It’s been easy to think that the FOSS world has little to worry about from Microsoft these days. By the time Steve Ballmer was forced out a few years back, the company seemed to be a basket case. Windows was becoming less relevant by the minute, many consumers were sparing themselves the expense of Office by adopting LibreOffice and OpenOffice and efforts to launch Windows Phone were going nowhere, even after Steven Elop drove Nokia to the brink of bankruptcy, allowing Redmond to purchase the Finnish company’s once unstoppable phone business at fire sale prices.
Although some have been trying to sound the alarm, many of us have been lulled into complacency brought by a belief that Microsoft is no longer a real threat and that we are now free to concentrate all of our energies on growing Linux and FOSS, which is basically all we’ve wanted to do.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
I haven’t seen this much hype since…well, since the last time Redmond came out with a new version of Windows.
We’ll start with the home user.
Ironically, this side door is intended to be a security door for third party add-ons that every Windows machine needs to keep it safe from cracker hackers — if that’s indeed possible. And this security tool is usually more trusted by Microsoft system admins, especially those outside the U.S., than Windows itself.
At the height of the media frenzy that developed around Snowden’s initial revelations, there were allegations that Microsoft had not only built back doors in its software for the NSA and other government agencies to use against foreign businesses and governments, but that it was cooperating with U.S. authorities in other ways as well. For example, one report indicated that the company was passing along details of unpatched security vulnerabilities in Windows to the NSA, effectively adding temporary tools to the spy agency’s cyber arsenal.
Maybe there’s another reason for downplaying this release.