US secret agents work at Microsoft: French intelligence report

[Seth Ackerman]

Apologies if this has already been posted...



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.

   pmg/hs/jz

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: February 18, 2000