I'm sure that you've heard about the "WannaCry" ransomware that is attacking hundreds of thousands of computers across hundreds of countries, and now Microsoft is chiming in with some fighting words against the NSA, CIA, and other spy agencies.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said that the NSA, CIA, and other spy agencies have been collecting security vulnerabilities, instead of telling Microsoft so they can fix them. Smith said there's an "emerging pattern" of these stockpiles leaking out, adding that some of themt can cause "widespread damage" when that happens. Smith even likened it to a physical weapons being leaked or stolen, comparing it to if the US military had "some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen".
But before we get too deep into this, remember that Microsoft built a freakin' backdoor into Outlook.com for the NSA, with Microsoft working for months to provide the NSA with full access to encrypted chats on Outlook.com, something we reported about in July 2013. Microsoft also worked with the NSA on giving them a backdoor into SkyDrive, their cloud-based storage service. At the time, I reported: "Microsoft worked tightly with the NSA in order to give them access, with the NSA reporting on April 8 of this year that the Redmond-based slave of the NSA built PRISM access into SkyDrive that removes the need for the NSA analysts to request permission to search SkyDrive".
Oh, and Microsoft also gave the NSA access to Skype. In my article from July 2013, I reported: "Work on this began back in November of 2010 with data collection a few months later in February of 2011, with the NSA document stating that the planned systems worked well, with full metadata collection enabled. The NSA thanked Microsoft for their help, saying that "collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system".
So, Microsoft: don't complain. You did this to yourself, selling out your users and your souls to the NSA for what feels like no reason at all. Unless the conspiracy of the 'Deep State' is real, I don't see how Microsoft are providing unadulterated access to not just their software and services, but your software and your services. And now, this recent hack has Microsoft pissed at US spy agencies? Come on, Redmond.