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Bundeswehr Says Microsoft Software Verboten
deran9ed writes: "The German foreign office and Bundeswehr are pulling the plugs on Microsoft software, citing security concerns, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Spiegel claims that German security authorities suspect that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has 'back door' access to Microsoft source code, and can therefore easily read the Federal Republic's deepest secrets. Article in German, English article"
You need another beer; you can still read 4/5 of words.
Linux has no nationality.
One of the great things about it is its thoroughly international nature.
> The NSA has to report to someone right?
Riiight... And of course this fact prevents it from spying on other countries and individuals. (Search this page for "microsoft").
Because... Oh, do we need to explain this? No-o, we have a democracy here, we can't be the "bad guys", like Miloshevic. It's not what we were taught in our wonderful and safe schools!
> I'm of the opinion that there is no NSA backdoor in Windows, because it would have been found and exploited by now.
Duh. You probably think that a "software backdoor" looks somewhat like a real door, no?
What you just said is like saying "there are no bugs in MS Windows, because if there were any they would have been fixed by now"!
> I think it's just some European nationalism blah blah blah
It's German, not European. There is no European nation, and will probably never be, because of the US poking its long nose everywhere in Europe it can.
The terrorists dream...
I_LOVE_YOU_2.TXT.vbs:
END IFHave you ever tried the SuSE german version of Linux? even the kernel messages are in german (talking about make menuconfig)...
.. english
As for MS or MacOS - you get the OS itself with localized version - and they're applications which Apple or MS written with localized version. If you'll install for example Quicken - you'll get it by default in
Hetz (Heunique)
Of course the source is buildable; what the hell else do you think the companies that buy it do with it?
That's what IBM does with it, as does MainWin... The only thing I'd worry about is if there *was* a back-door, and those same companies had to sign an NDA. But that would be suspicious, and we'd hear about it eventually.
Which we are...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
In this case, you do as follows:
:)
a) examine the relevant source code
b) tell the compiler to compile it into assembler
c) tell the compiler to produce an object file
d) disassemble the object file / assemble the assembler yourself
e) compare the results
Obviously, if you see any extra or changed code, the compiler can't be trusted, as it is rigged to add NSA back doors.
However, if it does this in the assembler, it should be fairly easy to see the discrepancy between that and the original C source code listing.
I would gain a lot of respect for Microsoft, though, if they did anything that clever; I'd definitely suspect the NSA first.
P.S. anyone using a binary distribution of NSA Linux?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I remember this from a while back, but it's nice to see other people asking these questions.
My question is, why doesn't someone with a Source License check this out? And if they have, are they allowed to tell us?
Windows source code isn't available to the general public, but a lot of people out there can get their hands on it. Anyone with access to it wanna pipe up and tell us?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
"Die Bundeswehr sagt das Microsoft Software verboten ist." ;>
So, if you're the German government in this case, do you A) re-invent a proprietary wheel, perhaps working with Siemens for many years, or B) inject some rocket fuel (serious cash) into Germany's already-thriving Open Source efforts? I recall a while back someone tallied up the national origin of hardcore contributors to OSS/GPL projects, and the Germans were in first place or very close. I suspect we'll see some very polished stuff as a result of this, for instance, the KDE desktop, already in the passing lane to the left of Windows 2000, will probably accelerate away from Win2K at a pretty fast pace over the next 18-24 months. It will be good for all of us. By the way, I'm an honorably discharged U.S.military veteran (US Army, 1983-1987), and I wish the officers and men of the Bundeswehr every success in this effort!
Fascinating.
But you clearly missed the point.
There may be truth to the rumors. Xerox was reported to have rigged a copy machine in the Russian Embassy to make extra copies on film. The machine would break down periodically, and a Xerox repair guy would go out fix it and put in a new film.
Besides, it's not at all common for countries to throw up barricades to trade in order to boost their own industries.
Good for them, maybe Germany will actually build some software that competes on the market as a result.
Interesting. I suppose the whole WWII thing causes us to believe we are morally superior. But you're right on one point. The US tries not to use foreign products in our own government.
Not quite sure how you could justify that comment.
I wasn't talking who won or lost, but rather how the war was fought.
I thought that was pretty obvious. I guess not.
I wouldnt call this paranoid, it is a fact that there was a backdoor in Lotus Notes, and Notes was used by german military. So it seems like they have learned from their mistakes...
> Good for them, maybe Germany will actually
> build some software that competes on the
> market as a result.
Like Star Office ?
Like GPG, like KDE? Like Lyx?
Like SAP?
Like the software in German cars?
Maybe we are just fed up with the arrogant attitude of (some) Americans.
Who preach water and drink wine. Who sign treaties and don't follow them?
Who think they are so morally superior.
Where do you use foreign products anywhere in your government at all?
Heroes of free markets, my ass.
--
Moritz
I guess winning the third world war (including the cold war) in a row and never having to fight on one's own territory has interesting psychological side effects.
One of them could be construed to be the same arrogance you (I assume you are American) show.
I don't know how you justify that arrogance though. Winning wars does not give you a moral high ground.
(even though I am glad the Americans did intervene into WW II after the Japanese attacked them, before that point Americans could not be bothered to let e.g. all Jews who asked immigrate...)
--
Moritz
Well we at the Communist Jihad never plan our terrorist attacks through ICQ. Although we are foreigners, and therefor a little slow and backward, even we can see that you need more secure methods for this. We encrypt our data with software that we illegally downloaded from a USA based server.
You should have read the article about this. Microsoft is not releasing *all* code. A "small portion" of it will still be closed. So I guess you can't just get the source from MS and compile it yourself. You still need to get the binaries from them...
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
The Navy just doesn't give up. Just two or three years ago they had a battleship stuck in the water because NT crashed. And now they want NT to run on a carrier?
