Microsoft: Vista won't get a backdoor 3268

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On 5 Mar 2006 18:06:32 -0800,

It remained a secret at Interbase for 7 years or so.

it wasn't until the software was released as open source that the backdoor was found.

I don't know how long Borland had the s-w, and how long the backdoor was there when Borland owned, but certainly long enough to bring doubt to your thesis.

Such a back door could be as simple as a single extra = sign. or a missing, any number of simple, very hard to discover ways.

What I find amusing, is that Erik has in the past, argued that you couldn't be sure there wasn't a backdoor in GCC, similar to Thompson's there's no way Microsoft could pull this trick off. So does that mean that MS programmers aren't as good as the GCC crew? if there's no possible way for MS to do this, but the GCC crew could, even though the source for the GCC stuff is easily available for anyone to examine, and the source code from MS, is quite tightly held?

Is MS putting a backdoor in Vista? I have no idea, but to claim that they couldn't be, that it would be impossible for it to stand, and yet also claim that there's no way to be sure GCC doesn't have such a backdoor... well, that's a bit od, isn't it Erik?

Then, Erik also said this

Unless you have built everything, including the compiler, from source (and then you're in a chicken and egg situation), you can't trust something just because you've seen what you think is the source.

Unless, apparantly, the source is from Microsoft, then, somehow, you can trust it...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.1 (GNU-Linux)

iD8DBQFEC-t6d90bcYOAWPYRAhlgAKDJxXSr1o-BXwkn2GuWT2xx7rw5JQCeKb6H Xa+LSVUQYNAk9lovegF732iE= =4MAd -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--

Microsoft - because god hates us