Agence France Presse
February 18, 2000, Friday
SECTION: International news
LENGTH: 226 words
HEADLINE: US secret agents work at Microsoft: French intelligence report
DATELINE: PARIS, Feb 18
BODY:
A French intelligence report Friday accused US secret agents of working with computer giant Microsoft to develop software allowing Washington to spy on communications around the world.
The report, drawn up by the Strategic Affairs Delegation (DAS), the intelligence arm of the French Defense Ministry, was quoted in Friday's edition of the news-letter Le Monde du Renseignement (Intelligence World).
Written by a senior officer at the DAS, the report claims that agents from the National Security Agency (NSA) helped install secret programmes on
Microsoft software, currently in use in 90 percent of computers.
There is "a strong suspicion of a lack of security fed by insistent rumours about the existence of spy programmes on Microsoft, and by the presence of
NSA personnel in Bill Gates' development teams," the report was quoted as saying.
The NSA protects communications for the US government, and also intercepts electronic messages for the Defence Department and other US intelligence agencies, the newsletter said.
According to the report, "it would seem that the creation of Microsoft was largely supported, not least financially, by the NSA, and that IBM was made to accept the ( Microsoft) MS-DOS operating system by the same administration."
It said that the Pentagon was Microsoft's biggest client in the world.
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LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: February 18, 2000