Microsoft's scary post-war crisis


To many other countries, Microsoft is a symbol of American might and dominance. In fact, there exists in many computing circles an underlying fear that Microsoft is in cahoots with the United States government; that security backdoors in the software would let, say, the National Security Agency secretly gain access to foreign computers running Microsoft software. In September 1999, I wrote a story for CNET News.com about a supposed NSA backdoor in Windows NT. Microsoft fairly convincingly explained away that alleged backdoor, but it did little to dissuade ongoing concerns among those folks already suspicious of the company's software.