Russia has MS sourcecode

It's absurd that people would suddenly believe Russia would use that code for hacking or espionage purposes...

BCXtreme said:

Skulblaka said:

It's absurd that people would suddenly believe Russia would use that code for hacking or espionage purposes...

It's also absurd that Russia would send a bunch of people over here to infiltrate policy-making circles in the U.S. government ... oh, wait...

No offense, but the Russian government does use some questionable tactics.

Ahh, who doesn't when given the opportunity?

Skulblaka said:

Ahh, who doesn't when given the opportunity?

"Given" is the correct verb here. This is really old news. I know the story says Russia signed up years ago, but it's part of the MS Government Security Program. MS guy talked about it at length in 2003.

MS cannot do this with certain countries run by jerks, although back in 2003, China was not on the jerk country list. Perhaps the Kommies there have Windows source code, too.

Nice job, Redmond!

[QUOTE=Colonel Travis;842561]

johnwillyums said:

They might have to share it with most governments. Don't understand what the problem with US businesses not having access to it is.
This would be something a government could demand not a company.

Please explain the logic behind this.

What I meant was that it is the business of governments to safeguard national security by whatever means.
This would mean both from home grown threats and exterior threats.
It is the business of private companies to develop and sell products and services.

What I'm not clear about is what a government can do with MS source code?
MS keeps this code closed and secret to itself so that they can control it's development and distribution.
So that some other company won't copy it or change it and produce a "fork" like a linux distribution.
Perhaps someone wiser than myself can explain what use the source code is with regard to national security.
If we assume that UK government and US government has the source code can we use it to spy on Russia?

The recent spy scandal seems to have been a well orchestrated public swap.
The activities of these people in UK and US has been known to our security services since word one.
Similarly the activities of US agents in Russia has been known to them for some time.
So the question I have is; why now?
Especially since the US lot seem to have been more interested in feathering their nests
than spying and don't appear to have sent any secrets back home.

It's hardly John Le Carre and the Cold War

johnwillyums, thanks. Yeah I agree with you for the most part except I would add a couple points.

1.) In every spy scandal, the damage caused is never publicly known until way down the road. The fact that Russia and the U.S. agreed to exchange all those people means something was up. Might not have reached the le Carre level, like you said. Only ones who know that, though, are US and Russian intelligence.

2.) About 15 years ago China didn't have the ability to make effective, offensive missiles. Then a couple U.S. companies, with the blessing of the gov't, sold them the technology. I would not equate this MS thing to that. On the other hand, for almost a decade, not only has Russia been given the keys to the OS that 90 percent of the planet uses - they are learning about what works and what doesn't when it comes to securing data. China, as far as I know, is still permitted the same access. Not sure if MS has acted on it.

Then again, with MS's terrible record with security this could be a brilliant ruse orchestrated by the CIA.

Very odd time to publish something like this, as one spy had worked for Micorosft. But I don't think this is bad, at now it is hard to say anything, we will see if something goes wrong in future.

So Russia has the MS windows source code.....
Is that supposed to be something new?
For years the best Windows hacks have come from Eastern Europe (Russia).
And also the most virulent viruses, spyware and Trojans.

When you have the source code, you can write one heck of a Virus to exploit it.

In the EU, one popular saying is, "We don't buy no stinkin' software!"
Heck no, they just copy it from a friend.
It's not just europeans that have access to free copies of software. It's on the internet so anyone in the world can download it. (and they do)
I've been told I can get a COPY of any software in computer stores in Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. Software piracy is a very common practice in China and their possessions.

I don't know if anyone here remembers the Commodore 64 computer. But back in the day there were whole clubs (mostly kids) dedicated to copying and sharing Copyrighted software.
Probably the most widely used program for the C-64 was "Fast Hack'em" a bit copy program, that could copy virtually anything.
A similar program was written for the IBM PC.

Same old crap.....different day!

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor