Ask The NSA About Certain Things

Last week, my brother Stephen and I make a pilgrimage to a museum most people have never heard about, at the agency that until not many years ago (Thanks, Ollie!) no one had heard about, at least on the record. It's the National Cryptologic Museum -- part of the National Security Agency, naturally -- located off scenic Route 32 in Ft. Meade, Maryland, and worth a visit. However, the museum has a better-than-average Web presence for a government program, probably because it is in large part a volunteer effort. Nonetheless, it is probably one of the world's greatest public collections of information and artifacts about codes and codebreaking, eavesdropping and counter-eavesdropping.

I spoke briefly with museum curator Jack Ingram, and proposed a Slashdot interview. Ingram said that he could not simply answer readers' questions off the cuff, and referred me to the NSA's Public Affairs Office (yes, they do have one). That sounded like the kiss of death, since PAOs in general seem to insert such requests politely into the large circular file.

I was pleasantly surprised when just a few phone calls yielded a polite and helpful public affairs officer (he requested I not use his name) who assented to field questions about the museum holdings from the Slashdot readership and assist in obtaining answers to those which could be answered without compromising national security.

So submit your questions in the space below, about Venona, about the origins of the NSA's version of the Vatican's pornography collection, about The Black Chamber, about The Special Processing Laboratory (in-house silicon fab), the famous code talkers, or other aspects of the history of governmental secrecy.

Moderators and submittors; think of this as a logic game -- since the NSA won't answer questions it considers too sensitive, what kind of questions can be moderated up high enough to send and stand a good chance of being answered?

check the tapes....

[Da_Monk]

betcha the log files from the web site are quite detailed....

My NSA question:

[Hrunting]

Where'd I leave my keys?

Carnivore

[ucblockhead]

Ok, this is almost certainly too sensitive, but what the heh... What does the NSA think of FBI requests to be inserted in the information stream of all e-mail traffic?

Or, perhaps in a more "sensitive" way: What does the NSA see as its responsibilities in protecting the constitutional rights of US citizens, and of protecting similar rights for non-US citizens?

Future of the NSA?

[buzzcutbuddha]

Seeing other agencies, such as the FBI with Carnivore, start to act on monitoring communications, and the nature of national threats changing from large countries to smaller countries and fringe groups, what does the NSA see as it's role in the future?

Area 51

[FroMan]

So, like does the President really not know about Area 51 being a place to store aliens? I mean in Independence Day, he didn't seem to. So is that really the case?

This is a joke!!! I'm just wondering how many Area 51 crackpots are really out there.

National Security

[rockwall]

What, are some of the unsung achievements in cryptography during World War II? We all know about Turing and the Code Talkers, but who are some of the ones that history has glossed over, and what were their efforts during the war?

yours,
john

Code talkers

[11223]

Every once in a while, a new approach to cryptography like the code talkers comes up - something that returns cryptography to its roots, which is really a mapping between a source set and a destination set. However, the japanese had modest success decrypting the code talkers before new words for letters were added. With time and computer technology, it's probable that they could have succeded in breaking the whole code.

Now cryptography seems to focus mostly on RSA and other public-key crypto systems. Do you see any future innovations in cryptography, or has the science of cryptography been reduced to nothing but fields and binary relations?

Why Now?

[PHr0D]

Why is the NSA 'visible' now? They have a public relations office, public museum, web page.. Why is it no longer 'No Such Agency' .. Do we have replacement 'non-visible' agencies that are better at hidding?


--------------------------------------

Great museum!

[Otter]

No questions I can think of, but I highly recommend the museum if you're interested in that sort of thing -- old Crays, one time pads and an Enigma machine you can actually try.

My favorite thing was the newspaper clippings from the museum opening. Apparently, the NSA didn't tell anyone they were opening a museum and actually denied any knowledge of its existence when reporters asked. (Apparently because many former operatives were visiting and they felt publicity might compromise them. Although, I bet there was a lot of simple habit behind it.) So you have all these articles in the Weekend Activities section saying, "We have learned from anonymous government sources that a Museum of Cryptography has opened in Columbia."

NSA Museum

[__aapbgd5977]

I had a friend who visited an NSA museum in Maryland... he found out about it only because he had a security clearance. You needed the security clearance to get in - and I thought $47 to get into Disneyland was a high admission cost. Is this that same museum, or is there another still-classified museum? Can you tell us about it, in general non-compromising terms? If its the same thing, why has it been de-classified?
==
"This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first."

Contributions to Public Knowledge.

[rockwall]

Obviously, and for very good reason, the NSA employs a great number of skills cryptographers and mathematicians. For equally good reason, the work that they produce and the problems that they solve are of utmost importance to national security, with the unfortunate consequence being that they must be kept secret. Has the NSA ever declassified mathematical or cryptographical information that has contributed significantly to the public body of knowledge? Is such a declassification a possibility for future discoveries or breakthroughs?

yours,
john

Hiring practices

[Uruk]

I've heard that the NSA is the largest employer of PhD mathematicians in the world.

Is this true?

Also, what type of work goes on at the NSA that will be useful to society and to the scientific community as a whole? I understand there is a lot going on in the name of national defence, but it would be horrible to have all of those ideas locked up forever. How does the NSA go about declassifying ideas to benefit science as a whole? How often has that issue come up?

