Microsoft helped NSA get around its encryption systems so agency could more easily spy on users

According to reports given to The Guardian newspaper by whistleblower Eric Snowden, the NSA was provided with work-around access to most of Microsoft’s programs, including Outlook, Skype, and others, as a means for providing the intelligence agency with an easier path to spy on users.

Specific to Outlook, Microsoft supposedly worked with the NSA to help get around the tech firm’s data-scrambling scheme, which would have otherwise concealed messages from the agency.

As far as Skype is concerned, the NSA said in these reports that in working with Microsoft, they were able to improve their oversight of the web phone system to the point that it could now collect three times as many calls from the service than ever before.

It should be noted, though, that before Skype was bought by Microsoft, the program was already providing information on some of its users to the government vis-à-vis the Prism program. It appears as though Microsoft simply made the process easier.

As for the accuracy of the documents, the Guardian says that they are from the NSA’s Special Source Operations office, which is responsible for overseeing the links between the agency and tech firms. The documents were provided to Mr. Snowden directly and detail how the NSA had a far easier time extracting information via Microsoft programs than others.

Microsoft has already responded to the story, saying “legal obligations” forced the company to work with the NSA and provide access to its services.

From a post on the company site:

“We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues.”

The company went on to explain in this post that when it updated or upgraded its programs, these legal obligations meant the firm had to preserve the access that legal and intelligence agencies enjoyed with older versions of the service.

They also pointed out that they only complied with requests for “specific accounts and identifiers” rather than wide-ranging requests.

“Microsoft does not provide any government with blanket or direct access to SkyDrive, Outlook.com, Skype or any Microsoft product,” the post concluded. 

Story via: guardian.co.uk