MS plays the security card in Gov shared source retread

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://212.100.234.54/content/4/28869.html

By John Lettice
Posted: 15/01/2003

Microsoft yesterday announced the Government Security Program, an
initiative intended to provide governments and agencies with
"controlled access... subject to certain licensing restrictions" to
Microsoft source code. The announcement was accompanied by great
amazement and astonishment in the public prints. Remarkably, this
"unprecedented move" (Reuters) looks not entirely dissimilar to the
Microsoft Government Shared Source Licensing Program, which has been
available (to general disinterest) for some considerable time.

So tell us why the GSP is not a respray into security livery, being
spun to a ludicrous extent by the Redmond marketing machine. The
earlier program, granted, has a more limited list of eligible
countries, whereas the GSP is apparently aimed at everyone, aside from
the usual suspects. But there are hedges to this that'll likely bring
the numbers down. For example, a country's ability to participate will
to some extent depend on that country's attitude to intellectual
property, sniffs Microsoft.

You could therefore see the GSP as providing Bill and the execs with a
valuable carrot to induce change in attitudes to intellectual
property. Russia is already signed up, as is NATO, and Craig Mundie
says countries like Brazil, India and China are eligible. Of these,
only Brazil is listed under the previous programme.

Ah, we remember the times when the US would swipe European computer
dealers selling DEC kit to the Soviet Union, fly them to the States
and put them in prison for a very long time. But times change.

Aside from eligibility, which would surely have broadened steadily
under the New World Order anyway, and the liberal use of the S word,
there seems little difference between the Government Shared Source
Program and the Government Security Program. Companies, government
agencies and educational institutions could already sign up to look at
Microsoft source code, and one presumes that security would be one of
the things they'd have in mind as they did so.

Ah, but says Craig Mundie: "The program is not designed for government
agencies at a state, or provincial, or local level. Nor is it aimed at
government agencies that require source-code access for product
support or development purposes unrelated to security matters. The
needs of those agencies would likely be served best by the Shared
Source Initiative program." It's therefore about who you are and what
you intend.

So you get kicked off the program if you start talking about anything
other than security? And if you're not a national government agency.  
But more countries are eligible for the security version of shared
source than for the lesser variant? Some tidying required here, we
think.

The repackaging of government shared source does however have some
cute aspects to it. Simply by presenting a Microsoft software-based
security program to governments, Microsoft is promoting itself a
little further up the food chain. Sure, governments use Microsoft
software, but for mission-critical national security? Not a lot, not
yet. And if a government is using Microsoft software to any great
extent, then it's going to feel kind of compelled to join in the GSP,
which is free. Wouldn't it be negligent not to?

But, if a government has set up a group with the specific brief of
working with Microsoft staff and Microsoft source, ask yourself what
that group is likely to come up with. It's not evaluating the security
of Microsoft software with a view to acceptance or rejection (probably
not, unless the government is as sneaky as Microsoft), it's working to
improve the software's security with reference to deployments within
its own government, and it will become proficient in the production
and deployment of more secure Microsoft systems in government. What's
it going to recommend, having acquired this knowledge? Trojan Source,
you could say.

Microsoft will apparently be giving online access to a strangely
precise 97 per cent of the source, while the balance, which is really
secret, and we don't know what it is, will only be available at
Microsoft's offices in Redmond. The company, according to Steve Lohr
of the NYT, will also be allowing governments to substitute their own
security features for those in Windows. The significance of this,
however, depends on what this actually means, and the level at which
they're allowed to do it. We would not be at all surprised if this
turned out to be yet another sales tool, perhaps for Palladium.



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