsoft's terms for the "new, innovative" technology in Vista, but the video was of somebody doing everything in OS X.
Screaming? Are watching the same video? And check out this one, if Microsoft made the iPod packaging.
The entire compositing engine is on the GPU, but there's still a little work done on the CPU. You can enable Quartz 2D Extreme in 10.4 with a newer video card to make your whole screen basically one big OpenGL scene, done entirely on the video card except for the small commands issued by the CPU.
I must admit that is fairly cool. Still, having things flying about the screen like a flock of seagulls surrounding a shrimp boat would probably annoy me somewhat :-)
One of the best things about this type of thing though is it will keep GPU manufacturers interested in supporting OpenGL. I'm sure there is a big push fromo MS to get them to abandon it in favor of some proprietary graphics engines. I admit that I don't really follow such things very closely, as I'm not into the gaming thing. I'm fairly happy if GLXGears works reasonably well. ;-)
It's an OS X clone... I have a MAC with OS X... I screaming at the monitor when I saw the video. what an fn rip off
It works in context, because Apple designed the whole interface with this stuff, instead of just sticking it in as eye candy. You can turn much of it off anyway. I think the reason Apple stores are working so well is that once most people sit down to play with OS X for a little bit they're hooked.
That video is someone showing off OS X features to the voiceover of someone introducing Vista "features". They're just trying to show that Vista is ripping off OSX.4
The second video gives it away when talking about parental controls the voiceover says "toby" and the mouse is pointing at some other name.
So it's not a clone, it's the true OSX in the video. Windows Vista is totally different aesthetically, but functionally a clone of OSX (with more security vulnerabilities, of course).
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