Friday, 12 January 2007

NSA Helps Microsoft with Vista Security

The National Security Agency (NSA) has aided Microsoft to develop a security configuration for its Vista operating system. The reason NSA came in to help Microsoft was to meet US Department of Defense (DoD) requirements, said NSA Spokesman Ken White...

The National Security Agency (NSA) has aided Microsoft to develop a security configuration for its Vista operating system. The reason NSA came in to help Microsoft was to meet US Department of Defense (DoD) requirements, said NSA Spokesman Ken White.

This is the first time NSA has worked with a vendor prior to the release of an operating system."This allows us to ensure that the off-the-shelf security configuration that the DoD customer receives is at a level that meets our standards," White said. "It just makes a lot more sense to be involved up-front, than it does to have the tail wag the dog."

The reasons behind this act seem to be many by some analysts. Many are skeptical and are not buying the stance of NSA that claims that they have no hidden agenda but are only keeping US interests in mind when participating on projects such as this.

The question on many minds is privacy. Will this venture violate one’s privacy?

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), said, Vista is expected to run on some 90 per cent of the world's personal computers, it is logical to be concerned that a government agency might take advantage to gain access to private data.

"There could be some good reason for concern," Rotenberg said. "Some bells are going to go off when the government's spy agency is working with the private sector's top developer of operating systems."