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
If MS were prepared to put a second key in for the NSA, why wouldn't they just give the NSA a copy of their signing key?
c kd oor.idg/
One possibility is that they couldn't, because the Microsoft signing key was in secure hardware that didn't allow any backup copies - which is exactly what Microsoft claimed. But if Microsoft are telling the truth about that, there's no reason not to accept their whole explanation - since the whole CryptoAPI signing stuff was put in for the US government, it's reasonable that the NSA reviewed it, and that they would point it out if Microsoft had screwed up by forgetting about disaster recovery.
http://europe.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/13/ba
"Culp noted that export licenses are granted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, but the technical compliance review is conducted by the NSA -- hence the key name."
"Culp says the backup NSAKEY was created to ensure that if the secure facility holding the private key was destroyed by an earthquake or other disaster, the company wouldn't have to replace all the public keys in every Windows system."
--
rant
The NSA sure stays busy, what with putting backdoors in Windows and securing Linux.
Next thing you know we'll have a Congressional panel on why the NSA is being so... um... un-American.
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Not sure about an office in Cologne but they did apparently try out the slogan "Wang Cares".
...
Urban myth prolly
C
Thing is, it is absolutely crazy to let matters of national security rest on imported software. Maybe there are back doors in Windows and maybe there aren't -- but the fact that the government doesn't KNOW means they should have disqualified this software years ago. I hope other governments follow suit, including the US. Some things require the use of in-house products, whether that's more inefficient or not.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Yep. The US will use just about any tactic they can get away with to get big contracts for US companies overseas. For instance, the US told Australia that it had to buy submarine combat systems from US companies, instead of a competing European bid, because they wouldn't participate in joint exercises with these submarines if the subs used the non-US software. This, despite the fact that they happily conduct these kind of exercises with their NATO allies, who, shock horror, design their own submarines, tanks, helicopters, and planes, all with their own non-US combat systems.
Like most countries, the US believes in free trade when it suits.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I wasn't aware of any international treaties that placed limits on espionage activities - the only international treaties I can think of that relates to activities of spies are the Geneva convention (what you can do with spies once you catch them), and the Berne Convention (if they're diplomats, they've got diplomatic immunity). What are you referring to?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
One of the reasons the British military is so much more effective than the French and German militaries is that spending is based on what is best for the job, not on politics.
The result: highly publicised layoffs in the defence sector, and an aerospace industry reduced to making the wings for Airbus 'planes! (Well, nearly... :-) )
Denver is no surprise at all to me. Clandestine forwarding from that point to the Colorodo Springs area would be trivial.
There isn't anything *but* Microsoft software, if you think about it; with 95+% of the desktop market, even if it isn't made in Redmond, its written for their products.
Besides, that German company may very well be SuSE...
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
...the US secret service has a documented history of using its snooping on its allies, mostly for the benefit of US businesses.
Can you name a major country that doesn't? Seriously, the Germans do it, the French have been caught a few times recently, the Japanese have been caught a few times. The list goes on.
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Canada probably doesn't spy on its allies.
The US passes it's information on to Canada, and the rest of our allies.
So if they aren't guilty by deed, they're certainly guilty by association.
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Oh, yeah? Read this.
Perhaps you should stop relying on the German news agencies for coverage of German government excesses.
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not entirely but very heavily so. see http://ibiblio.org/osrt/develpro.html aka A Quantitative Profile of a Community of Open Source Linux Developers. European e-mail endings of LSM identified authors account for 37% of the software we counted. German or .de endings identified the largest number other than .com some of which we know are also Germans.
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
There is of course also a (huge) German representation of Microsoft in Munich, one that probably dwarfs the size of Redhat USA HQ...
While it's true that SuSE is huge and popular in Germany, I (a German) never considered it "German" software (which the Spiegel article calls for).
Someone else in this thread pointed out that the whole idea of this maybe to strengthen German software businesses, just as the US requires the use of US software on government computers.
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Because the original article (not written by timothy) specifically mentions Microsoft products as a security risk. See my translation below.
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I am pretty confident that the German secret service does not snoop on Boeing headquarters to make sure that Airbus (a company co-funded by the German and several other European governments) gets hold of the latest deal.
At least, there hasn't been any report about such scandals here or in other country's news media, unlike many reports of such behaviour about the US secret service.
Given the fact that the German secret service is probably (surely) far less competent than their American counterparts and the additional fact that German news media are very critical of our government and love to dig up such stories, it seems that Germany is not among them.
Not yet.
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Question is, who made the US the "mother" of Europe, in charge of educating its allies? The US does this because it is the one current superpower and knows it can get away with it.
That still doesn't make it right since the very same things that Woolsley critizies are done by the US as well.
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Thanks. I stand corrected.
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Maybe "shoot" was the wrong choice. While that word was used, it wasn't used in its literal meaning. More like "German army targets Microsoft" or "pinpoints Microsoft".
:-)
Even "farts in the general direction of Microsoft" would have been appropriate.
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...the US secret service has a documented history of using its snooping on its allies, mostly for the benefit of US businesses.
A former CIA director explained that this is done for moral reasons, but his article sounds awfully bigot to me...
It should be expected that Echelon and similar technology that the NSA has access to will be used in a similar manner.
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[Everything in brackets is my comment. I am German.]
1 70,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,123
Enemy Software
German Army bans Microsoft Software
In fear of US secret services, the German foreign ministry and the German army are planning to close security holes. Instead of American software, federal computers will run German software in the future. [German software? There is no German operating system that I know of. DPA has a competent staff of tech writers, but I doubt they got this right.]
Original article by Deutsche Presse Agentur [an independent, but huge commercial German press agency].
(Image caption: In danger of spies - the German army shoots against Microsoft.)
Computers that are used in security-sensitive areas shall not run Microsoft software anymore. According to German government security advisors, the American secret service NSA has full access to the complete source codes of the US company and is thus able to read even encrypted [Microsoft] files. Because of this, the German ministry of defense uses encryption technologies offered by the local companies Siemens and Telekom [the formerly state-owned, now largest telephone and internet provider].
