The Source Code Browsing Lab of the China Testing and Certification Center for Information Security Products was officially founded on the morning of September 25. Microsoft is the first commercial software company that signed the operating system source code browsing agreement with the Chinese government. However, Prof. Wu Shizhong, director of the Center, said that it was too early to say whether Microsoft's operating system is safe or not.
Frequent appearance of loopholes in the past couple of years and attacks from hackers have aroused users' doubts about the security of Microsoft's operating system. Since this system's source code is not open to the public, many countries, including China, adopt the open source code Linux operational system, a rival of Microsoft, at the time of government procurement, the reason for this is that open source code software is more advantageous to national information security.
As shown in Microsoft global domain, China is the 18th country that signs an agreement on government security with the company. Maggie Wilderotter, senior vice-president in charge of Microsoft's global business strategy, said that her company takes an active part in government-built security projects.
The source code browsing agreement between China and Microsoft commenced in February this year when the China Testing and Certification Center for Information Security Products, on behalf of the Chinese government, signed the Government Security Plan (GSP) Source Code Agreement with Bill Gates, chairman and chief software designer of Microsoft, during his China visit. The establishment of the Source Code Browsing Lab represents an important process of the agreement.
At the inauguration of the Lab, the seven work units undertaking national information security projects signed the first batch of appendixes to the GSP on additional personnel. They and the Testing and Certification Center can browse the source code of the Microsoft operating system and engage in information security related research by the method as stipulated in the agreement.
Dr. Lu Chengzhao, deputy head of the Net and Information Group under the State Council Informationization Work Office, said that the operating system is the base of information network, e-government, and e-commerce, the signing of the source code browsing agreement is the first step taken in bilateral cooperation.
(People's Daily September 28, 2003)
