back to article Microsoft puts something hard and sensitive in your pocket

Microsoft says one of the big selling points for Windows Phone is that some customers like the idea of using its software everywhere. Redmond imagines customers keen on messaging will run Exchange on Windows Server and then use Outlook or a modern email app under Windows 8 on a PC or fondleslab, and Windows Phone 8 for mobile …

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  1. LarsG

    But still no one buys them?

    1. JDX Gold badge
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Business as usual.

    So once again NIST rubberstamps a NSA backdoored product as "certified for secretish paperclip requisitions."

    Shirley this is of no interest to anyone outside the US gov's security theatre circles?

  3. btrower

    That's safe then

    Nobody will be able to hear what you are saying except the person you called and the NSA.

  4. Khaptain Silver badge

    Spin doctor spin

    The spindoctors are trying to spin as hard and as fast as they can but they still can't drum up any interest.

    For an American company to be talking about security is kinda ironic at the moment.

    It must be a beancounters nightmare, spend 1 Billion in marketing, recover 10 million in sales.......As Yoda might say, "Bringing success to our company, this will not make.."

  5. hplasm
    Headmaster

    Surely-

    "Bring success to our company, this will not .."

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: Surely-

      "Corrected, I stand"

      1. amanfromearth

        Re: "Corrected, I stand"

        "Corrected, I am"

  6. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    As a dirty "furriner" I say to the Microsoft: "nyet".

    "Microsoft everywhere" and "security" simply don't...what's that knocking at the door?

    1. Spearchucker Jones

      "Apple everywhere" and "security" simply don't... either. Nor, for that matter,

      "Google everywhere" and "security" simply don't...

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Note the part where A) I use a custom Android ROM with MANY eyes on the project. (CyanogenMod). B) I don't treat my phone as a secure device.

        1. Spearchucker Jones

          Note that A makes you part of a VERY tiny fraction of the installed base, and that B is logical as, in it's commercial form it can't be.

          1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

            Interestingly enough the number of individuals capable of entering any of the major high IQ societies seems roughly cognate with the number of individuals who use Cyanogenmod. >:D

  7. Fihart

    Military grade security = horrible to deal with ?

    Having recently downgraded from a pre-Microsoft Nokia to a Blackberry my experience of updating the OS, my Blackberry ID, the desktop software and then downloading an app was so slow and elaborate I nearly aborted the process thinking it had locked-up.

    Hope that the Winphones follow the more efficient and user-friendly Nokia tradition rather than Microsoft (or Blackberry) overbearing attitude to users.

    Not that I know more than one person who's bought a Microsoft/Nokia (Mokia ?) -- all I see on my travels are iPhones, Samsungs and Blackberries.

    1. cambsukguy

      Re: Military grade security = horrible to deal with ?

      Where do you travel?

      I got the train to London the other day, off-peak, ordinary folks. The girl sitting next to me happily tapping away on a Lumia 620, long discussion ensued about better text prediction and app operation compared to her previous phone.

      I see Lumias all the time, possibly because I recognise them; just because you don't doesn't mean they don't exist.

      And, by the way, it doesn't matter if there aren't that many, individual units don't require others to work. As long as Nokia make better phones with better cameras and better call quality, I will buy them - the OS is the icing on the cake - Nokia's Maemo/Meego N900/N9 (had both) were just simply not as good as WP overall, especially app coverage.

      Obviously, this assumes MS won't drop the OS (or the phones for that matter); current trends suggest they won't. if they did, I could survive Android (unless BB was miraculously ascendant) or hope that Jolla got somewhere (even more unlikely).

      But, a nice new Lumia 1020 will mean I have a great phone (and stupendous camera) for a good while yet.

      Shall I buy it in yellow so you recognise it as a Lumia!?

  8. Stephen Channell
    Mushroom

    Old news.. what did they give Obama when first elected?

    Obama loved his Blackberry and overruled the Secret Service phone prohibition, but Blackberry was a no-no... so they gave him a HP Windows Phone 6 device complete with encrypted storage, because that's what they'd used for years.

    Getting WinPhone 8 certification following {7,6,5} is not really news, and there is nothing special about BES.. it mostly sits in front of MS Exchange anyway. MS Exchange is the secret source that allows iPhone to get into corporates.

    Don't listen to the NSA twaddle, FIPS security is primarily about stopping one part of the government spying on another

  9. Jess

    Not that I know more than one person who's bought a Microsoft/Nokia

    I've seen a couple, but most of the phones I think are Lumia at fist glance turn out to be Sony

    1. FlossyThePig
      Happy

      Re: Not that I know more than one person who's bought a Microsoft/Nokia

      I've got a Lumia 620 and some of my colleagues have Microsoft/Nokia phones (one even has a Surface Pro).

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows is

    Certified and look how many botnets that got us.

    1. dogged

      Re: Windows is

      Not when installed under certification conditions, it didn't.

      The problem with security is that people let fucktards install and configure software. Under those conditions, nothing is secure. Not even linux. Remember Eadon's blog?

  11. Mike Dimmick

    Module certification, not product

    All the FIPS 140-2 certification does is say that if you use the crypto facilities in Windows (because these modules are common across all implementations of the NT kernel), that they will implement the approved algorithms properly, and not leak information outside the module to other parts of the application or to other applications. It's not a high bar.

    This certification absolutely does not mean that data stored on the device is secure against external attacks.

    Earlier versions of Windows and Windows Phone crypto modules were also certified - the Windows Phone 7 ones certified under Windows CE. I'm not sure what the threshold for needing a new certification is, but all that's happened here is that NIST's wheels have finished turning and the new certifications for Windows 8 have been signed off - just in time to start the process all over again for Windows 8.1. If, that is, whatever changed in 8.1 requires a new round of certification rather than just adding the approval for the new version.

  12. rcorrect
    WTF?

    Bad timing?

    Microsoft announces a new certification weeks after axing MCM, MCSM and MCA. What's to say this new certification won't get axed down the road?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/31/microsoft_cans_three_pinnacle_certifications_sparking_user_fury/

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