Echelon

[blameless]

What guarantee does the American Public have that agencies such as NSA, CIA, FBI, etc. are not overstepping thier bounds when it comes to our privacy?

In other words, to whom does the NSA answer?

Who's watching the watchers?

What do you know about Canada?

[Ron Harwood]

I've heard that either Canada doesn't have a 'secret service' - or that they're very good at being secret... ;)

Wonder if...

[Vuarnet]

by visiting the NSA's Museum, will they use their resources to spam you with NSA-related stuff?

"I visited the National Cryptologic Museum and all I got was this lousy Net Trace"

NSA justification, and morale.

[Bilestoad]

How does a working NSA officer justify the invasion of privacy necessary to carry out the kind of work that is done?

From the outside it would appear that some kind of high moral stance would be necessary to be able to carry on that kind of work. Do people feel like white hats, protecting the world from "evil"? Or do they feel like they are themselves doing evil, but necessary evil? Gray hats, if you like?

Does the NSA provide any counselling for officers who have difficulty with this apparent conflict?

Autonomy

[rockwall]

How dependent is the NSA on the outside world? Let me clarify: I see from the story that the NSA maintains an in-house silicon fab. So chip production is something that can be handled internally. What cannot be handled internally? I won't be specific, since I would like this question to be answered, but might a situation arise in which the NSA has to turn to industry or academia for assistance? If so, how would such such an incident be conducted (i.e., in the open, or with NDA's or more drastic measures)?

Re:Area 51

[Capt. DrunkenBum]

So, like does the President really not know about Area 51 being a place to store aliens? I mean in Independence Day, he didn't seem to. So is that really the case?

They don't want you to know, but Area 51, is just there to make all the UFO nuts looking at Area 51. Like a magician giving you a flurish with ihis right hand to hide what his left hand is doing.....
Oh no, I have said too much....
They are comming to get me....
Must press Submit bef

USS Liberty.

[Alarmist]

What, exactly, was the USS Liberty doing near Israel in the first place? Presumably, it was assigned to SIGINT, but who was the subject and why?

Re:Ask ME about the trolls

[ZikZak]

You forget the personal information:

Real names
Addresses
Phone numbers
etc.

You have much more to lose than I do.

Other things of interest?

[evanbd]

Everyone seems interested in cryptography, but cryptography is only part of the problem. What can you tell us about the challenges involved in intercepting (and preventing from being intercepted) messages? Since much of the modern technology for this is presumably classified, perhaps a historical approach to answering this would work best, ie what went on in WWII and the cold war?

---

International Cryptography

[Effendi13]

In the future, do you expect that cryptography methods will be allowed international exportation without government interference? What is the general opinion of what would happen in that case? Would it raise or decrease the threat of other countries to each other? What is the opinion of the museum founders on the actions taken on Zimmerman for PGP? -Effendi

Re:TROLLS?!

[ZikZak]

<YAWN>

This your idea of a final threat? Spam?

Maybe I overestimated you fucks after all...

In all seriousness

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Here is my actual question: "Why can't a public relations officer from the NSA tell me his name?"
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!

I've heard the NSA funds stuff.

[Ex Machina]

I've heard the NSA fund research in stuff it is interested in (crypto, math, high-performance computing). What are the chances the NSA would fund some mutially beneficial open source projects?

US tour?

[Mark F. Komarinski]

Any possibility that some of the items in the NSA collection can go on a tour around the country? Not all of us can make it to MD.
There's a good number of items there including some parts from the U2 shot down over Russia to some enigma machines (at least one) and some other items dating back to the civil war.

Monitoring public figures

[Grab]

Recently there was some trouble in Britain, when it was found that Margaret Thatcher had asked the Canadian government to spy on opposition party members, in exchange for which the British secret services spied on Canadian targets.

I can appreciate scanning for threats such as child pornography (never mind the argument about whether it exists - that's another point), and targetting known criminals or likely suspects. But what is the NSA's policy on monitoring _political_ targets? If asked to bug Newt Gingrich or some other senior politician, would the NSA have the power to refuse? And if it did refuse, would it use another agency (Britain's MI5, for instance) to gather the same information, on a quid pro quo basis?

Grab.

Re:Ask ME about the trolls

[11223]

Within twenty-four hours, every phone number we gave out will be disconnected. Every mail address will return unopened. You'll attempt to go to those addresses and see abandoned warehouses. And all traces of those names will dissapear from public records.

We told you that we had connections. We told you that you didn't want to mess with us. See it in action. We're not afraid of anyone leaving, because anything they bring with them is useless - disconnected phone numbers, nonexistant sid names, and addresses of abandoned warehouses!

You don't have the connections. You have everything to lose. You can't touch us.

sigint / private sector

[Signal 11]

Do you (or the NSA) believe that there is a significant threat to the personal communications of average americans by companies inside and/or outside the US either by interception / decryption or other means?

If so, what are those threats, and what technologies / counter-measures would you recommend (pgp, encrypted e-mail, ipv6?), etc?

years ahead

[wishus]

When I applied for an internship with the NSA, you sent me a brochure that mentioned your computing equipment was "5 years ahead of the civilian computer systems." Historically, has this always been the case? Has there ever been a scientific or engineering feat that brought the civilian computing world ahead of the NSA, if only for a short time?

