> It would be stupid of us to knowingly put a backdoor into Windows or any
> other MS product. 

Mebbe so, but I can assure you that there are many actions that, when performed
in OE and IE running on Windows XP, *immediately* and repeatably generate 
attempts by various MS software components (most often msimn) to access the internet.
Would you care to explain what those components are doing attempting to
spontaneously access the internet?