Putin bans Russian army use of Windows

Ulhas Joglekar ulhasj at bom4.vsnl.net.in
Fri Mar 31 17:29:35 PST 2000


Friday 31 March 2000

Putin bans Russian army use of Windows MOSCOW: Russian president-elect Vladimir Putin has banned the use of operating systems and software developed by US software giant Microsoft by the country's armed forces and military-industrial complexes to ensure "information security", reports here said. A secret directive was sent by the defence ministry to all the concerned units and organisations a day after the announcement of the preliminary results of the presidential polls on March 27, Internet-based Russian private news agency Lenta Ru reported Wednesday. The clones of Dos and Linux Red Hat have probably been put on the list of indigenous operating systems recommended by the Russian defence ministry, the agency said, pointing that the move came amid reports of secret codes and keys integrated in Microsoft Windows of all versions, which act as 'bugs' or 'back door' for the America's omnipotent National Security Agency to 'peep' into the computers of users world-wide. On its website, Lenta Ru has also posted a part of Windows program pointing to the keys left for the US National Security Agency. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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