Microsoft Backs Away From CISPA Support, Citing Privacy

suraj.sun writes "CISPA, the hotly-contested cybersecurity bill making its way through Congress, has been supported by Microsoft since it was introduced. However, the company now tells CNET that any such legislation must 'honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers,' while also 'protecting consumer privacy.' As you may recall, the U.S. House passed CISPA on Thursday. The Obama administration has threatened to veto the bill. Quoting CNET: 'That's a noticeable change — albeit not a complete reversal — from Microsoft's position when CISPA was introduced in November 2011. To be sure, Microsoft's initial reaction to CISPA came before many of the privacy concerns had been raised. An anti-CISPA coalition letter (PDF) wasn't sent out until April 16, and a petition that garnered nearly 800,000 signatures wasn't set up until April 5. What makes CISPA so controversial is a section saying that, "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information with Homeland Security, the IRS, the NSA, or other agencies. By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA's drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing federal and state laws, including ones dealing with wiretaps, educational records, medical privacy, and more.'"

Microsoft and Law Enforcement Agencies

[betterunixthanunix]

https://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/solutions/cofee/default.aspx [microsoft.com]

Note that this is exclusively for law enforcement -- law abiding citizens would presumably have difficult obtaining technical information or copies of this product (I doubt that criminals will have much trouble). The last line on that page is telling:

If it's vital to government, it's mission critical to Microsoft.

Re:a first time for everything.

[bleedingsamurai]

I want you to go home, turn off any thing on your network that might be sending broadcast traffic, fire up a computer running a freshly installed copy of a Windows that was legally obtained and theoretically shouldn't contain any rootkits or backdoors.

Then fire up a frame capture and watch all the odd traffic flowing from the box, even after you turned off things like automatic updates and netBIOS to ensure you aren't picking up legitimate services.

Re:a first time for everything.

[spire3661]

Umm no. The geeks rose up about Microsoft back in the day because they tried to own the entirety of computing through a long campaign of malicious acts. Sure we hate paying licensing and the MS scheme is egregious, but thats not what evoked retribution.

Ok If no one knows

[fermion]

To be sure, Microsoft's initial reaction to CISPA came before many of the privacy concerns had been raised. An anti-CISPA coalition letter (PDF) wasn't sent out until April 16, and a petition that garnered nearly 800,000 signatures wasn't set up until April 5.

So in other words MS was perfectly willing to allow the US government access to all it's customers data and machines without a warrant or any kind of reasonable probable cause as long as it was on the down low. But when it is publicized, they decide it is not such a s good idea. This situation leads credence that MS might already supply customer data on demand to the US government [judiciaryreport.com], so this is really SNAFU.

Re:This is the same old pattern

[Anonymous Coward]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

For those of you who didn't get the reference, that is the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution, proposed in 1789, and enacted in 1791.