[117659] in Cypherpunks
Re: A-M$: The Microsoft NSA Back Door
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Wed Sep 8 05:23:33 1999
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 05:08:12 -0400
Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990908010039.00a39c60@idiom.com>
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <cypherpunks@openpgp.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
At 08:52 PM 9/3/99 -0400, Arizona wrote:
>3) What makes you think the *NSA*, the N-fucking-SA
>for godsakes, uses Windows? Seriously? They have to
>understand the issues of network security and just how
>full of holes MS products are; why would you assume
>that they use them?
Of _course_ the NSA uses Windows, just like almost everybody else
in the government who's not still on a 3270 Green Screen.
Sure they've got various Compartmented Mode Workstation or B1 things
build on Unix variants, which they've paid various vendors
like Sun and AT&T to build for them, but there are environments where
there's enough of a hard crunchy shell that you can get away with
a soft chewy interior, such as a non-networked PC in a
TEMPEST-shielded 2-person-security-rule workroom,
(or a laptop on an airplane, if you're in a hurry. :-)
Running on entirely removable disks is also useful -
pop them out of the machine and into the safe at night.
MSWindows may be a major productivity loss compared to
running on an operating system that doesn't crash very often
with word processors that are small, clean, and non-flaky,
but it's an environment almost everybody in the government
is reasonably comfortable with, and if you don't provide it to them
they bitch a lot.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
