Microsoft Reinforces Encryption And Legal Measures To Thwart NSA Spying
Following news that tech giants Google, Facebook, and Yahoo were taking measures to shore up their encryption and other ways to thwart spying from the likes of the NSA, Microsoft is taking the same bull by the horns.
The company announced that it will be expanding the encryption of its services, “reinforcing legal protections” of user data, and making its software code more transparent to customers. This encryption will cover myriad services including Outlook.com, Office 365, SkyDrive, and Windows Azure, and like the aforementioned tech companies, part of that will be 2048-bit digital key lengths.
In terms of legal actions, Microsoft will notify business and government users is there’s a legal request for their data, and the company will challenge gag orders in court.
So often, blog posts from companies that talk tech are written by tech people, but it’s noteworthy that this one was penned by a lawyer. The author, Brad Smith, is the General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs for Microsoft, which points to the fact that the technological and legal fight against our own government is on in full.
The company announced that it will be expanding the encryption of its services, “reinforcing legal protections” of user data, and making its software code more transparent to customers. This encryption will cover myriad services including Outlook.com, Office 365, SkyDrive, and Windows Azure, and like the aforementioned tech companies, part of that will be 2048-bit digital key lengths.
In terms of legal actions, Microsoft will notify business and government users is there’s a legal request for their data, and the company will challenge gag orders in court.
So often, blog posts from companies that talk tech are written by tech people, but it’s noteworthy that this one was penned by a lawyer. The author, Brad Smith, is the General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs for Microsoft, which points to the fact that the technological and legal fight against our own government is on in full.
