Other software makers have turned to government agencies for security advice, including Apple, which makes the Mac OS X operating system. “We work with a number of U.S. government agencies on Mac OS X security and collaborated with the NSA on the Mac OS X security configuration guide,” said Apple spokesman Anuj Nayar in an e-mail.
Novell, which sells a Linux-based operating system, also works with government agencies on software security issues, spokesman Bruce Lowry said in an e-mail, “but we’re not in a position to go into specifics of the who, what, when types of questions.”
—Microsoft Vista Developed with Help from U.S. National Security Agency
Via: NPR:
The National Security Agency has been working with Microsoft Corp. to help improve security measures for its new Windows 7 operating system, a senior NSA official said on Tuesday.
The confirmation of the NSA’s role, which began during the development of the software, is a sign of the agency’s deepening involvement with the private sector when it comes to building defenses against cyberattacks.
“Working in partnership with Microsoft and (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’s ability to perform their everyday tasks,” Richard Schaeffer, the NSA’s Information Assurance Director, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a statement prepared for a hearing held this morning in Washington. “All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later in the product cycle.”
The partnership between the NSA and Microsoft is not new.
In 2007, NSA officials acknowledged working with Microsoft during the development of Windows Vista to help boost its defenses against computer viruses, worms and other attacks. In fact, the cooperation dates back to at least 2005, when the NSA and other government agencies worked with Microsoft on its Windows XP system and other programs.
The NSA, which is best known for its electronic eavesdropping operations, is charged with protecting the nation’s national security computing infrastructure from online assaults.
As these systems become increasingly dependent on private-sector computing products, the NSA has reached out to a growing number of software companies.
“More and more, we find that protecting national security systems demands teaming with public and private institutions to raise the information assurance level of products and services more broadly,” Schaeffer said.
Schaeffer said that the NSA is also working to engage other companies, including Apple, Sun, and RedHat, on security standards for their products. The agency also works with computer security firms such as Symantec, McAfee, and Intel.
A growing array of law enforcement authorities, intelligence officials, and private computer experts has been warning about the rising threat of cyberattacks.
“The FBI considers the cyber threat against our nation to be one of the greatest concerns of the 21st century,” Steven Chabinksy, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, told the same congressional committee.
The Obama administration has been under pressure to name a cybersecurity chief to reinvigorate the government’s efforts to protect its most sensitive computer networks. Some press reports suggest that appointment could come as early as next week.
I seem to recall reading several news articles a few years ago, that announced that Microsoft and Bill Gates had moved a substantial portion of his software development company to Israel.
Being keenly aware of the massive, relentless and on-going degree of espionage that Israel commits – and continues to engage in – against America, I immediately knew what the dangers of allowing Gates to do this would present to our country. This treasonous worm does business with the US Government and US Military, remember.
With the James Bamford book that came out recently that exposed the fact that Israel has been basically illegally wiretapping our entire nation’s telecommunications system, eavesdropping on our private phone calls, collecting dirt no doubt – on any citizen of prominence who might need to be blackmailed – it looks to me like that this criminal, Jewish Supremacist State of Israel is being allowed, by the corrupt and treasonous slabs of political scum inside our own government, to set up a totalitarian, police state apparatus – operated and headquartered in Israel and designed to impose an Orwellian tyranny upon the entire United States nation from afar.
Remember, folks – our US Military and US Government and probably nearly all state governments use Microsoft Windows products very heavily. Having the ability to install. and design into the operating systems of this piece of software, back-doors and other sorts of eavesdropping mechanisms would effectively nullify our nation’s entire National Security safeguards.
Our government should know better than to tolerate this insanity; but our government is no longer working for the native founding stock of these dis-United States.
Our nation has been hijacked, stolen from us, people – and Jewish Supremacists with primary loyalties to a hostile and predatory foreign nation – now run our lives.
What are we going to do it, folks?
1776 The Sequel?
And, let us all remember – that the vermin in our Senate and in our House, as well as the occupants of the last several White House Administrations have all gone right along with this Israeli penetration of our nation’s most vital security.
That’s High treason, folks.
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revolution Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
the second any shit breaks out creating riots whether its flu or financial we go off and attack. burn the creatures out of their ivory towers and assassinate traitors great and small.
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