Meanwhile, the ministry of foreign affairs has halted plans to use video conference technology to communicate with their embassadors and foreign offices. During a Telekom presentation in Berlin at the beginning of March, State Secretary Gunter Pleuger was informed that for technical reasons, every satellite transmission is routed to the American city Denver, Coloroda.
Pleuger thinks the detour to the USA is a security risk. "Then we could do our conferences in Langley right from the start" joked a staffer of the Pleuger office. Langley, Virgina, is the location of the US secret service CIA.
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Right.
I can't remember any "Buy German"-Campaign like
the "Buy American"-Campaigns in the US.
No, no "backdoors" in software means that the author, publisher, NSA, etc. can get in while you think the software is secure.
Outlook, on the other hand, is not a backdoor, it tends to "backdoor" the user. This is using "backdoor" as a verb, in the sense of prisons, or porn put out by Seymour Butts.
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I can understand the concern, but having the source code to some MS software doesn't equal having access to the germans computers. Maybe they could find a way in easier if they had the source code, but still, I hate to be a troll, but there are plenty of bugs and exploits being discovered for MS software WITHOUT having the source code, you would think THAT would be their reasoning....
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"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
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the intelligence community protects its secrets under layers of "need to know." Though we know that some NSA agents worked at MS, we did not know what they were doing there. We didn't have the need to know. Even the president can be shut out from info because he may not have a need to know. so he won't know that he doesn't know, so he will not want to see info he doesn't know exsists. It would be naive to think that the NSA doesn't use the most widely used software for government and business, for its own purposes. It is also naive to think that MS isn't getting something in return. And to think that the Justice department wouldn't go after MS is naive too. To not go after them would raise suspicion. the software community would have blown the whistle, saying they are backing off the case because MS is in bed with the NSA. Most NSA guys are just normal geeks who like the work, and don't think of the moral consequences of what they are doing. They party as hard as they work.
photosMy Photostream
Linux is not US Software, it is from Finland.
Don't count on Siemens having the nerve to say no to Microsoft. If you look at the most recent Dr. Dobbs, they are the featured "client" of Microsoft NT Embedded. Also, I work for a company that just got aquired (peacefully) by Siemens AG. We were a long time user of LynxOS for realtime embedded medical software. The word has now come from above that we will discontinue the use of LynxOS, and use Syngo(tm), which is Siemens Medical Software divisions' WinNT/2K based ActiveX framework.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
98% of SuSE is not german.
If I wanted the ultimate secure OS for a PC-based server, I would want to use OpenBSD. But too bad, it's developed in Canada...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You know I can't say who it is :-)
Suffice it to say that we used to be an engineering organization with an engineer/physician CEO. Now our Siemens CEO is a marketing dude, and our marketing department, dancing on their puppet strings, are creating our engineering *specs*. Gaaagh!
We were best of breed, the most respected company of our type. And we got bought out by number eight in a field of nine competitors.
It's time to get my resume in order...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Larry Wall, and Guido van Rossum are but four major authors of SuSE Linux that are not German. You see, SuSE did not write 98% of SuSE. They only took existing components and fit them together, along with some of their own. SuSE may have created the SuSE Linux operating system, but they didn't create the vast majority of components.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Wouldn't it be significantly easier for spooks to form a small software front company and sell custom software to the desired target that would contain bugs? The larger the organization, the more chance of leaks!
GnuPG was partly funded by the German government.
Search for 300.000 here. So it is not the first time German government turns to Free Software.
This really is a bit silly, and I wonder if it isn't just a magazine report blowing comments out of proportion. Remember the old story about China dropping Windows for Linux? It turned out to be a complete exaggeration and misunderstanding. Besides, if they're really concerned about backdoors, why don't enter into Microsoft's new source code sharing program? I'm no more a fan of Windows than any other Slashdotter, but I do recognize that MS makes a lot of money overseas, and they'll take whatever steps they consider necessary to regain trust in these areas, especially as the US software/PC markets slow due to economic concerns and market saturation. --JRZ
Needs to be said:
The English the English the English are best!
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!
(Flanders and Swann)
The thing is, the song was meant to be a joke, while cyber-vandal's post apparently wasn't....
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= John Reinert Nash -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sir being the title of a Knight in the UK, for those who didn't know.
Nah, Sir being how much you offered in brown envelope "donations" to the government in power.
Well, can you tell me what part of an airplane could be more important?
Yeah, and if there was a tunnel under the Russian Embassy, you'd think Putin would have used it to avoid the rain.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Thanks for the translation: my German is lousy after 20+ years of disuse. :)
Firewalls are completely irrelevant.
Most software is now so "helpful" that it has ways to bypass firewalls by tunneling through known-open ports, like 80 (HTTP).
RealAudio/Video, Windows Media Player, etc.
If you are connected to the Internet via ANY port then data can go out -- like embedded in a URL.
Also, unless you own the ENTIRE NETWORK you are traversing, your data could be sniffed on a "public" point. If the encryption is flawed, you're screwed.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Most of the encryption software on Windows goes thru the CryptoAPI built into the system. This way it is "integrated" and easy to use.
If the CryptoAPI implementation is compromised, then everything else is, too.
Amazingly enough, you are not allowed to compile your own version of Windows so you can validate the CryptoAPI. (No, seeing the source is NOT enough. How do you know the souce you are seeing is the one that was compiled for your system?)
As for software that DOESN'T use the CryptoAPI, it is few and far between. There are also several other ways to compromise security if the OS is evil.
The ONLY way would be to encrypt the data elsewhere, no no unencrypted version ever touched the questionable system. You would have to have complete trust in the system doing the encryption (aka -- not an MS product for anyone who HASN'T had a lobotomy).
China, Mexico City, the German Military... one by one they will be assimilated into the NEW collective.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Actually, the U.S. Gov't is one of the bigger users of OpenBSD (Canadian).
The Linux kernel started Finnish (Linus) and is now an international product (look at the list of contributors).
