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Richard Stallman Speaks About Back Doors After NSA Documents Leak

Posted by samzenpus on from the listen-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, and Google are scrambling to restore trust amid fresh litigation over the PRISM surveillance program. Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and a newly-inducted member of the 2013 Internet Hall of Fame, speaks about not only abandoning the cloud, which he warned about 5 years ago, but also escaping software with back doors. 'I don't think the US government should use operating systems made in China,' he says in this new interview, 'for the same reason that most governments shouldn't use operating systems made in the US and in fact we just got proof since Microsoft is now known to be telling the NSA about bugs in Windows before it fixes them.'"

3 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    While it is true that Microsoft is agreeing in certain cases to give access to the source code to Windows, it appears actually getting your hands on the code is sometimes harder than expected.

    Point in case, Éric Filiol, an ex French intelligence officer from DGSE (the Directorate-General for External Security) recently explained that
    “The French State can't obtain certain pieces of technical information on the WIndows kernel. A country that has nuclear fire and is a member of the UN's Security Council can't make Microsoft reveal necessary informations on a système that is absolutely everywhere.”

    ("L’État français n’arrive pas à obtenir certaines informations techniques précises sur le noyau Windows. Un pays doté de l’arme nucléaire et membre du conseil de sécurité des Nations-Unies ne peut pas contraindre Microsoft de lui donner des informations nécessaire sur un système qui est absolument partout".)
    Source:
    http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26360-la-france-n-arrive-pas-a-avoir-des-informations-sur-le-noyau-windows.html

    So there seems to be a difference between what is announced and what happens.

  2. Re: GNU/Linux is made in the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    But who compiled the compiler?

    http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf

  3. Re:Abandoning the cloud ? by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Informative

    No it's not. A classical networked system belongs to a single company, and there's a clear separation between the inside (which is mostly trusted) and the outside (which is not trusted). A cloud system blurs the distinction, so you never know if the stuff you're accessing is actually being used by untrusted people who are going to steal your secrets, blackmail you, etc.