cryptogon.com

By Alec Klein and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 9, 2007; D01

When Microsoft introduces its long-awaited Windows Vista operating system this month, it will have an unlikely partner to thank for making its flagship product safe and secure for millions of computer users across the world: the National Security Agency.

For the first time, the giant software maker is acknowledging the help of the secretive agency, better known for eavesdropping on foreign officials and, more recently, U.S. citizens as part of the Bush administration’s effort to combat terrorism. The agency said it has helped in the development of the security of Microsoft’s new operating system — the brains of a computer — to protect it from worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers.

“Our intention is to help everyone with security,” Tony W. Sager, the NSA’s chief of vulnerability analysis and operations group, said yesterday.

The NSA’s impact may be felt widely. Windows commands more than 90 percent of the worldwide market share in desktop operating systems, and Vista, which is set to be released to consumers Jan. 30, is expected to be used by more than 600 million computer users by 2010, according to Al Gillen, an analyst at market research firm International Data.

Microsoft has not promoted the NSA’s contributions, mentioning on its Web site the agency’s role only at the end of its “Windows Vista Security Guide,” which states that the “guide is not intended for home users” but for information and security specialists.

The Redmond, Wash., software maker declined to be specific about the contributions the NSA made to secure the Windows operating system.

Microsoft said this is not the first time it has sought help from the NSA. For about four years, Microsoft has tapped the spy agency for security expertise in reviewing its operating systems, including the Windows XP consumer version and the Windows Server 2003 for corporate customers.

With hundreds of thousands of Defense Department employees using Microsoft’s software, the NSA realizes that it’s in its own interest to make the product as secure as possible. “It’s partly a recognition that this is a commercial world,” Sager said. “Our customers have spoken.”

Microsoft also has sought the security expertise of other U.S. government and international entities, including NATO. “I cannot mention any of the other international agencies,” said Donald R. Armstrong, senior program manager of Microsoft’s government security program, citing the wishes of those agencies to remain anonymous.

Microsoft’s concerns extend beyond the welfare of its software when it seeks the security expertise of government agencies. “When you get into an environment where a Microsoft product is used in a battlefield situation or a government situation where if a system is compromised, identities could be found out,” and it could be a matter of life and death, Armstrong said.

Other software makers have turned to government agencies for security advice, including Apple, which makes the Mac OS X operating system. “We work with a number of U.S. government agencies on Mac OS X security and collaborated with the NSA on the Mac OS X security configuration guide,” said Apple spokesman Anuj Nayar in an e-mail.

Novell, which sells a Linux-based operating system, also works with government agencies on software security issues, spokesman Bruce Lowry said in an e-mail, “but we’re not in a position to go into specifics of the who, what, when types of questions.”

The NSA, which provided its service free, said it was Microsoft’s idea to acknowledge the spy agency’s role.

The NSA’s primary mission is signals intelligence — monitoring the communications of foreign powers, terrorists and others. But its secondary objection is “information assurance,” under which the security of Microsoft’s operating system falls.

Industry observers suggest that both the NSA and Microsoft have good reason to disclose their relationship. For Microsoft, the NSA’s imprimatur may be viewed as a vote of confidence in the operating system’s security.

“I kind of call it a Good Housekeeping seal” of approval, said Michael Cherry, a former Windows program manager who now analyzes the product for Directions on Microsoft, a firm that tracks the software maker.

Cherry says the NSA’s involvement can help counter the perception that Windows is not entirely secure and help create a perception that Microsoft has solved the security problems that have plagued it in the past. “Microsoft also wants to make the case that [the new Windows] more secure than its earlier versions,” he said.

Latest figures show the median house price in New Zealand is more than seven times the average salary – a 72% increase on five years ago and higher than in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

On Jan. 4, Bush ousted the top two commanders in the Middle East, Generals John Abizaid and George Casey, who had opposed a military escalation in Iraq, and removed Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who had stood by intelligence estimates downplaying the near-term threat from Iran’s nuclear program.

