No backdoors in Vista, vows Microsoft

No intentional ones anyway…

Windows Vista won’t have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed.

In February, a BBC News story suggested that the UK government was in discussions with Microsoft over backdoor access to the operating system. A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication to gain access to a computer without the PC user knowing.

But Microsoft has now quelled the suggestion that law enforcement might get such access.

A company representative said in a statement sent via email: “Microsoft has not and will not put ‘backdoors’ into Windows.”

The discussion centres on BitLocker Drive Encryption, a planned security feature for Vista, the update to the Windows operating system. BitLocker encrypts data to protect it if the computer is lost or stolen.

This feature could make it harder for law enforcement agencies to get access to data on seized computers.

Full story: silicon.com