NSA helped MS with Vista Security

I've heard about it in the past, but until now it wasn't official. It's been going on for at least 6 years, here's a report from 1999 about NSA and Windows:

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html 

Candy20, these are two different things. The article you're linking to mentions back doors that the NSA have in Microsoft OSes, but this discussion is about help that the NSA gave Microsoft with improving the security of Vista. It certainly doesn't mean that Microsoft let them have a back door there.

You can read more about it, there's really a lot to read:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36814

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/08/AR2007010801352.html

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/09/1356222&from=rss

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/nsa_helps_micro_1.html

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2007/01/microsoft-vista-checked-by-nsa.html

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/node/4481

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=44120&src=site-marq

http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=27749

http://www.net-security.org/news.php?id=13214

http://www.gigalaw.com/news/2007/01/nsa-helped-microsoft-secure-vista.html

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/10/HNnsamadevistasecure_1.html

http://p135.news.scd.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070110/tc_infoworld/85025

http://p135.news.scd.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070110/tc_infoworld/85025

And by the way, the NSA was also involved in the development of Mac OS X and the Linux Kernel (not only

If you really have state secrets to keep that the NSA maybe after and are paranoid then you should not use Microsoft, Apple or any other closed source product.