The won't spend the money to start from scratch -- it will cost too much. The will most likely use an existing open source product (BSD or Linux) and go from there.
Can you see them writing EVERYTHING from scratch? OS, word processor, spread sheet, etc.? All the daily use stuff?
Forget it. Have your own code boys audit Linux/BSD and the open source packaged you use (Open Office -- which BTW used to be STAR Offce -- from STAR DIVISION, a GERMAN COMPANY).
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Irrelevant.
:-)
You must be able to COMPILE the source and use it. You must also trust the compiler (make --bootstrap), which means have the source, etc.
The song "Head Like A Hole" is about Microsoft. Listen to the lyrics. (NIN, I think.)
"Head like a hole, black as your soul,
I'd rather die, than give you control.
Bow down before the one you serve,
you're going to get what you deserve".
If that ain't Bill G. and MS, I don't know what is.
Its all about control, boys and girls. The RIAA, MPAA, MicroSoft, Sun, the U.S., German and any other gov't... all of it. Everything else is secondary.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Wrong. Source is good, if you can USE it -- unlike Windows. If they even bother to let you see the source, there is no way you can compile it and use it.
Only a fool trusts separate binary and source packages.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
True, but the military doesn't count as "most users". They hae a level of paranoia most people only have nightmares about. "Trust" takes on an entire new meaning.
Of course, if the source were open, you might not have to audit everything yourself. A trusted 3rd party (like the OpenBSD core) does the job. It's a question of WHO to trust and Microsoft has proven itself to be UNTRUSTWORTHY by its actions.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I have compiled GCC twice in the last week (making a new system using linuxfromscratch.org materials), and with the just release of 2.95.3, I'll be compiling again this week. :-)
GCC has a "make bootstrap" which means to compile GCC, then compile again with the newly compiled version and compare the two. This is why using something other than GCC for step #1 would be good -- odds of it bugging GCC to bug GCC are astronomicly small.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If we find the receipt, can we give it back?
:-)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I have to use M$ crap at work so actually things are not so great for me...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I guess their problems with NT were't as bad as many people here would like to believe.
Nevertheless it's a good idea. Every time a german buys an MS operating system some money flows out of germany and into the US. Great for us, sucks for germany. Every country should make a policiy to use it's own products in it's own government. Anything else is saying your own countryman could not create a decent product and what the hell kind of an endorsement is that?
I am always shocked when I hear that another government has standardised on some american product or another. Even if the products made in your own country are somewhat inferior why would you give away the tax dollars collected from your own citizens to a foreign corporation? Besides I am finding it hard to believe that a country which can make BMWs could not produce quality software.
War is necrophilia.
Hey, it's a good excuse as any to turf Microsoft...
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I sort of thought that "German armed forces" counted as a major military organization.
That was true... before 1945. Now although it is a modern and well equiped army, it doesn't have the same firepower as the USA, Russia, France, UK or China. The germans themselves are mildly happy about having big military forces, considered what they did with it in the past.
Perhaps Germany, and other nations will start using alternate software. According to netcraft, the german armed forces (Bundeswehr) www-server: >bR> The site www.bundeswehr.de is running Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) PHP/4.0.3pl1 on Linux.
It might be right that on corporate/private dektop M$ is used up to 99%, but do you think someone would trust, his mission critical services to systems made in Richmond?
Nope.
Michael
Why is this PREVIEW button next to the SUBMIT?
Damn...
Michael
Check your facts: That site is a privately run site arguing/counseling young people how to evade the draft.
According to whois bundeswehr.de
domain: bundeswehr.de
descr: Bundesministerium der Verteidigung
descr: Presse- und Informationsstab
descr: Postfach 1328
descr: D-52003 Bonn
descr: Germany
[...]
Doesn't look like a bunch of young people..
Better you check your facts before you reply!
Michael
...and a Scotsman invented the telephone in the US
Philipp Reis was a scotsman?
Reis, Johann Philipp
The real inventor of the telephone
SCNR
Well, the NSA apparently felt the need for a secure operating system. They went about it in the only sensible way (i believe) with an open source system. If there was a sensible alternative out there the NSA wouldn't have felt the need to throw money at the problem. This means, that even the NSA feels that Microsoft products don't do their job securitywise, and even if they can look at the source (i think the NSA has the necessary influence to do this) they might find it too complicated, apparently it's easier to start over with Linux anyway. Now, if even the US american NSA doesn't consider windows in their search of a secure OS why should the German Bundeswehr, or any other country for that matter. I think an Open Sourced OS would be the cheapest solution (and even allow for some interoperability).
...).
Also consider that MS' might build something into their OS so it can be switched off remotely (maybe if they think you didn't buy the licence, or you didn't update often enough). Also it becomes harder and harder to keep control over your computer once you installed an MS OS or MS applications. Already you have to turn off automatic updates. The system actively resists some tampering with system files (yeah, it's for the best of the user, but even someone who knows what he is doing can't turn it off). Well an obscure blackbox wich doesn't allow for tampering isn't what makes a happy security expert. He prefers a modular and well structured overseeable system (not an easy feat with todays OSes). I think a version of Linux would be a good start, but maybe some people at Siemens did some lobbying (that is to be expected, although american politicians call it bribery when it happens outside of the US, of course none of that happens in the US at all, and G. W. Bushs plans to distibute money to his rich friends are for the best of USA, but i digress
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Man... When I first read that, I thought it said "Budweiser Says Microsoft Software Verboten." *grins*
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Check it out- the Budeswehr is running their offical site on Linux and Apache. Practicing what they preach- imagine that! Justin
> Outlook, on the other hand, is not a backdoor
Indeed. Isn't Outlook more of a 'front door'?
'Open door' might be more accurate.
Max.
Max.
The way I read the article, it is not a claim by Telekom or Siemens, but by German security authorities.
Nach Erkenntnissen deutscher Sicherheitsbehörden verfügt der amerikanische Spionagedienst NSA über alle einschlägigen Quellcodes der US-Firma und kann so selbst verschlüsselte Daten lesen.
