A Special Surveillance Chip

[Reverend Jim]

I haven't seen this confirmed anywhere else yet. The article starts with

According to leaked internal documents from the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) that Die Zeit obtained, IT experts figured out that Windows 8, the touch-screen enabled, super-duper, but sales-challenged Microsoft operating system is outright dangerous for data security. It allows Microsoft to control the computer remotely through a built-in backdoor. Keys to that backdoor are likely accessible to the NSA – and in an unintended ironic twist, perhaps even to the Chinese.

You can read the full article here

<edit>
try copying and pasting the following address. When I edit this post and copy/paste the link into my browser it works fine. It does not work if I just click on the link in the post. Dani?

investmentwatchblog.com/leaked-german-government-warns-key-entities-not-to-use-windows-8-links-the-nsa/

</edit>

[LaxLoafer]

Is that URL correct, or have the NSA squished it already? Doesn't seem to be working.

[Stuugie]

I couldn't follow that link either but I thought maybe it was because of work.

[mike_2000_17]

Windows 8 is full of security holes and backdoors, everyone knows that. Accessible to NSA and anyone else. What's the news here?

[vegaseat]

No wonder Steve Ballmer is stepping down.

[Reverend Jim]

I checked the URL and it IS valid. I edited the original post and did a copy/paste of the link into a browser and it opened fine but when I just clicked on the link it did not. Now it is working both ways. Who knows why?

[Reverend Jim]

What's the news here?

Well, part of it has to do with a chip that will decide what software you are allowed to load and run on your computer.

[Reverend Jim]

This is a hoot. The daniweb profanity filter zapped the link. The affected segment was (remove spaces)

i n v e s t m e n t w a t c h b l o g

and the filter replaced t w a t with ####

[GrimJack]

coffee snort - the comments were much more informative than the article. It seems very much like the article was written across a 'Chinese Wall' - oh, I guess the new way to say that is google re-translate. In the process I discovered:

tranlate from German to German - listen "pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch"

it becomes a beat-box

[happygeek]

Scunthorpe! Revealing my age here, as I can recall when AOL filtered the town as being profane and prevented people joining from there :) Must have been 1995/1996 or thereabouts...

[later] Look, we do the same!!! The town is S C U N T H O R P E in Lincolnshire.

[jwenting]

so now because of some rumoured secret chip in PCs that allows the government to control your computer an operating system is not safe?

[Reverend Jim]

If the OS explicitly provides the facilities for ad hoc remote entry/access, then yes. If I was able to remote into your computer without your knowledge wouldn't you consider that a failing of your software?

[jwenting]

not if the software were designed as such. I'd consider it a failure of my firewall to detect the intrusion attempt, and as anyone on the internet should have I've a hardware firewall as well as a multilayer software firewall in place to prevent just that.

And you've still posted nothing but vague rumours and accusations.
EU (and especially German and French) government agencies are not unknown to post lies and other falsehoods about US companies in order to stir up political sentiment for more trade restrictions and forcing EU countries to "buy European".

[Reverend Jim]

You did notice that my first sentence was I haven't seen this confirmed anywhere else yet. I was hoping others here might have come across something to either confirm or refute it.

So let me get this straight. If an OS allows unauthorized (by you) and unknown (to you) access to your computer do you still consider that OS safe? I'm talking hypothetical here since the OP is still unconfirmed.

[bumsfeld]

Steve Ballmer is stepping down because he is running MS into the ground with a lot of me-too ware and a management style of forced ranking. He most likely was not aware of the spy portion of Windows8.

[Reverend Jim]

He was also apparently unaware that there was no consumer demand for a crippled Windows tablet. And this moron was a CEO? How much of a golden parachute do you get for a near billion dollar screw-up?

[jwenting]

At the time development of Win8 started, market research showed that by 2012 there would be such a demand. And an even greater demand for laptops with touch screens which were projected to have almost replaced desktops and traditional laptops by now.
That was 5-6 years ago.
If their marketing firm misread the market, you can't blame Steve Balmer for it, not the Win8 dev team who just built what they were told to build based on long term market projections that turned out to be wrong.