March 22, 2002

3:43 PM

Microsoft Windows + NSA = loopholes in security: "A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into [almost all versions of] Windows." an interesting article that really shouldnt be surprising, and all the more reason to buy a mac.
posted by sixtwenty3dc (25 comments total)

Um... interesting conspiracy theory.

I'd like to see some folks around here look at it a little closer, because it seems completely un-substantiated from where I'm sitting.

I just hope it's wrong.
posted by silusGROK at 4:06 PM on March 22, 2002

I though this was discredited a year or so ago?
posted by phatboy at 4:11 PM on March 22, 2002

why is this popping up again 2 and a half years later? Notice that windows XP isn't mentioned anywhere in that "article." It's because the posted article is from 1999.
posted by machaus at 4:13 PM on March 22, 2002

" ...and all the more reason to buy a mac. .."

1. What machaus said ...
2. And even if true ... how is it that you're certain it isn't built into macs as well?
posted by MidasMulligan at 4:33 PM on March 22, 2002

One of the comments has the url of the original article -- which is by Duncan Campbell from April 9th 1999. So not only is it terribly old, it's also plagiarized. Wow.
posted by smackfu at 4:34 PM on March 22, 2002

Hmm....this is old and false.

It's nice to see people quoting what amounts to the real world equivalent of the Lone Gunmen though. The same site also offers news on Atlantis, and the Illuminati.
posted by patrickje at 4:35 PM on March 22, 2002

so it is. (false). it's quite comforting to know.
my fault for not following up and confirming the story as i really should have. flame me.
as for mac security, i would assume a better sense of security simply for the fact that so many less people use macs in relation to the number of windows users. second, you dont even hear rumors about such security threats, even the common (for the windows environment) computer virus that comes out every day is barely a comparative blip on the existance of the mac os. i would think.
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 4:51 PM on March 22, 2002

From what I've read in cryptogophy histories (Steven Levy and others), the NSA and Microsoft worked together to put in a 'partial key' in MS software for export, in effect, making US versions 64-bit secure, while international versions were only 40-bit secure to comply with then-required export laws. 24 bots of the 64-bit keys in international versions were identical and known to the NSA.
posted by kfury at 4:52 PM on March 22, 2002

sixtwenty3dc, you know there's this really new and fresh thing out there called "Linux". You might want to check it out before you take a job for Jobs.
posted by Wulfgar! at 4:57 PM on March 22, 2002

linux rots your teeth, get osx! :P
posted by rhyax at 5:00 PM on March 22, 2002

is this the OS war thread? did I get here on time? Long Live BeOS!
posted by eyeballkid at 5:01 PM on March 22, 2002

Long live OS2 Warp!
posted by Wulfgar! at 5:07 PM on March 22, 2002

AMIGA FOREVER!!!
posted by solistrato at 5:07 PM on March 22, 2002

Screw you all, I'm sticking with my Etch-a-Sketch.
posted by eszetela at 5:14 PM on March 22, 2002

I want my TRS-80 back...it never got viruses.
posted by patrickje at 5:15 PM on March 22, 2002

Whenever I look at my imac I feel so gay.

And then I start using.

Just today I set:
net.inet.tcp.sendspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.recvspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack: 0
net.inet.udp.recvspace: 73728

with a script I downloaded. Now my connection speed is about twice as fast. I love the terminal. I love lynx. I love my computer never crashing.

And yes, I too mourn the passing of BeOs. It was ahead of its time.
posted by Settle at 5:18 PM on March 22, 2002

oh, to be young and in love and programming BASIC on the apple ][ e.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:38 PM on March 22, 2002

BeOS was pretty limited actualy, it was only single user. Behind NT and Linux. The only thing it was ahead of was Mac OS <= 9. And that's really not saying much....
posted by delmoi at 6:01 PM on March 22, 2002

Why would a Mac be more secure if the government was truly doing these conspiracies. You would think a less wealthy business would be more susceptible to a big fat government bribe. Regardless, if you want to see your code get an OS that'll let you.
posted by skallas at 7:21 PM on March 22, 2002

You can be sure that the Mac hasn't got anything like this in it, as the core parts of the OS that deal with users, permissions, and security are open source.

BeOS was lacking in some ways, but the filesystem's handling of metadata was much better than anything seen before or since. Microsoft is now talking about adding something similar to Windows (and of course, falsely claiming that they are the first to do it).
posted by Potsy at 8:59 PM on March 22, 2002

You can be sure that the Mac hasn't got anything like this in it, as the core parts of the OS that deal with users, permissions, and security are open source.

Not necessarily. While the public version of Darwin may not have anything like that in it, who says that the public Darwin core is exactly the same as what's in the shipping OS X?

Of course, this is a completely unfounded conspiracy rant. I don't think Apple or MS are stupid enough to do something like this.

BeOS was lacking in some ways, but the filesystem's handling of metadata was much better than anything seen before or since. Microsoft is now talking about adding something similar to Windows (and of course, falsely claiming that they are the first to do it).

To be fair to MS, they were building "Cairo" way back in 1996 (probably earlier). Unfortunately, they shelved it and concentrated on 95, 98, etc. (more info from news.com.com)
posted by helloboys at 2:05 AM on March 23, 2002

news.com.com??? com.com??? Why didn't I realize that CNet has the com.com domain? Seems like that one should be reserved.
posted by delfuego at 1:43 PM on March 23, 2002

Well, CNet has had
posted by rodii at 8:41 PM on March 23, 2002

Something is broken here. Sorry, can't post the rest of that comment.
posted by rodii at 8:45 PM on March 23, 2002

Trying again: CNet has had com.com for years, and has never really figured out anything to do with it. It's just too generic.

While we're looking, though: the criminally underused org.org. There no net.net or edu.edu, as far as I can tell.
posted by rodii at 8:47 PM on March 23, 2002