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Microsoft Helps Police Crack Your Computer

Posted by timothy on from the not-linux-enabled dept.

IGnatius T Foobar writes "Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that "may have been used in crimes." It basically bypasses all of the Windows security (decrypting passwords, etc.) in order to eliminate all that pesky privacy when the police have physical access to your computer. Just one more reason not to run Windows on your computer."

1 of 558 comments (clear)

  1. Not new by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone can boot from a Knoppix live CD and mount NTFS drives in Linux and poke around. NTFS security is not applied under Linux so you can have a look at anything you want. I don't see how this is a big deal.

    The only thing that might be a problem is browsing the registry, but I wonder if wine's regedit can load native Windows registry hives. If so, then all Microsoft has done is taken existing Linux functionality and made it user friendly for the police.

    Speaking of which, anyone wanna place bets as to how long it takes for this tool to spread across p2p and torrent sites?