NSA 05_09_04 in Re M$ and the DOJ (not particularly proud of this one:-)

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/dual_ec_drbg_ad.html Mr. Schneier writes about a new easter egg... This is what I wrote the NSA in May 04 5/9/2004 For The NSA Office Of Public Affairs Washington, DC, 20505 Robert B Johnson To Each Concerned Party: Early in the month of April, I wrote a letter to the Dept Of Justice, asking The Attorney General's Office to educate me about issues concerning Microsoft and its status as a monopoly. In contemplating that issue, I began to wonder what would be the effect on our economy, were Microsoft to be broken up. Clearly the reason the Bush Administration would prefer not to break them up, is that they are critical to our economy. As such, I wondered if we could put the question in perspective as follows: If Microsoft were militarily attacked, would the effect on our economy be such that we stalled out? By contrast, if they are actually not so critical as we might believe by default, could we then re-evaluate the possibility of bring anti-trust legislation to bear on them again? The reasons that this is a worthwhile exercise, is that at Microsoft, there are no doubt foreign nationals employed. At some point, we should ask ourselves, are we prepared to say with confidence that they have not written in Easter eggs as part of the system. An example of one would be to go to a win98 machine, and set the screen saver to "volcano." It is clearly a harmless one, but establishes proof by exception that it is a possibility. As such, the un-anticipated problems of outsourcing to foreign soil might already be with us. The solution that I would devise would not necessarily be easy. However, the kernel should be very attractive on its own merits. When IBM built its early PCs, they set standards that eventually became the IEEE. If we were to have an open standards Organization, such as SWIEEE, any programer or company could write to those standards, without any fear of Microsoft changing the standard to build in obsolescence. Microsoft would benefit from this by modularizing, by cutting out much bureaucracy, and the playing field would leveled for all competitors. Along these lines, we can observe that much phone support has moved overseas to India. As such, they have become peace hostages, and this is not bad. However, we have inherited alliance with Pakistan, and if they engage India in conflict, we cannot come to Pakistan's aid, with losing critical Tech Support functions. It would seem more sensible for the US to have her Phone Support in Pakistan, and for India and Pakistan to exchange peace hostages of their own. I am very interested in any reply you might have, Yours Sincerley, Rob Johnson. NOTE: The SWIEE would probably turn to the ISO for a regulating body. http://slashdot.org/~impengo/journal/190538 - Letter to DOJ in Question In the absence of doing anything else about the bangalore problem, he solution to my hypothetical attack on bangalore, india's telephone system is for an American company to bid for a contract to render bangalore's telephone system far more redundant. How to stimulate the opening of the bid eludes me... indians are notoriously cheap