What was it?

wishus
---

Public use of encryption

[gully42]

As we enter the information age, encrytpion is showing up in general use by the public for conveying information (money, data, ideas, etc.)

What would the NSA recommend to ordinary citizens when using encryption? Do you feel that encryption supports free speech? The economy?

Thanks,
Nick

Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

1) What specific independent elected body oversees your operations -- if any?

2) Are you entirely funded by the US government?

3) What is your total year 2000 budget in dollars?

4) Describe your operations and their intelligence interactions with US citizens vs. non-US citizens.

Re:What do you know about Canada?

[Zachary Kessin]

Canada has a sigint service. I don't know what it is called. I think its in New Brunswick somewhere.

The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

Re:Contributions to Public Knowledge.

[rockwall]

Amend that "skills" in the first sentence to "skilled". Sorry.

Re:Why Now?

[Averye0]

Well, of course we do. But if I told you about them, then they wouldn't be "hidden" now would they?

Averye0

what does it take to work for the NSA?

[moller]

Every now and then at school (Caltech) we toss around the idea of going to work for the NSA, mainly because we feel it would be a fun, intellectually stimulating environment. (As opposed to a normal engineering job in a large company which can be boring as hell and not challenging in the least.) but I digress...

So what does it take to work for the NSA? Are all of the employees mathematical geniuses? What kind of people do you look for, and do you actively recruit?

On a side note, I'm assuming that a great deal of scientific discoveries are made in the NSA's labs. How many of these discoveries coincide with research being done in the public academic community? Have there been instances where academia has made a discovery, or published a paper, while the NSA has already known that information for years because they discovered it themselves? Is there any collaboration between the mathematicians at the NSA and those in academia? Or is the NSA research body a purely autonomous group?

Moller

Going more public

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you can't answer all the questions I'd like to have answered... So here is one that I hope you will answer. The NSA employs thousands and thousands of people who's job has an impact on the world that most of us will never know or fully understand. (They may not know of fully understand it) They are unsung heros. Do you think that the agency as a whole (the overall morale) would enjoy having a novel or movie that told those stories even if it meant revealing some of the capabilities of the agency? Is it something you ever think would happen?

The Navy has Topgun and Crimson Tide, and there are numerous movies about Marines and soldiers and pilots. There has been kind of an FBI trend lately with pop items like The X-Files and various movies. Assuming that there is a story to be told (writing proofs on white boards probably doesn't make the cut) would NSA like something like that?

NSA's baliwick?

[Alarmist]

Broadly speaking, the FBI is responsible for monitoring domestic events and the CIA for foreign events; the two are restricted to those arenas.

Does the NSA monitor everything (domestic and foreign)? In other words, is the NSA the central organization for monitoring everything that goes on anywhere?

SPL

[Valar]

Do you have any publically releasable figures on how much the SPL cost to build, and how much it cost to operate? If so, would you share those with us /.ers?

Will the exhibits ever tour?

[Kowh]

From the website, it looks like all the exhibits remain only at the National Cryptologic Museum and don't tour at all. The exhibits look very interesting, so I'm wondering if there's any chance of the exhibits coming closer to me, instead of the even more unlikely chance of me coming closer to the exhibits.

I'm sure a well done cryptology exhibit that toured major museums such as the one nearest me, the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), would probably draw many interested individuals if such a prospect was feasible. I'm not sure how well the exhibits would travel (although many delicate and priceless artifacts travel somehow), if putting together a tour would be too much work, that the NCM has too small of a collection that touring out any part would make it too empty, or any other valid reason against would stop it, but my wishful thinking would like to ask: Will the exhibits ever tour?

I forgot my password.

[haystor]

I forgot the password to my dialup account, and I was wondering if you could email it to me.

RC5 and Other Projects

[RobHornick]

What does the NSA think about the current civilian projects using distributed computing to attempt to decrypt high-level encryption? Does the NSA consider the possibility of other nations using similar distributed computing farms to decrypt encoded US traffic a possible threat or is the encryption used by the NSA just too plain strong?

Re:What do you know about Canada?

[PD]

>Canada has a sigint service.

Sorry, they have a SIGSEGV service. The core files are dumped in Ottawa, Ontario.

Working for DA MAN

[dr_strangelove]

From "Top Ten Reasons to Work for the NSA" -

(yes, there is a page like that..)

Recreation Programs
-------------------------------------------

NSA has clubs available to people interested in:

Art
Battlegaming
Bible Study
Black Expressions (??!)
Bridge
Ceramics and Handicrafts
Coin/Stamp Collecting
Flying
Gardening
Golf
Magic (!)
Model Airplanes
Photography
Public Speaking ("no comment"...)
Rifles and Pistols
Shortwave Radio
Sign Language
Singing
Skiing
Spanish
Sport Cars
Traveling
WIN (Women and Men in NSA)
Yachting

Organized sports include:

Basketball, Golf, Soccer, Softball, and Tennis.

Other activites and services offered:

Dancing
Library Facilities
Emergency Loan Fund
Recreation Equipment for Loan

NSA employees can also enjoy the use of the facilities of a 20-acre
recreation site with ball fields, picnic tables and grills.

