The NSA has special access to Microsoft Windows -- access that nobody else and can take advantage of with impunity. According to this link to one report among several from a German publisher, "[o]n its July Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released a total of seven patch packages (bulletins). All except one of them close critical vulnerabilities. The company has closed a total of 34 holes in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and many other products, among them the Windows kernel vulnerability that has affected the Windows privilege system for over a month."
"It is time for Europe to ban or limit Windows preloading."The NSA has known about these for quite some time, so its habit of cracking PCs for surveillance and espionage was very well catered if a given target was Windows user. There are even more holes that Microsoft won't publicly speak about. It is time for Europe to ban or limit Windows preloading.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols alleges based on his experience that the latest rebrand of Vista 8 is no good and other reports reveal that it increase surveillance on the users. A report says that "it looks like Microsoft is planning to do some “Scroogling” of its own. InfoWorld reports that changes Microsoft is implementing with the upcoming Windows 8.1 update are geared toward making it easier to Microsoft to collect users’ local search data and deliver ads through the Windows Search desktop feature."
Sounds like Ubuntu. Here is the original report. ⬆