Now my German isn't as good as it could be (so please any German speakers correct me if I've got this wrong!), but I would translate this as: German security services have discovered that the American spy service NSA has access to all relevant source code of the US Company and is able to read even encrypted files.
Of course, you are unlikely ever to see the basis of the claims that any national 'security' service makes.
Even if you count the NSA key as belonging to the NSA, it really isn't likely to be a back door.
The way that Microsoft managed to get their software exported despite potentially strong crypto was that they could inhibit companies from loading arbitrary strength crypto by requiring the library to be signed.
As a result it isn't possible for a foreign windows user to load e.g. an open source crypto library, since it won't have the appropriate signature.
Now it stands to reason that the NSA wouldn't want to get their internal test crypto libraries signed by microsoft every time they want to test a new algorithm, so MS might well have added an extra load key so that the NSA could load their own libraries.
But being able to load a new library doesn't make it a back door. Normally you would prefer it if you could load any library as a crypto service provider. Adding the extra key only allows an additional set of libraries to be loaded, it doesn't of itself insert anything untoward in your operating system.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
I think that the official explanation is unreasonable because it implies that the NSA was unaware of the security impact of having two keys, one of which is effectively never used. (Namely that the latter can be replaced with another key in the binary, thus bypassing the foreign DLL prevention.)
Personally I don't think the NSA would be that blind unless the key was inserted at the last minute just for their use (which would have a psychological blinding effect.) But it could be as you say; the NSA might have simply f--cked up.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
Even if MS shows them the source, there's no guarantee that the source that they get shown is the same source that gets compiled. You could just diff in your NSA backdoors right before compiling and no one would ever know the difference.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If you understand politics, it surely isn't about what they say it's about. Of course, this is not about "security reasons". But even if this was about giving Siemens or Telekom a chance to earn a lot more money, I wouldn't call this "Nationalism" but rather "Commerce" or "Capitalism", which was invented in US (:-)). Yes, there is quite some unemployment in germany, especially in the east, but the germans aren't so dumb that they would accept this story as a plus against unemployment in election wars (they are just about to start right now). There have already been rumors that german government was to use open source software in the future (for price and security reasons, IIRR). And remember, even if the main reason is not security, if they get the source of the (german) programs they use, they at least get security as an "extra". I wonder why they don't just use open source and PGP, anyway.
This sig is stolen from someone who had a much better idea than I had.
Secondly, drop that smarmy attitude unless your country invented the Internet.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
I believe that they can't simply bar American software for various trade legalities. So they need to use "security concerns" as a cover to justify this. It doesn't mean that MS has backdoors in its code; rather the *rumor* that such things exist is the perfect reason for the German's to use software from their country.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Der Spiegel is a general magzine and not specialized on computing. Apart from that, der Spiegel is certainly one of the more credible german magazines.
Another oddity is why would they just come out of the blue and state these transmissions are going to Denver?
Read the Omega File. The NWO headquaters will soon be under Denver International Airport. It also says that Germany is set to be a key player in the coming of the New World Order, and that they were heavily involved with Grey aliens in WWII. It all makes sense thanks to conspiracy theories!
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
Come on! The NSA would never use a backdoor to spy on a friendly nation! That would be *snort* That would be unethic*guffaw*al! This is the US gov*chortle* govern*laugh*ment...
*baaahahahahahahhaa!!!* oh god, I knew I couldn't complete that sentense with a straight face.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Sure, there may be backdoors in the ms stuff, but it seems like the German gov't just got scared off of windows by some local company looking to replace ms with their own software...
It looks like it worked too.
> 98% of SuSE is not german.
Check your facts. The overwhelming majority
of Suse employees are living and working in
Germany and have German citizenship.
f.
The Bundeswehr is aware of it and currently tries to get them stop using that domain.
f.
f.
Hmmm, ever heard of SuSE? Nothing stops them from making a DGSE-linux in cooperation with SuSE, sort of analogous to the NSA's security enhanced linux... (Was DGSE the german foreign intelligence agency or do I even have the right country? oh well, what ever acronym is right the point is the same) Now does this mean that they'll release a new linux binary called /usr/local/bin/sniffgermansecrets? doubt it. but if they find and release fixes for kernel bugs and whatnot, hey, that's a win...
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I've seen on slashdot before the article about the aircraft carrier using Win2k (I think...) but think about it: We (Americans) absolutely refuse to get in line with the rest of the world? Governments refusing to run Microsoft while we put MS squarely in the middle of our power projection platforms? Did someone set us up the stupid?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
The NSA has to report to someone right? If they spy on foreignors while the FBI spies on Americans, the thing kinda looks like
NSA->State Dept
FBI->DOJ
Well there has to be some sort of oversight such that
(diagram removed because it was 'lame')
And I'm sure that oversight can coordinate a little information exchange between the NSA and the DOJ. I'm of the opinion that there is no NSA backdoor in Windows, because it would have been found and exploited by now. I think it's just some European nationalism thrown in to cover up the fact that someone in the IT dept. fucked up and now they need an alternative.
It's fairly obvious where Deutsche Telekom hails from, but I didn't know Siemans was a German company... I suppose asking them to use NSA Linux is out of the question =) Anyone have any insight into what design decisions they'll be making?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
At least with open-source somebody could find this backdoor since a reasonable large number of people could stumble over the backdoor, whereas with any kind of proprietory work only a select few will be able to even see the backdoor, and they might not recognise it.
Bandazaar
I'm an American, and I'll almost go along with that. The U.S. is attempting to play daddy for the world, attempting to keep control here and there, trying to keep conflicts down, and trying to promote itself all the while. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we did have backdoor access and were stealing foreign secrets in this way.
Still, I'm just a kid, and I don't know what I'm talking about. Right? :-)
Not sure how German Siemens is, but Siemens HQ is in Nurenberg; I've had to phone their Industrial HMI support team there before and I have to say the Germans are bloody sight more useful that their English counterparts...but I diegress.
