It may have been a good move to get some hardcore security guys involved in the development of Vista, but a lot of people are going to question why Microsoft looked to the NSA, which has been under fire recently for spying on people at the request of the Bush Administration.

Adding fuel to the upcoming fire…

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

Then again, maybe the idea was to position the upcoming operating system to be used by political bloggers, and/or throw a bone to the 110th Congress…

The NSA also declined to be specific but said it used two groups — a “red team” and a “blue team” — to test Vista’s security. The red team, for instance, posed as “the determined, technically competent adversary” to disrupt, corrupt or steal information. “They pretend to be bad guys,” Sager said. The blue team helped Defense Department system administrators with Vista’s configuration .

So the “blue team” were the good guys.

I guess I’m wondering whether the only one that is going to turn out bad or good is the Microsoft PR Team, when the whole concept spins in or out of control.

UPDATE: Bruce Schneier asks: Is this a good idea or not?

Qwest was recently praised for ingoring a request from the NSA for data on it’s subscribers. They looked like good guys and gals. People purportedly rushed to get their services. Their employees certainly ran around town, chatting it up.

Fast forward.

Qwest is at it again, only this time the talk is heavy endorsement of mandatory data retention laws being proposed for ISPs. Several Colorado politicians who had previously jumped on the Qwest hero worship are endorsing (and in one case, sponsoring) said measures.

The local Rocky Mountain News had noted:

Qwest has done its share to reinvent the company in recent years, but it may have generated an unexpected windfall by rebuffing the National Security Agency.

So..now that they have all those subscribers, what are they going to do with all that extra data they want to retain? Let’s just hope they don’t pull “an AOL.”

***UPDATE***

Oops. Someone at a big telco has admitted they misspoke, which has to be a first: Qwest endorses a more reasonable local law, not the federal mandate.

The recently announced NSA/Telco data sharing fiasco is setting off a wave of lawsuits. Make jokes if you must, in light of the situation (which I don’t personally think is a big deal - I don’t get any phone calls anyway). But I do think - how timely!

The telcos are in the middle of a “net neutrality” fight, and I wish someone would properly communicate the bigger picture - the telco’s certainly can’t.

The time is now - trade a quick sweep of this issue under the carpet in return for perpetually free access across the pipes.

Of course, that is exactly the opposite of what telecomm executives were thinking when they agreed to the data sharing plan in the first place.

***UPDATE***

Of course, BellSouth now joins Qwest in the “we didn’t do it” category. I’ve been pretty hard on telecomms for not getting the innovation thing - unfortunately, having a few players in the mix with plenty of chips remaining makes this whole net-neutrality poker game idea pretty hard to pull off.

The NSA has been snagged serving cookies to it’s website visitors’ computers, despite federal rules against the practice. The cookies expire when? 2035. Hmm. Who else does such things?

They had an excuse - an overlooked software upgrade. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bush Administration now pins the whole spying fiasco on the NSA, citing a rogue macro in Word that screws up court orders.

The folks I know in the education space, including some teachers, a few policy makers, and the higher-ups at a couple of for-profit institutions, have pissed and moaned about the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind program. I’ve heard funding is the big issue, but I can’t opine on the matter myself, as education just isn’t my “business.” But I see a covert signs that NCLB is actually working.

The Administration has been intercepting phone calls of people they say are terrorist-related. The National Security Agency has been doing the dirty work. Meanwhile, the NSA has also developed a program to identify the next generation of high-end surveillance personal - the codename….CryptoKids.

Maybe that’s where all the funding for education is going.