Something(s) really cool....

[moonboy]

What is something really, really cool that you could tell us that we, as civilians, wouldn't think to ask a question about because we, unknowing as we are, think it would so obviously be a threat to national security, that we wouldn't even begin to consider asking a question about, but really isn't that big of a deal? Maybe something that seems so outrageous that we would think it were far too preposterous to be true?

why a museum at NSA at all?

[Kevin T.]

Why aren't the materials in the NSA museum in the Smithsonian, where they will be more publically available, cared for by professional curators, and not drain valuable NSA resources? What impact does the NSA Public Relations Office intend for the museum to have on public opinion and employee morale?

Why?

[locutus074]

Why does the museum exist? It was apparent for a long while that that the NSA preferred to remain unknown -- why the change of heart now? Is this a public relations move on the part of the NSA since it's now determined to actually exist :), an act of goodwill, or some other reason?

Thanks.

--

Re:Code talkers

[11223]

More fields. Anything new, or is it just pure mathematics with no room for creative innovation? Yeal, ECC is the future. But it's hardly creative, just a mathematical extention.

Question

[/]

Moderators and submittors; think of this as a logic game -- since the NSA won't answer questions it considers too sensitive, what kind of questions can be moderated up high enough to send and stand a good chance of being answered?

How's the the cafeteria food? Do you guys have company softball games? When are you planning to get a cool crypto statue like the CIA's [lexiline.com]? Do I look fat in this? I want your honest answer.

Technology transfers...

[ave19]

I'd like to hear some recent examples of technologies developed at NSA which were released to the commercial sector. What commercial initiatives has NSA collaborated on recently? (Perhaps, something Al Gore didn't invent?)

Re:What do you know about Canada?

[locust]

We have CSIS [csis-scrs.gc.ca], the Canadain Security Inteligence Service. They come up every once in a while, when they loose a briefcase full of secrets or something.

--locust

Read the FAQ

[crackmonkey]

Wow, I hate to say this, but go read their FAQ first (yes, they have one).

http://www.nsa.gov/about_nsa/faqs_internet.html

No, they can't tell you their exact budget, who works for the, whatever. READ THE FAQ. It covers who they say they're allowed to monitor, etc, and answers about half the other questions people have asked so far.

However, MY question is, what is the screening process for people applying for jobs in the NSA? Can certain parts of someone's background be overlooked? I looked at the FBI's screening process, and I don't make it in there for certain abuses of substances when I was "young and dumb". Anyway, I know I'm not the best around, but I'm considered to be pretty bright and I fit a few of the job categories for the NSA. Could a guy like me make it in anyway? Do I need a degree first?

Does it help that I almost applied to work for the CIA (their college program is pretty nice).

History of Cryto

[Zachary Kessin]

It seems that before the 20th century cryptography was very much an art and at some point it more or less turned into a science. I was wondering if you could elaberate on how and when that change was made. IE when did the math folks take over? And was it during or around WWII.

The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

Cryptography exports

[kchayer]

What role does the NSA play in advising lawmakers about cryptography exportation? Did the NSA call the shots or simply make recommendations with the recent US government relaxing encryption export regulations?

Gridlock

[vees]

In this breaking news, MD 295 and Route 32 in Maryland have been jammed solid for the past three days as a backlog of tens of thousands of visitors to the National Cryptologic Museum are waiting to access the area in what experts are calling the "Slashdot Traffic Effect". More at eleven.

--

Re:Echelon

[Cy Guy]

to whom does the NSA answer?

The NSA, like every agency in the Executive Branch, answers to the President, and to one or more oversight committees in Congress.

In this case, the NSA's oversight committees are The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence [senate.gov] and the House Committee on National Security [house.gov].


Help [206.253.208.199]

Canadian Equivalents...

[Christopher B. Brown]

The rough equivalents to major US agencies:

• The nearest equivalent to the FBI [fbi.gov] ... is the RCMP - Royal Canadian Mounted Police. [rcmp-grc.gc.ca] The RCMP also provides the services provided in the US by the Treasury Police, including dealing with "crimes about currency," and the protection of heads of state and diplomatic persons.
• The RCMP used to also perform services equivalent to the CIA, [odci.gov] but this group was spun out, becoming CSIS - Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. [csis-scrs.gc.ca]

  There was a scandal where RCMP "spooks" burned a barn where purportedly nefarious people were planning ill; the "public" view was that this made the RCMP look bad, and so the RCMP wanted no more to do with the "spooky" activities. When they're the "secret service," who can really be sure???. The public face on this was thus:

  The establishment of the civilian Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the disbanding of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service by an Act of Parliament in 1984 recognized the differences between security intelligence activities and law enforcement work. The 120-year old interlocking of Canada's security intelligence service with the federal police force was brought to a close.

• The nearest equivalent to the NSA [nsa.gov] is the Communications Security Establishment, [cse.dnd.ca] an "establishment" in the Department of National Defence.

  See also the CSE Unofficial Web Page, [uwaterloo.ca] which has a rather interesting discussion of the organization.

  They are a mixed civilian/military group largely devoted to "signals analysis," and include pretty much the same functions associated with the NSA, notably not including having their own chip foundries. (Unless there's one hiding somewhere in Labrador!)