Siemens I think is/was owned by Sir William Siemens, the UK HQ is called Sir William Siemens House and it's in Manchester. So maybe it's a half German half English company?
Sir being the title of a Knight in the UK, for those who didn't know.
--
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
Everyone, including the Bundeswehr has known for years that MSware is compromised.
Could the decision to do something about it now be related to German troops in Macedonia being shelled by a CIA surrogate army?
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
...a year ago a friend of mine, who is in the germany army, told me that they are using MS Win95 on their Radarsystems...argh! That scared me...these areas are just too sensible for a OS wich you can enter by pressing on login ;-)
Same with hospitals. I cant wait until we germarns ban MS out of our healthsystem...that looks like the next logical step...
Lispy
Scheisse! This is soo poor! Where are the moderator points when i need them. So tell me, whose the Nazi in here? Lispy
There really shouldnt be a doubt about Spiegels credibility. I trust them. Lispy
Germany is a very powerful force within the European Union as well so chances of this rubbing off into other countries will likely take place in the not-to-distant future.
Germany are about as popular in Europe as the US is throughout the world. The chances of France, Italy or the UK following them "just because Germany did it" are pretty slim.
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
Because the NSA have it and the German government doesn't. If they used a truly open system then backdoors could be planted but a security audit would find them.
Well Microsoft did it. Sort of anyway.
John Logie Baird invented the television, and you're right it wasn't an Englishman who invented the first car it was a Frenchman. Saying that Daimler invented the car is as hilarious as saying it was Henry Ford that did it.
I work for a German Company and have visited a lot of German companys. From what I have seen is that all the companys run Windows NT and a few run Windows 2000. If they run Windows NT it's with SP5. I have also seen a lot of companys experment with Linux, mostly running internal websites.
But the article talks about secure servers, I just see the "front end" not the secure servers, and from those that I have seen, they are running Suns.
I wonder who is winning on this? SuSE?
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Nope. The first computer as a programmable, general-purpose calculation machine was build in 1941 by Konrad Zuse.
Of course, there were numerous electronic or electromechanic calculation machines back then, but none of them was truely programmable.
Claus
considering that the Bundeswehr (according to NATO plans) was supposed to be at the forefront of defense against the 7000+ warsaw pact tanks that could have invaded western europe, i would consider it a major military organization.
also, as one poster said (unfortunately modded down to 0) standing man power was 500000+ (now down to 280000 or so). mobilization levels within 3 months were 1000000+, i think.
in addition, it is a little known fact that the federal republic of germany has, in fact, nuclear weapons. Check out this article (babelfished).
There is a German Tornado strike bomber squadron that is assigned to carry American B61 nuclear bombs. Officially, these weapons are still under US control, but that is probably just a formality.
"They didn't claim that the NSA is in Langley, Virginia. They said that the CIA is in Langley, Virginia." why was this modded down????
from the Register article I was quoting: German armed forces ban MS software, citing NSA snooping.
I sort of thought that "German armed forces" counted as a major military organization. How about you?
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
The two companies [Siemens and Deutsche Telekom] have supplanted Microsoft (and anything else American) and will be producing a secure, home-grown system that the German military can be confident in.
So basically, instead of having a proprietary American software running a major military organization, they'll have proprietary German software running a major military.
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
From the NSA web site:
The National Security Council, a group of appointed senior officials, assists the President in formulating foreign policy and intelligence priorities. The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) directs and coordinates the diverse activities of all the U.S. intelligence organizations. The IC has representation from many intelligence agencies, including intelligence functions in the DoD, Departments of Justice, Treasury, Energy, and State, and the CIA. While not a military organization, NSA is one of several elements of the IC administered by the DoD."Then came the Holy One, blessed be He, and slew the angel of death, that killed the shohet that slaughtered the ox that drank the water that quenched the fire that burned the stick that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat my father bought for two zuzim."
It's not a backdoor. It's a feature.
...I'll procrastinate tomorrow...
Right. Let's install RedHat instead...
German security authorities suspect that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has 'back door' access to Microsoft source code, and can therefore easily read the Federal Republic's deepest secrets.And then we're going to help Mulder crack his biggest case!...
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Right. Let's install RedHat instead...
German security authorities suspect that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has 'back door' access to Microsoft source code, and can therefore easily read the Federal Republic's deepest secrets.
And then we're going to help Mulder crack his biggest case!...
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What like Outlook? :)
Wilhelm Siemens was the brother of the Siemens founder, Wernher von Siemens, and was responsible for the English subsidiary.
Further information here: click
Let's not forget the whole NSA backdoor key in Win2k debacle. There were, of course, reports from Microsoft denying that this was a key for the NSA. There is, at least, sufficient doubt to make it impossible to rule out the presence of a delibrate NSA backdoor.
Even if that weren't enough, one could argue that such a backdoor, if found, might be (or possibly has already been) classified as a bug instead of a backdoor.
Are you implying that the NSA will break the law?
The us Military will use Win2k to sink it's ships, ERR, Sail it's ships
Related Story
I think most armies have some form of protectionism built into their purchasing policies, this makes sense as you don't want to rely on someone who might end up on the wrong side in a conflict for supplies, and also because money fed into your own economy makes its way back into the budget in a few years anyway...
PS: Believe it or not, Siemens really does have a Staines office (Siemens Building Technology). If only Wang had an office in Cologne.
Hopefully this is a precursor to a world where people will realize the value of having the source code to the software they use and rely upon. Especially where security is a major concern.
Are YOU listed?
98% of SuSE is not german
But at least you can examine, or modify the source code for 98% of SuSE. The other 2% of SuSE, you don't have to install.
With SuSE being a German company, they might be less inclined to spy on their own government -- or, the government migtht be able to cooperate/coerce SuSE in various ways.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I replied to another message with basically the following argument...
