I had a friend share a blog post of a story that has been all over the Internet lately regarding Microsoft having a government backdoor in Windows. The story shared is located here, but I’m sure drudging around tech news sites run by 14 year olds or ignorant IT professionals will expose you to similar content.
Full disclosure: I’ve been using Linux for over five years regularly, and am typing this post from my laptop running Debian Linux to my server running Debian Linux, but I do use Windows on my desktop. Hopefully that sentence will cut down on comments accusing me of fanboyism, because I’m going to stick up for Microsoft here.
Actually, I don’t need to stick up for them - because the ‘backdoor’ doesn’t exist as far as anyone knows. I can’t pretend to know whether one exists (a huge reason why open source is better in cases like this), but in this instance the authors of titles are just being media whores and trying to amplify the situation for traffic. The reasons why this is true are straightforward, and numbered for your pleasure:
1. The component in question is not a part of Windows by default.
The program the article’s author is claiming has a backdoor is the Malicious Software Removal Tool, which does not ship by default with any version of Windows. Yeah, it is a component produced by Microsoft, but even if there was a backdoor in it, it isn’t a backdoor in Windows.
2. It isn’t a backdoor.
Backdoors allow an outsider unauthorized access into a system. As the article reports, the Malicious Software Removal Tool may report the IP address of the machine through the tool to a central location. Reporting an IP is nowhere near the same class as a backdoor. While I won’t argue that doing this against the user’s will is a breach of privacy, people seem to be in love with escalating issues, and it is as stupid as it is unfounded.
3. Everything is speculation.
Find a fact worth the attention these stories are getting. Everything is based on interpretation of events, and the discussion following those interpretations are once again removed before “facts” are arrived at. Sensationalist writing has always annoyed me, and that people take it seriously even more so.
So there you have it. The fabled Microsoft Windows government backdoor is a manifestation produced by someone who fails both at basic computer security and journalism. Just as the title of this post states: the Microsoft Windows government backdoor… isn’t.
