Microsoft: Vista won't get a backdoor

[NICEGUY]

wow.. not sure if people would have any other options except to find ways to lock it...

Windows Vista won't have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed.

In February, a BBC News story suggested that the British government was in discussions with Microsoft over backdoor access to the operating system. A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication to gain access to a computer without to the PC user knowing.

But Microsoft has now quelled the suggestion that law enforcement might get such access.

"Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company representative said in a statement sent via e-mail.

The discussion centers on BitLocker Drive Encryption, a planned security feature for Vista, the update to the Windows operating system. BitLocker encrypts data to protect it if the computer is lost or stolen.

This feature could make it harder for law enforcement agencies to get access to data on seized computers.

"The suggestion is that we are working with governments to create a back door so that they can always access BitLocker-encrypted data," Niels Ferguson, a developer and cryptographer at Microsoft, wrote Thursday on a corporate blog. "Over my dead body," he wrote in his post titled "Back-door nonsense."

Complete Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-6046016.html

[WEB_I]

SWEET...its all about reverse engineering, thats where we all gain advantage...first out the gate...well you know the rest....if you dont ...email me


cheers

WEB_I

[eamondo]

Cool hopefully it will be harder to trace pirate software once it has been deleted now.... i mean i dont pirate lol.

[ApeXX]

Although I have nothing to hide, allowing the government unrestricted access to my computer would give me second thoughts about buying Vista.

[gino]

It would be great if the ycould monitor everything, but it makes me feel scared. lol

[Priamos]

Big Brother keeps watching more and more. Thanks Bill

[Pedro Parker]

Not that I do anything terribly illegal, I just don't like someone to have the ability to see what i'm doing. But I can understand the necessity.

I'd reading everyone's opinions about this.

[VTMercutio]

Microsoft will soon be its own country and it will have CIA operatives working their just to get the code...mark my words...hahaha

As a law student...this is a bad idea if Microsoft chooses to put a back door into Windows. Someone will find it and exploit it, and I guarantee it will not be the good guys. Law enforcement is always testing the boundaries to see what they can do against our civil liberties, and IMHO this is a thorough trouncing of privacy. Case in point look at the Patriot Act...that sucker is absolutely on the outter limits of sanity when you take privacy into account, and yet the American people deal with it because of the threat of terrorism and the dogma "if you have nothing to hide why do you care if the government looks?" If Microsoft responds to the public opinion by not putting this back door in, it will represent the general air of the public feeling that the government invasion of the home has its boundaries.

OK just in closing I realize that this is more for police officers wanting to look through seized computers, but the government doesn't have the best track record when it comes to using it's power as it was intended. Just look at the taps that were placed on Verizon data lines out in California and the injunction that was against google to release information. Just my twenty billion cents...sorry for the rant and rave.

[Spartan Erik]

for every closed backdoor there will always be an open backwindow

[killingprod]

wow.. good.. microsoft is getting better n better