MS would never allow their source code outside the US. Who would they complain to if foriegn power violated the NDA? Imagine even inside the US where MS has the legal system in their pock..er.., um.., I mean, on their side. If a US company violated MS NDA, no amount of money in a legal judgement could make up for it. Period. Damage is done. So given the absence of any legal recourse, why would MS release source code outside of the US?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
This is not just paranoia, the us government has done this kind of thing before, see: this article
So this would not be the first time a US company has spied for the country.
Sindri Traustason.
You know, my friends and I have joked about MS (and other companies) having backdoors in their software for years. We've always known the NSA has incredible powers when it comes to finding out what they want to know. It's only a quick leap of logic to assume they've got systems that make Carnivore look like a toy. Besides MS, I'd say the next biggest target is Cisco's routers. Think about the incredible potential if the NSA can just reroute anything they want through their own network.
It can be trusted, but it's not a newspaper, it's a weekly magazine. The story though is very untypically short for "The Spiegel". That can't be all, I am sure there will be a follow-up when time comes. I think most of you are completely overreacting here.
You think that if the government had access to Microsoft's software then they'd have a stronger case against them...
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
Actually SuSE is a germany-based linux distro. I am sure that the German government could work with SuSE to work out any possible international security kinks.
Sorry; my comment was more in regard to the article at The Register, which details that they are phasing out ALL non-German software from their most secure areas. For normal governmental work and other divisions, they will probably continue using Windows, since that is the platform on which you'll find most business apps.
-------
-- russ
"You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
If anyone bothers to read the article, it states that Germany isn't going to use ANY American or foreign software in its most highly secured areas. Why the hell did timothy feel the need to specifically cite only Microsoft software?
:)
In case you were thinking that this is somehow a "win" (whatever that is) for Linux, think again: They are going to home-grow their secure solutions using a German software company.
This is the same thing our United States military does. They contract with American-owned companies for custom software solutions (like the recent Windows Datacenter custom system for running Battleships and aircraft carriers, or the NSA's development work on a secure Linux system.)
Can't Slashdot just stop focusing on Microsoft for even one minute? Please?
Oh well.... life goes on
-------
-- russ
"You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
which is *more* than ... doubtfull.
I mean, the reporter of Der Spiegel never heard of Source License... oh, well, they will not reprint this in two year's time.
Actually, Der Spiegel is known for such things.
You are right, Word source code would not help, but access to this chokepoint of Windows encryption would help a great deal.
I find it interesting, though, that this si the second setback that Microsoft has faced in nearly as many days regardign foreign gov'ts using thier software. See http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/14/235625 4&mode=thread.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"According to a colleague of Pleuger's this meant that the German foreign services "might as well hold our conferences directly in Langley." We're not entirely sure whose interesting video conferencing via satellite service has a vital groundstation in Denver, but we note that Pleuger seems to have gleaned this information from a presentation held earlier this month in Berlin by, er, Deutsche Telekom."
Well, if they are not using and hardware key based encryption then it serves them right!
There are some major satellite teleports in the suburban Denver area...
Yesterday someone posted a connection between Microsoft & CoS. The Germans have good reason for their decision, especially considering that the disk-caching and defragmentation utilities shipped in NT & 2K were developed by a company founded by a Scientologist. Germany and CoS are not good friends (read more on google)
The internet has spawned interesting phenomena such as rtmark, which seeks to subvert worldwide corporatization by arranging contributions to fund legal anti-corporate activities. It's about time for someone to conduct similar efforts toward confirming back doors in OS software.
Until then, we all have to wonder whether this is paranoia from the intelligence community, or reality.
If you love God, burn a church!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
I quote from an unnamed source in Uzbekistan, a US citizen working for a US owned joint venture.
So why do they really bug software? Just look at the business between Boeing and Airbus. Govt sponsored commercial espionage! Both sides.See my journal, I write things there
I'm sorry, but it always gets me that governments get so panicky when it comes to their "deepest secrets". Um, why would you have your servers (be they Microsoft OS'ed or not) that contain your most vital information accessible to the public at all? If all the server is connected to is a power socket, there are few ways anybody in America could pull information off of it. I doubt they have their classified documents in the local public library with a sign on it that says 'Do not disturb'.
"[The two companies] will be producing a secure, home-grown system that the German military can be confident in". Isn't that called "Linux" in America? Or really, "BSD". Anybody here who wants real security grabs their favorite distro and locks it down tighter than Trinity's leather pants. Wasn't this one of the stupid plot elements in "Antitrust", how the corporation put their secrets unencrypted on an internet server? Give me a break.
Besides NORAD, there's the Denver Federal Center
The NSA is based in Fort Mead, Maryland; not Langley, Virginia.
If germany develops a new OS in house, they'll have to develope it on SOME kind of platform, right? Assuming this conspiracy theory is on track, at least one computer with the source on it will be online at some point in time. There will also be bugs in whatever they develope that they don't catch immediatly. Ok, even if the source isn't stolen or sold at once, the os will be deployed onto computers connected to the net and in government offices all over the place. At some point it will be possible to steal a hardrive from one of the computers, and smuggle it out. Their security isn't that great. Given the NSA's capabilities, my guess is that they could reverse engineer just about any peice of software or at least get an idea of what it looks like. From there they could find bugs that would allow them to penetrate the main system, and get the whole source off a server somewhere.
Sound far fetched? Yeah. I'll bet I'm wrong..but then again you never know.
Maskirovka
I mean, You'd think MS wouldn't really want to help the government after having all the legal troubles they did, what with the case and all. I'd like to see the claims by Deustch Telekom and Sigmen. Just curious...
blah
Ok, consider the resources that the NSA might expend on a hypothetical backdoor into Windows. It would probably take significant lobbying of top MS execs. Or they could "buy" one or two important people on the MS build team.
Now, consider the resources that the NSA would expend on getting backdoor (highly obscured buffer overflow) access into a few of the most popular Linux distros. All they would have to do is get maintenance control of a couple key packages. This can rather easily be done.
