No - it's not the german government and there is no warning about a security risk - look for the updated statements of the BSI! damn it.
I knew their intelligence is not sufficient to get what w8 really is. It has started with BIOS --->EFI-->UEFI. All in cooperation with the UEFI forums and their members, the monopolistic US companies which work hand in hand with the NSA. UEFI can be updated remotely. The security of the OS is in the hand of the company, the manufacturer, UEFI and TPM are just other steps into total control!
Trusted Computing! Er.....?! Exist there really any? I hardly believe that! On what Computer the German Government will work if "just" Windows 8 is an "unacceptable Security risk"? Dit they change to Apple's Mac? Or any Linux Distro? May they like to use EUMEL (German "specialist" will know I talk about what!)? Ah....! And not to forget the NSA which come from that country which claim to guaranty as much Freedom as possible to it's people! May those so well informed people should look from an different Direction on that matter! Fact is, that any computer is an unacceptable security risk, special if it's used in Networks, LAN, WAN and CLOUD! With a bit of knowledge any computer could be "hacked", means get data stolen from it. Nobody could deny that! And what the NSA is doing others than just to hacking and gaining access (unauthorized from the owner of those data) to the content to something which isn't their own! With a bit sarkasm we could even tell: It's more secure to give them "controlled" data, therefore known what they get as NOT to know what they're taken! Every peace of paper has 2 sides! And it's interesting that those NSA is an US Gov Department which also spy's on their own people, beside of stealing data from all others! Ok, let come back to Windows, MS, Software etc.! It maybe would also be an very interesting if an research of secure Software, special Operating Systems would be done the way get an statistic of the percentage of infections etc. and that not as it's done normally! Percent is what? 1 Percent is 1 part out of 100! 10 Percent are 10 out of 100 and so on! What would be the real percentage of Infections etc. based on, let say 100 or 1000 or even 10000 for Microsoft Machines/OS's, Apple Machines/OS's, Linux, Unix and whatsoever and that strictly counted MS OS's for PC running MS OS's only, Apple's OS's running on Apple's machine only and so on! Also it would be interesting to track down which company is the fastest for to solve upcoming problems! The outcome will many surprise because it will show much different than what is most of the time published! Do your own research, don't believe what's published, printed or in the daily news! And than start to think about the NSA again!
The internet is a lot less anonymous than Windows. Every user account here could have to turn over their corresponding IP and/or email addresses if the government the server is in had a search warrant. Luckily, terrorists are too stupid to get nerdy about computers; so I think we're safe here.
I think what this is referring to is that MS gives a heads up to certain agencies (some associated with government, naturally) about certain security threats they are working on or have countered. I think the German government is a bit paranoid in labeling Win8 as a security risk. What they should be going after is hardware with backdoors from Asia, gigantic piracy by governments (China and others), etc. If something does happen, people will be blaming the government (of any country) if there was no digital surveillance in place. So that really puts software companies and governments in a position of: "damned if you do, damned if you don't." What REALLY worries me is that entire countries (in this case Germany) can be so badly informed as to come out and say Win8 is a security risk. That is a real cause for fear if you ask me.
The German govt did not say that w8 is a security risk, they are concerned about TPM2.0 and other UEFI features. They mean security risk in the aspect of control of others and in the aspect of sensitive institutions such as govt themselves and companies. The entire problem is that the market is in the hand of actually ONE nation, the US and their monopolies. And all the insanity which comes from them and their cooperation with the US govt affects the entire world. As posted already there is no alternative. Each second since ~1990 the US gained a force whose scope is not yet foreseeable. Tech freaks can have a alternative with more privacy, but not general institutions...they are all dependent on M$ when it comes to desktop OSes. Original Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik. = govt statement. Translation. The BSI does neither warn the publicity, German companies nor the administration of the use of w8. However the BSI thinks there are atm some critical aspects in relationship with certain scenarios of use at which w8 is used in combination with a special hardware (TPM2.0 chip) I hope this is clearer now.
You could disable it in W7 but not in Win8 AFAIK.. unfortunately a similar topic has been deleted from another forum before an answer was posted.. probably too much political connotations
Everybody is watching everybody. Someone builds better security, someone else builds better hacking methods. It is the way of the world. That's how God found out who ate the apple all those many many years ago in the Garden Of Eden. Eden spelled backwards is Nede, the Greek-Roman God of Hacking. Would I lie about this?
well, i refuse to go back to typewriters and snailmail.. but this snowden story did inspire some new thoughts. not that i had illusions about being monitored before.. the writing was on the wall for years.. tor was invented for a reason.. duckduckgo was invented for a reason.. i happen to be allergic to touchscreens, non desktop machines, and updating for the sake of it. i am also allergic to linux. personal preferences, we all have them. so i took a good hard look at alternatives. as a private person, you have far more options than governments or corporations that need to run windows software in a network.. -you can take a few steps backwards on the machine that you use for browsing. -i3 machines with bios instead of uefi can be used. -there are some alternative operating systems around. kolibriOS looks very promising. -there are browsers around for good old dos.. -dillo will run with no footprint, almost, no java, flash, etc.. -all of this is useless using a vitual machine. under windows or linux. -but if used live, it might make surveillance a bit harder for those paranoiacs.. it will also be bloody fast, even on older hardware.. just my two eurocents..
When Windows 7 was underdevelopment I remember reading articles reporting that the new OS was being developed by MS with the assistance of the NSA. I think at least since XP there have always been back doors for government snooping.
If those snooping are anything like most the people within the government you have nothing to worry about. Most them dudes can't even speak without spewing s**t. If they have a reason the snoop on you, you are doomed even if they find nothing they will just make some crap up.