Googlestalking For Covert NSA Research Funding 150
James Hardine writes "Wikileaks is reporting that the CIA has funded covert research on torture techniques, and that the NSA has pushed tens or hundreds of millions into academia through research grants using one particular grant code. Some researchers try to conceal the source of funding, yet commonality in the NSA grant code prefix makes all these attempts transparent. The primary NSA grant-code prefix is 'MDA904'. Googling for this grant code yields 39,000 references although some refer to non-academic contracts (scolar.google.com 2,300). The grants issue from light NSA cover, the "Maryland Procurement Office" or other fronts. From this one can see the broad sweep of academic research interests being driven by the NSA."
The linked papers... (Score:4, Interesting)
So. The NSA, whose job it is to create and to crack strong encryption, are interested in computers and in mathematics. Big surprise there, guys.
The article is edit by unknown/reserved IP number (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Capture it now, before its disappeared (Score:5, Interesting)
Abuse us by funding research on the subjects of:
- Duality for modules over finite rings and applications to coding theory
- Bounding the number of geometric permutations induced by k-transversals
- A unified framework for enforcing multiple access control policies
- Affine Lie algebras and multisum identities
?You sure do sound abused, kid. But not by (this) government...
Here are 5 aspects of the corruption: (Score:2, Interesting)
1) There are U.S. government agencies that exist for the purpose of murdering, torturing, and otherwise breaking the law and showing no respect for the law.
2) Those agencies are secret. U.S. citizens must pay for the agencies, but citizens are not allowed to know what the agencies are doing or even how much they are paying.
3) The secret agencies are not only sometimes lawless, they are allowed to own their own businesses, so that they have money to spend that does not come from the U.S. government. They are therefore financially independent of the U.S. government when it is not convenient to make U.S. citizens pay.
4) Sometimes people in a secret agency of the U.S. government want to do something that, if discovered, would bring imprisonment. In those cases, secret U.S. agencies are allowed to hire other violent secret agencies in other countries, such as Israel's Mossad, to do whatever they want, including killing people.
5) Secret agencies of the U.S. government are allowed to arrange the publication of articles in U.S. media which they know to be dishonest.
Such corruption makes voting and democracy meaningless, since some agencies of the U.S. government follow no elected leader and no law of any country.
The corruption is treason. If you love the U.S. like I do, you will stop the corruption.
Spooks editing on Wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no doubt the NSA and the other spying agencies are using talented researchers, and obviously they would have appeal to many people-- after all it is likely their grants are good, they are researching hard and interesting problems, and there is also the patriotic factor (your gubbermint is not your friend, but the foreign gubbermints are even less your friends). So, it is not a surprise that people go for those grants.
It'd be hard to draw universal moral rules governing such participation. I'd say there is no moral issue if the research is public (as seems to be the case with most of the grants mentioned on the Wikileak). There might be a moral issue if the research is obviously done with the purpose to actively harm people, but it is unlikely such research will be publicized, except by a whistle blower.
All in all, except for clear-cut Dr. Mengele-like cases, I'd say the blame (if any) should be put on the government (which hires NSA and decides their agenda), and the issue should not be the grants, but, rather, the level and quality of oversight the general public has over such organizations, because it is oversight that will contribute more to keeping spy agencies in check, rather than the attitude of the individual researchers.
#Echelon noise: company president, Baghdad thief, nuclear family, water bomb
Re:U.S. government corruption has 3 parts: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, Bush also need help from people who call themselves "Democrats", but actually just suffering from the mental illness called envy.
It is difficult for the average person to believe that someone who already has a lot of money would kill others simply because he wants more money. However, people from rich families often grow up believing that it is acceptable for them to kill people to get what they want.
Right, b/c Al Gore or John Kerry were such paupers. Shine on you crazy diamond. Oh and your link states that US has bombed 24 countries, not invaded, big difference. Also from your link Yugoslavia 1999 where's the oil in Yugoslavia? And don't get me started on the BS links about Depleted Uranium shells being used as carcinogenic bullets, guess what's also a carcinogen? LEAD!. And U238 is an alpha emitter with a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years! Which means it is no more radioactive than common granite.
The NSA is well known to do (Score:3, Interesting)
All the information I saw linked was pure mathematics research.
However, these papers aside, I have to say that the NSA runs with too little public oversight. The domestic wiretapping, which continues to go on without any kind of meaningful regulation is a good example of no american agency should be allowed to run as a black box to the other two branches of the government. Independents need to be brought in to make sure the NSA doesn't continue to step over ethical and legal boundaries.
Right now, I tend to think that the NSA isn't an evil organization. However, they could easily become destructive in the hands of an administration with the will and ability to politicize the agency. I'm sure the current administration would love to use them to spy on their many political enemies, if they aren't already.
Re:Capture it now, before its disappeared (Score:3, Interesting)
In reality, and not just my reality, there are plenty of cases where different people have irresolvable conflicts of interests. The question is whether those conflicts can be mediated intelligently (with or without government assistance) or whether the only decision point is when one side finishes ripping the lungs out of the other. Animals don't get to think about such options. The faster deer doesn't worry about the one that got left behind, and the lion doesn't worry about the hyenas chased away from their kill. However, I do imagine that we are somewhat better than animals, and that we can even manage to continue evolving without dedicating our best efforts to being more vicious and bestial than the mindless beasts. If we don't learn to live together, then we shall surely die together. Technology itself is morally neutral on the question.
The jury is still out on the question. The long-term trends over the last few thousand years seem to agree with me, but that's not long enough. Maybe the real answer to the Fermi Paradox is that we will (and must) soon exterminate ourselves.
Re:NSA funding != breach of ethics (Score:3, Interesting)
MDA908 is much more interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Search for "MDA908", the "Virginia Contracting Activity". Much more interesting items come up.
- Black Excursions [fbodaily.com].
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Buying missiles from Venezuelan general. [gwu.edu]
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Video Grammar for Locating Named People [ieeecomputersociety.org]
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A Bayesian network for identifying suspicious visitors [innovativedecisions.com]
The Virginia Contracting Activity seems to be the financial management point for DIA, ARDA, and some DARPA and CIA work."The Virginia Contracting Activity on behalf of the Defense Intelligence Agency, request for quotations to purchase and install items listed on the RFQ (emergency response equipment) on black excursions."
A covert missile deal went bad, and the payment issue ended up in court. A good read.
One of many research papers associated with digesting audio and video content into useful forms.
Published in 2004. A reasonable project to be working on at that point.