  Notable "listening" sites include Gander (a formerly notable airport), Alert (the most northerly inhabited place in the world), Masset, and Kingston. My father used to work next door to CSE headquarters, the Sir Leonard Tilley Building. [uwaterloo.ca]

Why would I work for you?

[Just Some Guy]

As a young-ish programmer, there is a wealth of available job opportunities. As the world's premier intelligence agency, you would of course want to hire the best and brightest stars of the upcoming generation.

My question is simple: why would I want to work for you?

Hot new dot-com startups can offer me incredible stock options. Larger corporations give me a chance at rapid advancement in a stable job. When I think of the NSA, by comparison, I imagine slaving away in a cinder-block room for $30,000, and being a nameless cog in the machine.

Your web site touts the hard-core bleeding edge technology that I would get to work with. While that's an admitted draw, it doesn't overcome the dreary impression that most people have of large goverment agencies.

Does the NSA, or other TLA-agencies for that matter, have incentive programs that would interest the kind of people that you want working for you?

Fingerprints

[whoknows55]

One of the exhibits shows how fingerprints are identified. And the label on the machine that always scares me says, "Fingerprints are not permanently stored" I wonder how long they consider temporary?

individual freedom vs. nation security

[Anonymous Coward]

since individual freedom and privacy tend to be contrary to national security , where does the nsa see the as the balance between to two? till what point does national security outway privacy?

Metaquestion

[Anonymous Coward]

My question is: what subjects are we supposed to not ask about?

NSA equvalent to "Time to Market"

[Neter]

After making my "pilgramage" the the Crypto museum, I was fascinated to discover the amount of work that the NSA has done with silicon and custom chips. My question then is this: Does the Special Processing Laboratory have set schedule for the release of new silicon technologies, or is it on a "as needed" basis. ie - We all know that Intel shoots to have a new chip on the market every 8ish months. Does the SPL do the same? And if so, what is the average time from algorithm inception by one of your cryptanalysts/cryptographers to final product in silicon?

Crypto Roots & Leaves

[hartsock]

1. Having studied old DES designs in college I have always wondered... exactly what WERE the "S-boxes" originally? I know what most solid state systems model them as, but I'd love to know what the designer's had in mind.
2. How much of what are known as the "classic cyphers" are still relevant to today's cryptographic systems?
3. Most modern cryptographic advancements appear to be number-theoretic in nature, what is the future of purely linguistic approaches?
4. What is the single most important cryptographic advancement (that is not classified) of the last century, and who should we be harolding as the "King or Queen" of 20th century cryptography.
5. What is the NSA's ideal vision for public and international collaboration on the development of cryptographic systems? ie: what does cryptographic utopia look like to the NSA?
6. How has the role of cryptography changed in the last century, how has the NSA effected those changes?
7. What role does the NSA see Cryptography playing for the average citizen in the future? Does the NSA believe that the average person needs to utilize cryptographic technology (beyond it's current embedded uses)?

I'm curious to see how the NSA would answer these questions and what it would package for us as their "official response". I'm also curious if the NSA would answer differently to CNN than it would to slashdot... but I have no way of testing that. It should also be noted that I'm not digging for anything, just making small talk, I seriously doubt they would show a schematic for the new version of DES no matter how benign I was.

--// Hartsock //

Re:Code talkers

[agentZ]

Well, although a large part of crypto depends on breaking codes, an even larger part depends on capitalizing on your enemy's mistakes and on human intelligence.

That is, why waste a lot of time, effort, money, and computational power on breaking a code when you can just recuit a spy to bring the codebook to you? The cost of a $2.5 million dollar supercomputer plus the people to run it is a helluva lot more than a one-time $100,000 payoff to some broke government bureaucrat with a gambling problem...

That, and there are lots of examples of screwups that led to compromises of cryptosystems. In WWII, a lot of times messages were sent on the exact day a crypotosystem change was specified. The receipient of those messages get transmissions in the new code, can't read them, and write back in the old (and perhaps broken) cryptosystem, "Hey, we didn't get that, can you try again with yesterday's codes." ta da! Known plaintext attack... Makes it almost too easy...

Even the best math is useless is misused.

Get your crypto action figures was Re:Code talkers

[tangram]

This is a marvelous chance to point out:

There's a GI Joe Navajo Code Talker action figure out now, with seven recorded messages in Navajo and english. Get 'em while they last.

( If this is successful, maybe they'll come out with the Alan Turing action figure. Or Lady Lovelace with Camper and Grappling Hook.)

--tangram

Why is the NSA Museum Website so vague?

[fdragon]

I was looking through the NSA website and noticed that everything was rather vague in the descriptions of the exhibits. Why isn't there links to more information on say for example the code talkers or the DF Tractors? Where can more information be found on the exhibits that are in this museum like:

How the items came to the museum?
How were these items developed?
... and what were some of the previous designs?

--

Conspiracy Theories

[DanMcS]

Do you guys ever read some of the conspiracy theories about all the evil that goes on at Ft Meade, and just laugh your butts off?
--

Re:Read the FAQ

[fluffhead]

As far as the screening process goes, look at their Employment FAQ. [nsa.gov]

Quote:

Because of the nature of our work, the employment process is thorough and lengthy, so you should apply to NSA several months in advance of your availability date. Applicants must undergo an extensive background investigation, psychological and polygraph exams, and several interviews....

