The Japan Times reported today that Japan’s National Police Agency has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to share information on computer crime, particularly involving back doors and vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s own products that can be exploited by hackers.
The two entities will set up a hotline to keep each other informed, and Microsoft has agreed to divulge information about known weaknesses in its programs before releasing it to consumers, giving weight to the criticism that the software giant has let the public be its beta-testers since Windows 98.
While Microsoft’s Windows platforms hold 94 percent market share worldwide, the company has grown from a globe-dominating business to an influential political bargaining partner.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Phan Van Khai visited Bill Gates and Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash.-based campus during his trip to the United States this month. While the Prime Minister's other stops in America were marked by protests, his Microsoft visit was free of controversy.
Gates and Khai signed agreements to train and develop more Vietnamese information technology companies and to offer computer and software training to more than 50,000 teachers in the country.
Through an interpreter, the Prime Minister concluded the meeting by saying, “We'll be able to reach new highs in information technology and software development, [and] our success in the future will be a tribute to you, Mr. Bill Gates."
Gates has also met with U2 frontman Bono to discuss world debt relief.
In Japan, it is feared that the Microsoft deal with the police will be compromised because corporate cooperation would require IT professionals to also share data with the police about their own infrastructure vulnerabilities.
Sharing sensitive business data means making it public to the police and giving it to Microsoft as well.
“Microsoft already knows too much,” one employee of Sony Japan said.
