4 ms·

What will the EU do about operating systems developed outside the EU, such as MS Windows, iOS, or Android? If these contain a backdoor for the NSA, it is unlike

What will the EU do about operating systems developed outside the EU, such as MS Windows, iOS, or Android? If these contain a backdoor for the NSA, it is unlikely that the manufactureres will tell the EU that they do. Therefore if the EU is serious about this (and it should be), it should develop its own operating systems, and mandate them for all enterprises that store personal or sensitive data (which means all enterprises). Doing this, while necessary, is not sufficient to stop backdoors, because they could be implemented at the hardware level. Many chips are manufactured in the far east, and China is a state that may be hostile to the EU in future. So the EU needs all chips to be designed and manufactured on its own soil, if it wants digital independence.

ginko 9y ago
I guess they could sue the hell out of any company that is revealed to have an NSA backdoor.
- chopin 9y ago
  You mean like the companies which have been sued for selling ridiculously vulnerable routers which have been compromised for years by the CIA? It's done this way to have plausible deniability.
alkonaut 9y ago
The EU already forced e.g Microsoft to adapt to the European market. For example the "N" edition of Windows. I can't see how this feature would be any different. If Microsoft wants to sell windows here then it will have to conform. They could just leave the European market but it would be way more expensive. They could also just hide the fact that they aren't conforming to standards and hope it's not discovered or leaked. The fines would be ridiculous (and ask VW whether it's a good idea).
- cabalamat 9y ago
  > If Microsoft wants to sell windows here then it will have to conform. Or say they are conforming but not doing so.
  - riffraff 9y ago
    that is trivially possible (and likely) but if it happens it will be likely come out at some point, and the EU is likely to punish MSFT hard. The EU Commission has previously fined MSFT for a couple billion dollars for "lesser" infractions.
    - alkonaut 9y ago
      They have fined microsoft billions over the years. Once 2-3 million dollars per day for failing to comply. 1.44 billion was the largest fine they got so far. Failing to comply with sometthing like this (through secrecy) would definitely be way north of that. It just wouldn't be worth it. I mean microsoft doesn't have anything to gain from having backdoored security, unlike the situation with media player and internet explorer, where there was a monopoly situation.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    Which was what I said, two lines down from the quoted line. And I also tried to explain how that would probably not be a worthwile thing to do for microsoft (Naively speaking: If you have e.g. 1% risk of discovery and the fine is estimated to say $10B, then the gain from keeping the backdoor would better be $100M etc.). I can't see how they could make any kind of big money out of insecure encryption, other than the savings of not fixing it.
StavrosK 9y ago
How does the US ensure its hardware has no Chinese backdoors?
- cabalamat 9y ago
  By making its own hardware, of course.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    That's interesting, do you know which companies make their hardware on US soil?
    - cabalamat 9y ago
      I've no idea. What the US would need to do is have a law mandating that hardware be made there, for national security purposes. All other polities need to do the same thing as well, if they wish to retain thier independence.
Svenskunganka 9y ago
Well, Linux does originate from Scandinavia (Linus Torvalds is Finland Swedish), and it's open source, so nothing stops us from building operating systems on top of Linux. But there are however a lot of good Linux-based operating systems out there already (open source, too), and the problem would rather be what comes pre-installed with the machine you buy. If Microsoft for example can't ensure the EU that Windows doesn't contain backdoors for the NSA for example, the EU could regulate the PC market to favor, say, Ubuntu over Windows pre-installed. But I really don't think it would be a good idea to do that. I do however think that our government agencies and militaries should be forced to run Linux. They already have a problem of being too reliant on Windows for pretty much everything.
- cabalamat 9y ago
  > If Microsoft for example can't ensure the EU that Windows doesn't contain backdoors for the NSA for example What counts as ensurance? Simply MS saying "no backdoors" clearly isn't good enough. Open sourcing the whole OS, to make it harder to find backdoors, would help.
  - Svenskunganka 9y ago
    Yeah that's the tricky part. I don't think the EU could make Microsoft open source their Windows, but I guess something along the lines of Microsoft having to give access to their source code to a team of EU security researchers that audits and looks for backdoors would be a start. But even that isn't foolproof.

ginko 9y ago

I guess they could sue the hell out of any company that is revealed to have an NSA backdoor.

chopin 9y ago
You mean like the companies which have been sued for selling ridiculously vulnerable routers which have been compromised for years by the CIA? It's done this way to have plausible deniability.

alkonaut 9y ago

The EU already forced e.g Microsoft to adapt to the European market. For example the "N" edition of Windows. I can't see how this feature would be any different. If Microsoft wants to sell windows here then it will have to conform. They could just leave the European market but it would be way more expensive. They could also just hide the fact that they aren't conforming to standards and hope it's not discovered or leaked. The fines would be ridiculous (and ask VW whether it's a good idea).

cabalamat 9y ago
> If Microsoft wants to sell windows here then it will have to conform. Or say they are conforming but not doing so.
- riffraff 9y ago
  that is trivially possible (and likely) but if it happens it will be likely come out at some point, and the EU is likely to punish MSFT hard. The EU Commission has previously fined MSFT for a couple billion dollars for "lesser" infractions.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    They have fined microsoft billions over the years. Once 2-3 million dollars per day for failing to comply. 1.44 billion was the largest fine they got so far. Failing to comply with sometthing like this (through secrecy) would definitely be way north of that. It just wouldn't be worth it. I mean microsoft doesn't have anything to gain from having backdoored security, unlike the situation with media player and internet explorer, where there was a monopoly situation.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  Which was what I said, two lines down from the quoted line. And I also tried to explain how that would probably not be a worthwile thing to do for microsoft (Naively speaking: If you have e.g. 1% risk of discovery and the fine is estimated to say $10B, then the gain from keeping the backdoor would better be $100M etc.). I can't see how they could make any kind of big money out of insecure encryption, other than the savings of not fixing it.

StavrosK 9y ago

How does the US ensure its hardware has no Chinese backdoors?

cabalamat 9y ago
By making its own hardware, of course.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  That's interesting, do you know which companies make their hardware on US soil?
  - cabalamat 9y ago
    I've no idea. What the US would need to do is have a law mandating that hardware be made there, for national security purposes. All other polities need to do the same thing as well, if they wish to retain thier independence.

Svenskunganka 9y ago

Well, Linux does originate from Scandinavia (Linus Torvalds is Finland Swedish), and it's open source, so nothing stops us from building operating systems on top of Linux. But there are however a lot of good Linux-based operating systems out there already (open source, too), and the problem would rather be what comes pre-installed with the machine you buy. If Microsoft for example can't ensure the EU that Windows doesn't contain backdoors for the NSA for example, the EU could regulate the PC market to favor, say, Ubuntu over Windows pre-installed. But I really don't think it would be a good idea to do that. I do however think that our government agencies and militaries should be forced to run Linux. They already have a problem of being too reliant on Windows for pretty much everything.

cabalamat 9y ago
> If Microsoft for example can't ensure the EU that Windows doesn't contain backdoors for the NSA for example What counts as ensurance? Simply MS saying "no backdoors" clearly isn't good enough. Open sourcing the whole OS, to make it harder to find backdoors, would help.
- Svenskunganka 9y ago
  Yeah that's the tricky part. I don't think the EU could make Microsoft open source their Windows, but I guess something along the lines of Microsoft having to give access to their source code to a team of EU security researchers that audits and looks for backdoors would be a start. But even that isn't foolproof.