Suspecting NSA spying, Microsoft to ramp up efforts to encrypt its Internet traffic

[Douglas Carpenter]

Source: Washington Post

Microsoft is moving toward a major new effort to encrypt its Internet traffic after concluding that the National Security Agency may have broken into its global communications systems, said people familiar with the emerging plans.

Suspicions at Microsoft, while building for several months, sharpened in October when it was reported that the NSA was intercepting traffic inside the private networks of Google and Yahoo, two industry rivals with similar global infrastructures, said people with direct knowledge of the company’s deliberations. They said top Microsoft executives are meeting this week to decide what encryption initiatives to deploy and how quickly.

Documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggest — though do not prove — that the company is right to be concerned. Two previously unreleased slides that describe operations against Google and Yahoo include references to Microsoft’s Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger services. A separate NSA e-mail mentions Microsoft Passport, a Web-based service formerly offered by Microsoft, as a possible target of that same surveillance project, called MUSCULAR, which was first disclosed by The Post last month.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/microsoft-suspecting-nsa-spying-to-ramp-up-efforts-to-encrypt-its-internet-traffic/2013/11/26/44236b48-56a9-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html

[onehandle]

1. Commendable, but no encryption is secure. I've assumed since I sent my first Email decades ago...

...that my every Internet action is visible to someone.

[longship]

2. I agree with your conclusion, but there are encryptions a that are secure.

And some are available for free.

But the issue is that people still might be compromised because a security agency with access, like the NSA can still intercept encrypted traffic and discern stuff about it even if the encryption cannot be broken.

But there is strong encryption easily available that remains uncrackable, and with no back doors (with the above caveats in place).

[defacto7]

4. That's a fact.

I use the Vernam cipher on all my email!

[pam4water]

3. Oh please. It's all for show. NS still can wait to sell anyone personal information to anyone

else with a dollar.

[cprise]

5. You're right- Its a deceptive PR move that omits mention of NSA PRISM

Just like the announcements made by Yahoo! and Google (and the flat out denial of Apple is almost funny).

And WaPo falls for it because that's the way they like it... their pension funds depend on major Wall St. stocks staying wealthy.

These encryption initiatives are primarily aimed at keeping internal corporate traffic from being spied; Its to protect people who work at these companies first and foremost.

MS makes no explicit mention of the PRISM spying program wherein the major Internet brands *cooperate* with the NSA to spy on their users without warrants. They vaguely state they are cooperating only when its "legal".

[bobGandolf]

6. Microsoft doesn't mind helping NSA spy on us, but.....

it's a different story when it is themselves.