Microsoft still produces the operating systems of choice to Germany's Defense Ministry, despite a report in a leading magazine saying security concerns would lead it to seek an alternative.

A Defense Ministry official flatly denied a report in Der Spiegel that German officials were banning Microsoft operating systems because they were concerned about a possible backdoor built into them by the U.S. National Security Agency. The possibility of such a backdoor existing was first brought to international attention in a 1999 Wired News story. That article reported that leading American cryptographer Andrew Fernandes had found an "NSA key" in Microsoft software that he believed could give the NSA such a backdoor. "This assumption is wrong," the spokesman said. "I can confirm that the Defense Ministry signed a general licensing contract with Microsoft half a year ago saying we will use software products of Microsoft, and we intend to continue to use such systems." He did not deny, however, that serious security concerns remained. Andy Mueller-Maguhn, a leader of Berlin's Chaos Computer Club and also Europe's representative on the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said he believed the German government was probably in damage-control mode. In other words: He thinks the report in Der Spiegel is probably accurate.