NSA Hacks Microsoft Windows Error Messages

[chadachada123]

The entire time I was reading this, I felt like it was a joke. I still feel like it's a joke. The subject matter, and something about the way this article is written, just seems like it's someone reporting a story that they know is fake and are doing their best not to bust up laughing while they report it.
That last line, "US intelligence services plan to infiltrate 85,000 computers worldwide next year," is not helping this feeling I have about the article at all. Where on earth did that number come from? Did the NSA hand out a memo to reporters saying, "This is what we're going to do"?

Then again, the NSA hasn't been known for its brilliant decision making skills, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a real thing. It just seems too crazy to be real though...

I don't know if you've heard of Edward Snowden, but a significant number of these documents are coming from him, himself having downloaded it from NSA servers directly.

Snowden's even mentioned that much of this has nothing to do with preventing terrorism, but about controlling others on the international level. Being able to blackmail or cause international incidents is one of the biggest goals of spying, after all, and knowing who is screwing over whom gives the US great leverage.

 

[Tradjus]

I get the strong impression that the NSA collects mountains of completely useless consumer data like this just so they can point to a number on a screen and tell the seventy five year old men who run our country that we have "Seven gajillion megabits" of information. You know, impress upon them that they're actually doing something when in reality the vast, vast majority of that information is worthless too anyone.
Gotta justify that budget somehow, and when the people who set your budget know -nothing- at all about what you're doing, you default too "Bigger numbers are better" theory.

 

[lancar]

The more I read of this article, the more times I kept glancing down at the date at the bottom right.

No, it's still not April 1:st


Seriously, what gives?

 

[IceForce]

I'm getting a distinct whiffy smell of bullshit coming off this article.

Also, the obviously photoshopped image isn't helping matters.

 

[likalaruku]

I'm pretty meticulous with system health, so I haven't seen a Microsoft error message in a dog's age.

Yahoo Finance, Huffington Post, CNBC, FOX, Spiegel, Leaksource, Gothamist all seem to have articles on this. but not more believable sources like The Guardian, BBC, or TYT.

 

[MCerberus]

With each passing day the little voice in my head that says the NSA is just trying to get a collection of ALL the porn on the internet grows louder.

 

[Joccaren]

So when they get to mine can they tell me if they find some holiday photos I lost last year?

Thanks.

Actually, I think this would be a hilarious idea.

Since we know they're spying on these error reports, make one, send it, and consistently call them saying you sent an error report, and you know its been intercepted. You'd like to know if they could help you find your lost photos from your wedding/holiday/kids birthday or something like that. I would love to see the customer service report: "This month we got 3,000 requests for lost wedding photos, 5,000 for lost photos of kids birthdays, 2,000 for lost holiday photos and 50,000 for lost cat gifs." "Any serious requests?" "No sir, people just want their lost photos back".

 

[Metalrocks]

der spiegel is a german magazine from idiots, for idiots. so dont believe it.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

This sounds like bullshit, like some newspaper bandwagoning on all the real NSA stuff to get views, but who knows. No one sends error reports anyway since after you send the first one you realize Microsoft wont do anything whatsoever to fix whatever then problem was.

 

[FalloutJack]

Ah, so THIS is how the NSA gets to the porn on duty. Actually, if they're off planning to keep tabs on all those groups, can we get them all to fight each other? I'd sell popcorn and tickets to that.

 

[Strazdas]

I am safe then since i use a process in the background that automatically closes (dont just press dont send but rather end-process) the error report and restarts the program (which is hilariuos when it crashes on startup). so the dump never evne gets generated on my computer.
the article though smells of stuff coming from a sick bulls anus.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Who in their right mind actually have ever sent a error report. I sure haven't and there may be a few incidents here and there.

Overall, in most cases it's a bad idea to do so.

 

[lunavixen]

Wait, people send those reports? And there are people who read them?! Yeesh! Personally, I'm not that worried because, 1) i'm out of their jurisdiction as I don't like in America, 2) What are they gonna get off my system? a patch isn't working or that I was up at 3 in the morning? WOW, really important stuff there...

People, if you're that worried, don't send the reports and don't use IE, problem solved.