[117485] in Cypherpunks
Re: A-M$: The Microsoft NSA Back Door
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Wagner)
Fri Sep 3 23:00:50 1999
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: daw@cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner)
Date: 3 Sep 1999 19:24:03 -0700
Message-ID: <7qpvs3$o6m$1@blowfish.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: daw@cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner)
In article <19990904005021.18454.rocketmail@send205.yahoomail.com>,
Arizona <katmai733@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Three points here:
> 1) The *worst* case is that this is a backdoor for NSA
> administrative use? I would consider the worst case
> to be that the agency may have managed to give
> themselves potential access to every Windows machine
> on the planet. Maybe that's just me...
A backdoor that would let the NSA "spy on every Windoze box in the world"
would be an even worse case, I agree, but all the evidence suggests that
that's not what's going on here. That part is all hype.
I'll repeat myself:
"This does NOT appear to be a case of the NSA installing
a backdoor that lets them spy on Windows machines around
the world."
At worst, it is something much less sinister (I believe); at best, it is
relatively harmless, and maybe even a net benefit (since it makes it easier
to bypass export controls).
> 2) Does it bother you that the NSA would have enough
> influence inside MS to get their own private changes
> made to the OS?
Let me re-quote some text I wrote on the subject which you deleted:
"This is, IMHO, a lesser sin (albeit still an abuse of
export controls, if true)."
Does that answer your question? Sure, it would bother me, but it is not
the same as a backdoor that lets the NSA "spy on the world".
> It doesn't seem to me that you
> thought through what you were writing before you
> pressed "send."
Uh-huh...