I can give you a personal anecdote (hearsay) about my dad (he passed away in 1977, so this is 25+ year old info, but probably still relevant). My father was convicted of drunk driving back in the late 60's while he was still in college in Arizona. I think that DUI (first offense) was probably a misdemeanor back then, but due to the conviction he lost his driver's license for quite a while (although not permanently). I believe he was in the Air Force at the time, but don't know if he was tried under UCMJ or AZ state law (probably state law, if the AF caught him DUI on base it probably would not cost him his license, but instead days/months in the stockade or whatever). My mom remarked to me several years ago that he constantly got hassles over the DUI conviction when he later joined NSA, as it always came up in security clearance reviews, polygraphs, etc. However it was obviously not a "career killer" type thing.

P.S. I was born in Baltimore (mom didn't trust the Fort Meade hospital) & my brother was born in Fort Meade itself s(she changed her mind I guess) so I should probably make a pilgrimage to the NSA museum someday, if only to see the area where I spent the first two years of my life... I wonder if they give tours of Fort Meade proper (doubtful)?

#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak

Re:Why would I work for you?

[Just Some Guy]

Thanks. That's pretty much exactly the kind of answer that I was looking for.

What about the stock options, though? How does that translate onto a gov't agency?

What kind of long-term wear are you referring to? The stress of the job? Management?

Number Stations

[^_^x]

Does the NSA have any connection whatsoever with the "number stations" on shortwave radio?

If the NSA owns any of these stations, would you be able to give us even a vague idea of what kind of data is carried on them? Even a one-word answer like "names", "words", "images", etc...

Here's where I first heard of them:

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/09/16/n umbers/index.html
http://www.ibmpcug.co.uk/%7Eirdial/conet.htm

To be part of The Man, of course!

[roystgnr]

Does the NSA, or other TLA-agencies for that matter, have incentive programs that would interest the kind of people that you want working for you?

The chance to uncover and join conspiracies at the very highest levels of our government? C'mon, do you think that "The Man" (also know as "they", "Big Brother", etc.) is immortal? No! Even with the incredible genetic longevity treatments that they won't release to the general public, The Man can only expect to live two, three centuries, tops. They need fresh blood to firmly grasp the puppeteer's strings that our society dances to!

Think about the chicks you could pick up, if you could have their current boyfriends' reputations destroyed with a phone call.

Think about the perks you could be treated to, when you had the inside dirt that The Man's omnipresent surveillance systems have collected on every political and corporate leader in the world!

Sure, you would have to undergo their powerful classified psychotherapy techniques to keep you from revealing The Man's secrets, and to make sure you suicide before cracking under torture. But really, is torture by foreign counteragents really a worry anymore in a world where the Russian mafia is in bed with the NSA and the Chinese Communist party, in a global conspiracy to squeeze control ever tighter around the minds and hearts of men?

And really, wouldn't be worth it, the first time some clueless hippie-wannabe bitches to you that The Man is trying to keep him down, and you get to reply,

"No I'm not."

NSA Museum NO CLEARANCE REQUIRED

[GMontag]

OK, either your friend filled you full of BS and you bought it, or... well let our imaginations wander.

I went there with my girlfriend and my son. I have a clearance, they don't. Nobody checked our ID or anything. We were in her vehicle so "dreaming" a background check out of the temporary tag number and somehow linking it to me won't work.

Anyway, just go to NSA HQ, make a left, drive past the Shell station (there is one across from the CIA too, as well as one down the road from Station C at Remington?warrinton, VA, go figure), anyway, just past the Shell gas station you will find the museum. Walk in, sign the book or not (I think I signed in as Kevin Mitnick, but don't remember). Walk around, look at the desplays, ask the guides questions, play with an Enigma hands on, have phun!

Conspiracy Theories

[mudder]

What's the most riduculous conspiracy theory that you have heard about yourselves? Is there any particular movie or book that you all laugh at as an inside joke (e.g. Mercury Rising) becuase of the way it misrepresents the NSA?

Why Solaris?

[sumana]

www.nsa.gov is running Apache/1.3.11 (Unix) on Solaris
http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host =www.nsa.gov [netcraft.com]

Why did your webmaster choose to run Apache on Solaris?

That is, unless you're fooling Netcraft, which is a valid possibility...
The Once and Future Cool Site:

Re: CSE

[tbo]

I interviewed with CSE so I know a bit about them (nothing classified or secret, since ended up taking a different job).

Aside from all the current NSA-type stuff, the CSE is also working on a public-key infrastructure for use by Canadian citizens. I believe this work is being done in partnership with Xcert [xcert.com]. Cool stuff...

Vatican pornography collection?

[The Wookie]

Is there really such a collection? The only book I saw when I followed the link was on Polygraphy.

Failures

[bombadill]

I see a lot of questions about NSA and SigInt successes, but what about the failures? For example, one hears a great deal about cracking Enigma during WW2. How about Allied codes during WW2? How successful were the Axis in reading our signals? What methods did they use? Who was generally better at SigInt during WW2 and why? It would also be interesting to hear about any significant US failures during the Cold War.

