Windows 7: NSA helped with Windows 7 development

NSA helped with Windows 7 development

Privacy expert voices 'backdoor' concerns, security researchers dismiss idea

By Gregg Keizer
November 18, 2009 04:09 PM ET

Computerworld - The National Security Agency (NSA) worked with Microsoft on the development of Windows 7, an agency official acknowledged yesterday during testimony before Congress.

"Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector," Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security yesterday as part of a prepared statement.

"All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later during the product lifecycle," Schaeffer added. "This will improve the adoption of security advice, as it can be implemented during installation and then later managed through the emerging SCAP standards."

According to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the NSA's involvement with operating system development goes back even farther. "This battle goes back to at least the crypto wars of the early '90s," said Rotenberg, who remembered testifying about the agency's role in private sector computer security standards in 1989.

Their IS a NSA backdoor in every AV program released in the USA. (Or so i believe) Im sure Windows 7 has one too... Though, i've got nothing to hide. So search my computer all your want for sketchy emails/files... I've done nothing wrong ^^

Afraid I lost my tinfoil hat long ago, the NSA has been capturing my brain waves.