No 15 years ago Microsoft would have been the ones installing it.
I think Microsoft went from being a hated software giant to sort of an underdog vis-a-vis Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.
They are very big and strong no doubt, but I think the attitude they are projecting since switching CEO recently, their open source efforts, and such make them look pretty good PR-wise among the tech crowd.
it is actually an NSA key. If the NSA is going to use Microsoft products for classified traffic, they're going to install their own cryptography. They're not going to want to show it to anyone, not even Microsoft. They are going to want to sign their own modules. So the backup key could also be an NSA internal key, so that they could install strong cryptography on Microsoft products for their own internal use.
Though given alternative methods of bypassing any Microsoft security, not really necessary.
In the past Microsoft would have been both installing it and have their security tool removing it, left hand does not know what the right hand do in large organization, then after figuring out they would whitelist their own spyware from the removal tool. This may have actually happened.
The rest is simply PR, microsoft is still the evil corp it used to be but has to fight other evil corps to keep a share of a market it once dominated. Microsoft had too much money to burn to die quickly, its agony will take quite some time.
> microsoft is still the evil corp it used to be but has to fight other evil corps to keep a share of a market it once dominated. Microsoft had too much money to burn to die quickly, its agony will take quite some time.
I don't buy it. I think Microsoft seems to have actually made real changes. If you want an example of what a giant evil tech corporation dying slowly looks like, take a look at Oracle. Their core business is basically obsolete, but they'll go on killing open-source projects and squeezing their locked-in enterprise customers for many years.
I think Microsoft went from being a hated software giant to sort of an underdog vis-a-vis Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.
They are very big and strong no doubt, but I think the attitude they are projecting since switching CEO recently, their open source efforts, and such make them look pretty good PR-wise among the tech crowd.