Tech: Microsoft Spyguide Leaked

Subject: BS: Tech: Microsoft Spyguide Leaked
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:26 AM

Microsoft's 'spy guide' — what you should know

Handbook for law officials details data the company keeps on users

By Brennon Slattery
PC World
updated 2:55 p.m. CT, Fri., Feb. 26, 2010

Since 1996, the whistleblower site Cryptome has been posting sensitive government and corporate documents. Now Cryptome has been stricken from the Web after releasing the "Microsoft Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook", a "spy guide" for law enforcement detailing what data Microsoft has, keeps, and can relinquish. [Note that leaking government secrets didn't stop him, but Microsoft did(?).]

Since most of you are Microsoft users, there are a few tidbits of information you'll need to know before purchasing Xbox Live points, logging onto Office Live, or sending an e-mail through Hotmail.

(Editor's Note: See "Microsoft Relents, Cryptome Returns" for an update on this issue.)

(Msnbc.com is an NBC Universal-Microsoft joint venture.)

"The Global Criminal Compliance Handbook" is a quasi-comprehensive explanatory document meant for law enforcement officials seeking access to Microsoft's stored user information. It also provides sample language for subpoenas and diagrams on how to understand server logs.

I call it "quasi-comprehensive" because, at a mere 22 pages, it doesn't explore the nitty-gritty of Microsoft's systems; it's more like a data-hunting guide for dummies.

... ... [end quotes]

The article describes the document, which really isn't likely to be of much interest to most here. The article includes a link to where you can read the document and/or print it. A download, text or .pdf, is offered but you need a login with Microsoft for either (so I printed it and scanned the print back to .pdf).

There are a few tech details given in the "manual" that might be of interest to a few people who happen to have a "natural curiosity" about such stuff.

(No reliable indication of how long links to the news report or to the document itself may remain good.)

John