CIA vs NSA

[bluGill]

Both the CIA and NSA have missions of "spying" on other countires. How does your mission differ from the CIA?

How do I report math threats to national security?

[smart2000]

Suppose that I had discovered a method to factor the product of two large strong prime numbers. This method allows me to factor the product in a reasonable amount of time using a small ( < 100K ) amount of commonly available computers and networking.

Such a discovery, if disclosed to the public, would represent a severe threat to the national security of the United States of America and her citizens. Disclosed only to the National Security Agency, it would be a useful tool in the defense and security of this nation.

What would the proper way to disclose such a discovery to elements of the National Security Agency?

The NSA, Nanotechnology, Opensource, and Wireless

[dread minerva]

I pose four questions for the kind anonymous PR being at the NSA:

1. How do you see nanotechnology being of assistance to the NSA? What type of coding/intercepting possibilities does it hold?
2. What effect, if any, does opensource software and shareware have on the NSA's objectives?
3. What do wireless communications contribute to coding and the NSA's other projects? Does the high volume of 'traffic' due to cellphones and new gadgetry make transmission and/or interception easier/ more dificult?
4. How has the Human Genome Project and the concepts of DNA matrices in theoretical computer science aided the NSA? Can the code of life help the NSA's coding and intercepting efforts?

Sincerely,

a kind and curious spookette

Re:National Security - Here's some

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a lot of those very unsung heroes were Turing and the work done at Bletchley Park [bletchleypark.org.uk] ... it wasn't until the enigma was stolen that a lot of people actually knew what Bletchley was and their (large) contribution to the war effort.

As for another unsung hero, a guy called Ellis who worked at GCHQ in the 50's actually developed public key crypto [wired.com] way before the RSA/Duffie etc. It sometimes helps to look outside the box, the NSA museum is very interesting, however you have to bear in mind these places are extremely jingoistic, there are many other great people (from other countries) that have made massive contributions over the years who haven't received any recognition.

P.S. Don't rely on Hollywood for your history either.

The history of history

[jd]

Many other countries have destroyed, for various reasons, a great deal of their cryptographic history. The English destroyed the original Colossus at Bletchley Park, for example.

Of those things no longer classified, but no longer in existance, what do you regret most having been destroyed?

Also, a quick follow-up - there are bound to be many things in existance now which simply won't survive, because they're just too sensitive to risk. Does the NSA (and/or museum) have any program to securely isolate those artifacts which are likely to be of historic significance, until they can be safely declassified?

(IMHO, we only have one history. Many possible futures, but there's only one past. If something is lost, that's it. No second chance. Bleeding-edge research is probably one of the most exciting aspect of life in any age, but it's also - by definition - the most likely to be deliberately destroyed, through sheer necessity. IMHO, some kind of archive would be invaluable for the future, but maybe just too expensive for the present.)

Re:What do you know about Canada?

[AJWM]

Canada's 'secret service' is CSIS, which stands for Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (with some such permutation for the French version of the name). Founded in the 1980s, such work used to be done by the RCMP (at least on the counter-intelligence side. CSIS is a bit more like CIA in some aspects.)

(Not the only such outfit, of course, and not exactly secret. Various other departments have their own spooks - e.g. External Affairs has folks who do thinks like bug sweeps and security audits of Canadian embassies in other countries. Or used to, maybe CSIS does that now.)

Re:Autonomy

[kootch]

Is this referring to the way that the CIA is creating a venture capital / incubator-type organization to fund advancements or to function as commercial "unclassified" developmental research labs?

What happened to Cryptome?

[FreeUser]

Until recently there was a very controversial and public web site, crytome [cryptome.org] available which offered a unique and interesting look inside the world of espionage. Of course, by placing under the public eye so much information they made enemies of the FBI, the CIA, and various foreign intelligence agencies.

Do you know what happened to this site, and to your knowledge was your agency (or any of the other aforementioned agencies) involved in its apparent disappearance from the net?

NSA and DES

[IdoR]

As far as I remember, it wasn't NSA which invented DES, rather it was IBM. However, the NSA changed some of the coeffecients of the original design and didn't explain why.

30 years down the road, Adi Shamir invented differential cryptoanalysis (a method of attacking crypto systems by 'feeding' them certain inputs and seeing what comes out), and showed how the original design of DES was vulnerable to that method, and that the NSA's changes made DES much less vulnerable.

It was later revealed that NSA had already discovered differential cryptoanalysis in the 60's, and the coeffecient changes were specifically done to protect DES.

Re:Vatican pornography collection?

[The Wookie]

From reading the article, though, it sounds like the Vatican porn library is a myth.

Re:what does it take to work for the NSA?

[dubido]

The thought has occured to college students all over the US. I took myself to task one day, and attended an information session, designed to answer exactly the question "What does it take to work for the NSA?"
One interesting thing to note was that the talk was delivered by a female mathematician, who was about to leave the NSA to start work in the private sector. I wasn't sure what to make of that...
Interesting little tidbits that arose from my conversation with this soon-to-be-former employee of the NSA:
* unlike a University, there are no non-US citizens working for the NSA. I presume that makes it slightly boring. I've found the international students and faculty in my U. to be probably the most informed and amusing to hand out with.
* the publish-or-perish issue is a non-issue. You cannot publish new findings until they're not new. Personally, I'd have a hard time spooning that one down.
* You do get to work with smart people. I don't know what your definition of genius is, so I won't go there. I should hope (not for the sake of National Security or any of the Nationalist reasons that are often given, but simply because I really *want* to believe we're not governed by idiots) that the NSA chooses employees better that the rest of the *.gov.
* they say they try to cooperate with business. I don't know how they go about it though.

