Think that you’re anxious for Windows 9 to come out? You’re probably clamoring for it nearly as much as Microsoft executives. The Wall Street Journal reports that China’s state-run television station has declared war on Windows 8 over security concerns similar to those flagged by German IT officials last year.
According to the Journal, the news report “quoted people it identified as experts who said that an operating system’s maker can obtain user data including phone numbers and bank-account information” and also “quoted Chinese experts who argued that Microsoft cooperated with the U.S. government to carry out cyberspying.”
It’s true that Microsoft and other tech companies have been on the defensive ever since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden started leaking out information on all the ways that the NSA has compromised the security of products and services from Microsoft, Google, Cisco and others. All this apparently led the Chinese government last week to ban Windows 8 from being installed on computers in the country, which is obviously a big blow to Microsoft’s efforts to get as many people off of Windows XP and Windows 7 as possible and onto the newer platform.
For its part, Microsoft has been trying to assure foreign governments that it’s patching up all the vulnerabilities that were exploited by the NSA and it has publicly called out the United States government for its surveillance tactics.
