Re:Dutch secret service 'also has access to information from...
by leoc on Tuesday June 11, 2013 @07:10AM
(#5860930)
Aren't NSA's full accounts pretty deeply secret http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/patton_pr.html ? so I think the only real issue would be tidying up the MS end. Another obvious way to funnel money into MS is through sweet deals on buying or licensing patents.
Re:Dutch secret service 'also has access to information from...
by thyrsus on Tuesday June 11, 2013 @08:52AM
(#5861347)
The job posting from Booz Allen recently featured here required Windows skills: http://careers.boozallen.com/job/Honolulu-Systems-Administra...
I don't know anything about what happened, but Microsoft must be one of the easiest companies to send a gift in a hidden way. Lets say the NSA bought Windows Vista upgrade licenses for a couple of million servers, then upgraded them to Windows 7 and form there to Windows 8, instead of doing what sane people do (upgrade from XP to a mix of Windows 7 and Linux). If you also upgrade SQL Server, Active Directory, etc, frequently and buy copious amounts of Remote Desktop licenses, I bet you could get the bill into the billions. And you don't even have to install that software, or even download it from Microsoft's servers.
Yes, it would raise suspicion that the NSA buys Windows licenses, even more so that they buy them at retail price, but I doubt that the auditors at the NSA are 100% independent from the NSA, so they would just (be ordered to) ignore it, and the NSA could route the buys through quite a few shadow companies, making it hard to spot anything suspicious for those working at Microsoft.