Most Washington observers have treated Bush’s shake-up as either routine or part of his desire for a new team to handle his planned “surge” of U.S. troops in Iraq. But intelligence sources say the personnel changes also fit with a scenario for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and seeking violent regime change in Syria.

Bush appointed Admiral William Fallon as the new chief of Central Command for the Middle East despite the fact that Fallon, a former Navy fighter pilot and currently head of the Pacific Command, will oversee two ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Given Iran’s authority over the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway to more than 40 percent of the world’s energy, we have become so strong that the world’s economic and energy security are in the hands of Iran,” deputy Basij commander General Majid Mir Ahmadi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

As Democrats began their first full week in the congressional majority, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would “look at everything” to wind down the war effort, short of cutting off support for troops already deployed.

Bush has long denied allegations that he had connections to the intelligence community prior to 1976, when he became Central Intelligence Agency director under President Gerald Ford. At the time, he described his appointment as a ‘real shocker.’

But the freshly uncovered memos contend that Bush maintained a close personal and business relationship for decades with a CIA staff employee who, according to those CIA documents, was instrumental in the establishment of Bush’s oil venture, Zapata, in the early 1950s, and who would later accompany Bush to Vietnam as a “cleared and witting commercial asset” of the agency.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Bush’s original oil company, Zapata Petroleum, began in 1953 through joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business. The ’75 memo describes Devine as an “oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush.” The memo is attached to an earlier memo written in 1968, which lays out how Devine resumed work for the secret agency under commercial cover beginning in 1963.

The Observer has established that under new plans to combat terrorism, the US government will demand that visitors have all 10 fingers scanned when they enter the country. The information will be shared with intelligence agencies, including the FBI, with no restrictions on their international use.

US airport scanners now take only two fingerprints from travellers. The move to 10 allows the information to be compatible with the FBI database.

‘We are going to start testing at several airports,’ a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman confirmed. ‘It will begin some time this summer.’

Sources said 10 airports would initially be involved. The scheme will cover most of the major airports frequently used by British travellers, including New York, Washington and Miami. Countries subject to the new scheme include Britain, other European Union nations, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Last night the British civil rights group Liberty expressed astonishment at the plan, which will affect four million British travellers to the US. ‘This must be the Keystone Cops school of border control,’ said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty. ‘Accumulating the fingerprints of millions of innocent passengers will not deter would-be suicide bombers.’

Security experts warned the scale of the scheme might jeopardise its success. ‘This maniacal proposal will turn thousands of law-abiding British travellers into terrorist suspects,’ said Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, a campaign against intrusive surveillance.

‘The technology at US airports will be far less reliable. That means anyone could be the victim of a false match, Davies said. ‘Be warned. A San Francisco Bay family holiday may easily become a nightmare.’

He predicted that airport queues would treble as a result of the scheme. ‘Taking fingerprints is a delicate and complex undertaking that can’t be rushed to keep queues short,’ he said.

A recent report by the civil liberties group Statewatch highlighted a Japanese study that tested 15 biometric systems and found 11 of them failed to detect ‘false’ fingerprints were being used in the form of a latex strip covering a person’s fingers.

Britons already have their credit card details and email accounts inspected by the American authorities following a deal between the EU and the Department of Homeland Security. Now passengers face having all their credit card transactions traced when using one to book a flight. And travellers giving an email address to an airline will be open to having all messages they send and receive from that address scrutinised.

A research team at the Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin managed to breed three transgenic pigs by injecting fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs, Xinhua quoted Professor Liu Zhonghua as saying.

“The mouth, trotters and tongue of the pigs are green under ultraviolet light,” said Liu.

Genetic material from jellyfish was injected into the womb of a sow which gave birth to the three pigs 114 days later in Harbin, he said.

Available in pink, blue, silver and black, the gun fits into a handbag like a mobile phone. It will be launched at a Las Vegas electronics fair on Monday.

Taser guns temporarily incapacitate a target with up to 50,000 volts.

Critics have linked their use to dozens of deaths, but Taser says they save lives by reducing the use of firearms.

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