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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,974  

Microsoft and encrypted data

Hello:

Have a read ...

From Forbes:

Microsoft Gave FBI Keys To Unlock Encrypted Data, Exposing Major Privacy Flaw

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrew … pted-data/

TL;DR

“If Apple can do it, if Google can do it, then Microsoft can do it.”
    Matt Green, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University

From The Register:

Surrender as a service: Microsoft unlocks BitLocker for feds
If you're serious about encryption, keep control of your encryption keys

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/23/ … microsoft/

TL;DR

"... a clear message to activist organizations and law firms that Microsoft is not building their products for you."

* the epitome of understatements if anything at all 

Both articles point to a huge elephant in the room:
Who in their right mind (and having but the most basic common sense) would entrust Microsoft (et alia) to keep their encryption keys safe?
ie: available to you and to you only.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2026-01-24 10:17:12)

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 592  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

All the big-tech corporations are the same, this is just a new example of that which has been obvious to anyone with two brain cells for a long time.
It's the same old song: Company sells you convenience and "safety" (cloud backups, all your keys in your online account in case you loose them etc.), charges you in loss of freedom and autonomy.

You can:
A: Behave like a good little consumer sheep, use the big shiny product, accept the default configuration, and deal with the fact that you have effectively no freedom to do as you wish with your technology and your data is not even remotely yours any more.
B: Be scorned by the normies as a "hacker", and either use free software/alternative technologies or (often illegally, if US law is to be believed) modify the usual offerings to not screw you over.

Either way, this isn't really "news", and whinging about it is just shouting at clouds. Most people really don't care, they like being sheep.

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 521  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

Why do people entrust their data to other people, back it up yourself, if really important give a copy to relatives to hold for you in case of fire/flood, etc. & update regularly.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 96  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

I'm just as concerned about the possibility that Redhat (also a US corporation with strong ties to the military industrial complex, already before they became a division of IBM) might have hidden some backdoors in the Linux ecosystem code somewhere. Just because it's FOSS it doesn't mean you can't sneak in backdoors somewhere in the millions of lines of code (disguised as bugs for plausible deniability).

Systemd would seem like a good candidate for such a backdoor to me, it's an essential and very complex piece of software with root privileges that runs on every Linux machine (except on the few using alternative init systems ) and it's predominantly developed by devs working for RH.
The kernel itself is less likely as the code is under too much scrutiny.

Last edited by tux_99 (2026-01-24 13:46:09)

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 1,220  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

Who in their right mind (and having but the most basic common sense) would entrust Microsoft (et alia) to keep their encryption keys safe?

No one with a well functioning brain

B: Be scorned by the normies as a "hacker", and either use free software/alternative technologies or (often illegally, if US law is to be believed) modify the usual offerings to not screw you over.

Its narcissistic for normies to think that way.

If hackers are smart, they will turn off any backdoors in their OS by any means necessary legal or illegal.

Thus, the whole aspect of prism becomes just a pointless thing to watch for dissent on innocent citizens and to detect dissent.

Honestly, I think that's the purpose of the pat-riot act and prism in general. All thus mass surveillance has nothing to do with catching crooks, its to monitor their innocent citizens to make sure they know what they are thinking so they can control dissent and/by any means needed.

The whole if you don't have anything to hide its not a problem is idiotic belief some hold.

Its destroyed the moment you tell them well then let me have all your accounts and their passwords so I can see what you are doing.

Nothing more than manipulative nonsense... honestly.

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Devarch

Member

Registered: 2022-10-03

Posts: 129  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

did you believe in BitLocker or in Windows?

Last edited by Devarch (Today 00:27:25)

blackhole

Member

Registered: 2020-03-16

Posts: 185  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

Systemd would seem like a good candidate for such a backdoor to me, it's an essential and very complex piece of software with root privileges that runs on every Linux machine (except on the few using alternative init systems wink ) and it's predominantly developed by devs working for RH.
The kernel itself is less likely as the code is under too much scrutiny.

And the project is actually overseen and developed by a Microsofter...

The Linux kernel is probably not under enough scrutiny. It has the likes of AMD, Intel, Red Hat google and Microsoft employees committing code. It's naive to expect those can commit code to the kernel, and that some other entity / individual simply audits it... they are "trusted".  Linux is no longer the safe haven from "big tech" and that's been the case for well over a decade. The Linux Foundation website clearly shows who is running things.

Last edited by blackhole (Today 08:50:46)

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 592  

Re: Microsoft and encrypted data

did you believe in BitLocker or in Windows?

[emphasis mine]
Believing in software is a fairly insane concept to begin with. Use logic when selecting tools, not trust, and certainly not faith or "belief".

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.