Just because Linux is open source doesn't mean its impregnable. In fact the Linux distributed packaging and maintenance system would seem to make it trivial for spying agencies to attack it.
... Shouldn't computers containing stuff that shouldn't be seen not be networked in the first place?
Do you like German cars?
Hey, what's this cool new word "gig" mean?
besides... last uname -a I did showed FreeBSD
360 degrees of Karma
Siemens is a mega corporation, so its going to be neat to see how this plays out on other European countries using Microsoft based products, as well as the governments of Germany and America's trust in each other (remember with a company like Siemens, its not like its a mom and pop company ranting off.) Germany is a very powerful force within the European Union as well so chances of this rubbing off into other countries will likely take place in the not-to-distant future.
Another oddity is why would they just come out of the blue and state these transmissions are going to Denver? Out of all the places (for a conspiracy theorist to mention) in the US Denver and not someplace like Washington. Well here are the only places I know offhand capable of capturing, sorting info in the Colorado area along with respective information: ITS, NSA orders (keep in mind these are publicly accessible websites and known locations)
I wonder if MS would comment on this article or will they ignore it. This isn't the first time MS has been accused of having backdoored software.
(In fact here ya go enjoy... gov doc a, gov doc b, Slashdot's prior MS/Backdoor article)
Also its not the first time someone in the European Union has accused the United States of odd actions involving espionage. There was also something along the lines of ECHELON being by the U.S. used to promote industrial espionage in order to beat the EU to a large (billions of dollar large) aerospace deal with Saudi Arabia.
Anyways...
Well here's the babelfishified version of the German article:
crummy translation...
vroom vroom
360 degrees of Karma
Veni, vidi, vici.
Really? I'm curious about this: Television with its tube ist based on the "Braunsche Roehre". Is K.F. Braun German or British? Cars: The motor was developed by Karl Otto and Gottlieb Daimler. Who are the british people you speak of? cu Lars
This should not come as a big surprise. Most foreign government suspected this for a long time. Foreign intelligent agencies do not use Microsoft product for security concerns. Microsoft product runs on most PC, naturally the NSA will want to get a hand in its development. Its beats trying to hack into foreign government computers. It save a lot of time and money. Now the question is what Microsoft getting out of this from the NSA? Microsoft is not giving it out for free, we all knows.
On the issue of OS. Germany intelligent agencies has there own OS as well as the Russian, etc. They are smarter then that to trust Microsoft or other foreign companies. The problem is that most intelligent agencies do not and will not share there technology unless they force to as we have seen with GPS.
I also think that all major companies foreign or not should be worry about this. If Microsoft have a back door key, vital information can be stolen by Microsoft and will be use against them or worst patent it. Even if Microsoft don't have a back door key in place, it's still very unsecured and I personally do not recommend it to my clients if security is there number one concern.
I would suspect Micro$oft, But If this were the case microsoft wouldn't be in court against the government. Or is that just a cover to keep people from thinking microsoft and the Government are in cahoots. of course this might just be a classic case of one hand of the government not knowing what the other hand...
:" the only command you need to fix Windows.
o'course this could just be the one of the best augments for open source ever.
I don't think any one in the CIA or else where in the government is smart enough to have pulled this off in the first place.
-- "Format C
Nach Erkenntnissen deutscher Sicherheitsbehörden verfügt der amerikanische Spionagedienst NSA über alle einschlägigen Quellcodes der US-Firma und kann so selbst verschlüsselte Daten lesen.
Did anyone read what is really written here ?
It says: German Security Authorities think they KNOW ("nach Erkenntnisen" means ~ "they have knowledge/they believe to have found out") that the NSA has the source to all M$-Products. They don't assume it, they actually seem to be 100% sure of it.
So it isn't really important if the NSA has access or not, as long as the Bundeswehr believes they do (and the B. does believe it) they will replace M$-Products.
keep it simple.
Who needs Windows 2000 when the Germans have Enigma boxes, hah, sit on that and rotate Mr NSA! :o)
I always was sure Microsoft was in some murky waters. I mean Microsoft has been so far winning in its monoply case. I think this is done with the help of someone on the inside. They help microsoft, Microsoft helps them. As the article said: Which just happens is that they have picked up the gig. The two companies have supplanted Microsoft (and anything else American) and will be producing a secure, home-grown system that the German military can be confident. So long Microsoft. The revolution has begun!
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
If Microsoft really is going to open their source code to a select few parties, they better make the German government one of those parties. I think the potential economic (and PR) impact here makes it obvious that the Germans need to feel comfortable with the code
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
The German ZKA (Central Committee of Credit Institutions) - a body that standardizes and certifies the electronic processing of financial transactions in Germany also specifically prohibits the use of Microsoft software in the security relevant aspects of EFT/POS (electronic fund transfer / point of sales). We don't do ATM machines but I know for a fact that most ATM machines run either a proprietary firmware or they're based on a ZKA certified version of OS/2.
World Domination UK ! (do they still control the world with their marine forces ?) (ups ... wrong century)
If you still count the USA as a colony...
At the end of the day, the issue is trust. Without a willingness to trust others, something as simple and basic as banking becomes impossible. Software is no different to anything else in this respect.
Bell was born in Scotland (Edinburgh), though I dont know what his citizenship status was when he developed his telephone. He may have been Canadian or American at that point.
As for me, I trust them all: my bank, my hardware suppliers, my software suppliers, etc. In fact, since Ive nothing to hide, I dont actually care if these security agencies are monitoring my every move. Theyd have to be awfully bored to be doing that, though.
One of the reasons the British military is so much more effective than the French and German militaries is that spending is based on what is best for the job, not on politics. This often means buying American (or even French/German) equipment rather than British. The American military is fairly protectionist, but BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) is given equal treatment to American defence companies. In any case, the enormous size of the American defence budget is enough to make up for any inefficiencies caused by protectionism.