Longtime AtAT fans know we're not ones to shrink from a conspiracy theory, no matter how far-fetched. In fact, the wilder the theory, the brighter our eyes light up and the wider our grins get; there's a certain glee and sense of relief from personal responsibility that arises from simply acknowledging that everyone else is out to get you. Tired all the time? No wonder-- the government's pumping you full of satellite-relayed gamma rays while you sleep. Can't seem to hold down a job? Well, duh-- you've been on a Freemason blacklist ever since that highway incident four years ago when you cut off that guy with the funny-looking medals on his car. See how it works? We'd get together with a pop psychologist and try to pitch a twelve-step book on the subject (Paranoia For A Happier You), but the shrinks are all in on it, too. Trust no one.

So even though this latest Microsoft-NSA theory has been debunked pretty thoroughly, that won't stop us from filing it away in our massive dossier labeled "Microsoft World Enslavement Campaigns." (Incidentally, the file is kept entirely in our heads; paper trails are how they get you in the end.) If your surfing is pretty much limited to the Mac-oriented sites, you may not have encountered the uproar that exploded last week when some guy discovered a mysterious secondary cryptographic key that exists in all copies of Windows. There were a couple of things that made the key suspicious: first, Microsoft never told anyone about it, and second, it was called "_NSAkey." The NSA, for the uninitiated, is the National Security Agency, a U.S. government agency that often figures heavily in conspiracy theories penned by those who are bored with blaming the CIA for everything. Interestingly enough, the NSA is the country's cryptologic organization-- they make and break codes. So along comes this hidden second crypto key in Windows called "_NSAkey," and of course it's not tough to postulate that Microsoft has sold out all Windows users to the NSA and now the government has secret back-door access to every Windows system on the planet. If you want to get up to speed, The Industry Standard has a nice summary article and links to lots of other resources.

Now, of course Microsoft immediately refuted the rumors, which probably only made them spread even faster-- what's a conspiracy theory without a public denial? Microsoft admits the presence of the second key, but calls it a "backup key" to be used in case anything happens to the first one. As for why it's called "_NSAkey," they claim that it's an "unfortunate name" that was chosen because the key lets Microsoft "ensure compliance with the NSA's technical review," but the keys are held by Microsoft and are not shared with anyone, "including the NSA." Believe what you will. For lots of people, there are two seemingly-omnipresent organizations with enormous power: Microsoft, and the U.S. government. So isn't it natural that a conspiracy theory uniting the two-- in secret collusion to compromise the privacy of millions of computer users, no less-- would appeal to the paranoia center in the average brain? So for the Windows users out there who just discovered file corruption that flushed days of work down the toilet, relax. Don't beat yourself up. It was the government's fault-- and Microsoft helped.