“The National Security Agency’s snooping practices may be costing American companies a lot of money,” Brad Reed reports for BGR.
“erman publication Zeit Online has obtained leaked documents that purportedly show that IT experts within the German government believe that Windows 8 contains back doors that the NSA could use to remotely control any computers that have it installed,” Reed reports. “The German officials specifically worry about how Windows 8 interacts with Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) and are concerned that once Windows machines are paired with TPM 2.0 in 2015, they won’t be able to deactivate it on their machines if they don’t want it. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
“‘Trusted Platform,’ my ass.” — What the NSA micro drone on the wall in Phil Schiller’s office just recorded.
—
United States Constitution, Amendment IV:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Join The Electronic Frontier Foundation in calling for a full congressional investigation here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jax44” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Report: NSA can see 75% of U.S. Web traffic, can snare emails – August 21, 2013
NSA can read email, online chats, track Web browsing without warrant, documents leaked by Edward Snowden show – July 31, 2013
Momentum builds against U.S. government surveillance – July 29, 2013
U.S. House rejects effort to curb NSA surveillance powers, 205-217 – July 24, 2013
Obama administration scrambles to shut down imminent U.S. House vote to defund NSA spying – July 24, 2013
Obama administration demands master encryption keys from firms in order to conduct electronic surveillance against Internet users – July 24, 2013
Apple, Google, dozens of others push Obama administration to disclose U.S. surveillance requests – July 19, 2013
Secret court agrees to allow Yahoo to reveal its fight against U.S. government PRISM requests – July 16, 2013
How Microsoft handed U.S. NSA, FBI, CIA access to users’ encrypted video, audio, and text communications – July 11, 2013
DuckDuckGo search engine surges 33% in wake of PRISM scandal – June 20, 2013
Yahoo: Since December 2012, we have received up to 13,000 U.S. gov’t requests for customer data – June 18, 2013
Apple: Since December 2012, we have received U.S. gov’t requests for customer data for up to 10,000 accounts – June 17, 2013
Nine companies, including Apple, tied to PRISM, Obama to be smacked with class-action lawsuit – June 12, 2013
U.S. lawmakers urge review of ‘Prism’ domestic spying, Patriot Act – June 10, 2013
PRISM: Do Apple, Google, Facebook have an ethical obligation not to spy on users? – June 8, 2013
Plausible deniability: The strange and unbelievable similarities in the Apple, Google, and Facebook PRISM denials – June 7, 2013
Google’s Larry Page on government eavesdropping: ‘We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday’ – June 7, 2013
Seecrypt app lets iPhone, Android users keep voice calls, text messages away from carriers, government eyes and ears – June 7, 2013
Obama administration defends PRISM data-collection as legal anti-terrorism tool – June 7, 2013
Facebook, Google, Yahoo join Apple in sort-of denying PRISM involvement – June 7, 2013
Report: Intelligence program gives U.S. government direct access to customer data on Apple servers; Apple denies – June 6, 2013
And this just in- Ballmer is to ‘retire’ in a year.
Will the circus take him back or is it not PC (Politically Correct) to have a dancing monkey any more?
I will hate to see him go. He has helped me set up my 401K for years now.
Thank you Ballmer!
You know, with any luck, he could destroy Microsoft in a year.
After jobs died apple joined NSA’s Nazi Prism program. Goes to show jobs was a lot of things, but a push over wasn’t one of them. So sure Microsoft caved back in 07 but the fact is apple caved as well.
Proof?
After Jobs died, Muk546 became an inveterate troll and bozo.
Of course, Muk546 was always a troll and bozo.
Jobs gone = good riddance. Adios, child abandoner fsuk.
He fixed it in the end.
Sadly, you can not be fixed. 😎
The only thing that could possibly fix x is a baseball bat to the back of the head.
A nice, solid hickory one, not one of those fancy Easton alloy ones.
I’d love to see x’s skull explode, just like hitting a watermelon.
Hey X, bend over. I see that “X” marks the spot for my foot to kick at.
Tell me more, mentioning the Nazis in relation to something that is clearly nothing to do with it make me value your opinions so much.
Actually, ‘x’ was hired by Godwin to be ‘evidence’ supporting Godwin’s Law.
NSA needs no one’s permission to snoop. The motto of NSA is “All your bits are belong to us.” You want anonymity? Sell your iPhone, disconnect your iPad and Mac, move to the Big Thicket.
MacFraud, I notice you don’t talk about getting rid of your own Android phone, y’know, the one that’s riddled with malware and security holes you could fly an Airbus A380 through…
Sent from my iPhone you brainless twit.
Big Thicket, huh? You must be a fellow Texan, although I hesitate to open us up to the haters.
The Germans don’t mess around. Maybe some other smart countries will start to wise up too.
That would disqualify USA. This nation is becoming increasingly populated by human scum indoctrinated by the government schools that living off the sweat and wealth of hardworking citizens is an appropriate career choice.
Tis is a no news… Windows has ALWAYS been dangerous to use… 8o
CNN is reporting that Ballmer will retire in 12 months.
If only Apple offered a Mac Pro without a NCA back door. Oh, that is next month. Ok, never mind. Apple is still the safe solution.
Who remembers Back Orifice?
=:~)
Sure they are trusted. They just omit to say by whom.
Why would the NSA need a back door when it is so easy for any decent hacker to come through Window’s front door, walls, or any place they please.?
Windows has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese
The German government has already debunked this rumor as untrue:
http://www.zdnet.com/german-government-refutes-windows-backdoor-claims-7000019739/
I’ll just leave this here.
No this is president Obutthole finding out about Snowden.
HEIL Oshithead
FORWARD!
Enough with the misuse of that Benjamin Franklin quote – without the context, you don’t really know WHAT he was talking about.
Why don’t you enlighten us what Franklin REALLY meant. Perhaps down the lines…
“If your president is a Black Affirmative Action Knee Grow then forget everything I said, you racist!”
Really? Don’t you have a hole to crawl back into?
Ages ago I tried to get people to understand that Apple moving from IBM’s Power chips had much more to do with TPMs and their supposed ability to keep A/V file piracy at bay. The media companies demanded it if the iTS was going to get TV shows & movies. Performance was not the issue – it was that Intel had the platform everyone was coalescing around to institutionally (if commercially) spy on us. This is what I heard & it made more logical sense, especially in light of the low power & multi-threaded/multi-cored monsters IBM came out with shortly thereafter.
Now I wonder if there wasn’t more than just pressure from the studios on Apple to make the shift (hi Uncle Sammy!). Heard many things after that; Jobs may have never enabled the OS to interact with the TPMs, or perhaps they weren’t activated on the board, or possibly Apple fully utilized them & it was a well kept secret – never could find firm info about them at all once the switch was made.
Anyway, point is people that before you get on your high horses about MS & Winblows using these things, remember that Apple has been using largely the same motherboard technology ever since they went MacIntel. And Cook is just the sort who would go along with something like this, at least more whole heartedly than Jobs.
Snowden looks more like a hero every day…
Damned right!
This is all such BS. Everyone knows that when the Praetorians got busted in 1995, the NSA took it over.
TPM: Another great way Microsoft manages to stab itself in the back.
I like that strategy. I like it a lot! 😀