On Jan 2, 2008 4:24 PM, Nick Mathewson <
nickm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 02:47:11PM -0600, Eugene Y. Vasserman wrote:
> Thus spake Ringo Kamens on Sun, 23 Dec 2007:
>
> (snip)
> > Also, we know the NSA and DoJ have engaged in
> > this type of activity in the past such as "working" with Microsoft to
> > secure vista and having their private key inserted into windows
> > versions so they could decrypt things.
>
> I've heard of the Vista bit, but what are you referring to, as far as
> having a decryption key for Windows stuff? I know they had one in...
> What was it? Lotus Notes?
He's probably referring to the "NSAKey" key in NT 4. For more
information, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsakey
It's a secondary code-signing key, allegedy to be used if their
primary code signing key needed to be revoked.
If you believe Microsoft, the key was called "_NSAKEY" because it was
introduced in order to meet NSA requirements for a secondary key.
Naming things after the software or organization that requires them,
rather than after their actual purpose, is not unusual for Microsoft:
Their office XML spec is littered with stuff like the notorious
AutoSpaceLikeWord95.
Personally, I don't believe that contemporary operating systems are so
secure that the NSA would rather have security holes custom-built for
it instead of just using the ones that are already there.
peace,
--
Nick