"Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft (MSFT) and other software or Internet security companies have been aware that this type of early alert allowed the U.S. to

"Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft (MSFT) and other software or Internet security companies have been aware that this type of early alert allowed the U.S. to exploit vulnerabilities in software sold to foreign governments, according to two U.S. officials" From this and other assertions made in the Bloomberg piece, it seems very fair not to read this as conventional patch management, but as a special arrangement with intelligence agencies. And to read this as, yes, from time to time Microsoft's help does get the NSA into Windows boxes. Now, we all know that tech reporting often leaves something to be desired. If you're saying the officials were wrong or quoted out of context, then that's fine. But it's not reasonable to dismiss this out of hand as some outlandish Alex Jonesian conspiracy theory. BTW, obviously I'm not saying that Microsoft's bug bounty program is an NSA plot. It's a good program that every major company should have. I'm also not saying that they don't share bugs with other partners ahead of time, they obviously do. Just that from what the sources in this article (which again, did not originally appear on infowars.com) say, Microsoft does have a special arrangement with intelligence agencies and from time to time has shared bugs knowing they might be exploited by said agencies. The bug bounty program could find the sort of bugs that would (incidentally) be shared as part of this arrangement.