Microsoft has rebuffed reports that a “backdoor” was deliberately coded into its Windows 7 operating system.
“Microsoft has not and will not put ‘backdoors’ into Windows,” a company spokesperson told Computerworld.
Microsoft’s official denial was prompted by the recent testimony of National Security Agency (NSA) official Richard Schaeffer, who confirmed that the agency had “partnered” with MS to “enhance” the OS’s security guide.
As expected, Schaeffer’s testimony sparked concern from a number of individuals, including Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
“The key problem is that NSA has a dual mission, COMPUSEC, computer security, now called cyber security, and SIGINT, signals intelligence, in other words surveillance,” Rotenberg said in an e-mail to Gregg Keizer of Computerworld.
“The key point is that the NSA is not the right agency to promote computer security in the private sector.”??
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