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
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