In any case, this is getting long winded, but I think it summarizes my thoughts pretty well. 1) you have to sizzle before you publish, 2) it might get a little single-minded at times.

--TL

What can I do?

[quecojones]

I'm an American. I was born in the US (although my parents are from the Dominican Republic), and I love this country.

What can I, as an average (more or less) citizen, do to help my country maintain it's national security?

I'm not a mathematician, or an expert cryptologist, or a wunderkind. I know the NSA has it's recruiting programs and any suficiently qualified individual can apply for a job with you guys, but seeing as I'm not as gifted as you would require me to be before being able to offer me a full time job, what can I do (on my own)?

q

A burning question

[Calmacil]

I recently looked at a list of patents the NSA had for stuff, and anong the really cool stuff, something very very interesting popped up: Integrated Child Seat for Vehicle [ibm.com]. This really piqued my curiosity. Why does the NSA have a patent for a child seat?

Recruiting Poster for NSA

[billstewart]

When I was in college (late 70s), we had an NSA recruiting poster up in the computer lab. The graffiti added at the bottom said "You don't need to call us - if you're interested, we already know about you." :-)

Re:You want "private sector" info?

[gnarphlager]

ZikZak you dumbfuck. It's your life. As you know, the Tribunal meets tomorrow at noon. You're welcome to make a formal appology and suffer only trivial consequenses. However, if you persist in this foolishness, you're not going to wake up on Saturday, dig? You know the deal.

Re:Why would I work for you?

[cnkeller]

Keep in mind, you can work at NSA, but not for the government (I worked for a large government contractor), so any perks (stock, bonuses, etc) come from whomever you work for (CSC, SAIC, Booz Allen, any of those types). Not sure if I correctly understand the translation part...

Long term wear as annonyance mainly. Think about it for a minute. All your work is classfied, you can't talk about it to anyone but people at work and then only in designated areas. This has the side benefit of never being able to take work home with you. Don't even think about Internet access, it doesn't exist in this world (okay it does under REALLY rare cases). Public e-mail? Hah. Software patches? Don't make me laugh, you are forbidden to import anything until it's offically blessed which takes a while. So what happens if you think you found a bug in the latest java compiler? That night, you can log on to Sun's website and check from your house. Radio? Cell-phone? Nope, you work in areas that are desinged to foil transmissions in and out. Pagers work in certain places. Basically you're cut off. Some specially blessed person was nice enough to import the Linux Weekly News, so I wasn't TOTALLY cut off, but it's rare.

It's just a different world. You have to either want to deal with it, or want to serve your country.

I'm not trying to paint a bad picture, but an accurate one. Software gets blessed and comes in reasonably quickly (but never at the speed of just doing it yourself) and there are internal reference sites for a lot, but you are very cutoff from the world as you currently know it. It was a great time for me and would recommend it to anyone who figures they can pass the fairly comprehensive security clearnances (my resume remained current and even impressive throughout all my classified adventures); I did some very cool work dealing with the security of the US, met a lot of bright people, played with super cool technologies, but it was time to move on and see life from the complete opposite side of a dot com.

Re:why a museum at NSA at all?

[Greg Lindahl]

What makes you think that the Smithsonian wants a huge NSA exhibit, as big as the NSA museum? The Smithsonian has limited funds, just like everyone else.

The Smithsonian dropped by the University of Virginia astronomy department and looked at the 5 generations of astronomical photographic plate measuring devices we have in the basement of our observatory, gathering dust. "Hey, you should build a museum for this. It's important stuff and should be preserved." Well, they didn't have the money to do it, and neither does UVa, but UVa hasn't junked the equipment; they're keeping it in a climate-controlled building until someone decides they care.

Role of Openness

[jhonan]

Are there instances when making information public furthers state security
better than keeping it secret?

Just as you probably have large numbers of people devoted to
protecting secrets, do you have people whose role is to promote
the dissemination of information (I mean for non public relations reasons,
for the furthering of state security)

Re:what does it take to work for the NSA?

[spiral]

(Time to resurrect an old classic...)

National Security Agency
Application for Employment

Social Security Number: __________

Thank you for your interest in the NSA!
Qualified applicants will be contacted.

Re:Read the FAQ

[karb]

The process is to some degree subjective. If you were young they might overlook it. Bad news is (this might be funny if you used to be a habitual drug user) you have to list *every* time that you can remember (also funny) that you have used drugs.

Anyway, nothing is really 'overlooked', but they acknowledge that if you have not used drugs in a long time that you are probably clean. Also, depending on how the NSA does it (differs with different government clearances) they are only allowed to go back a certain number of years.

The reason they check for drugs is that nearly all people convicted of espionage are on drugs ... get on drugs, run out of money, sell secrets and get people killed for more drug money. Idealistic traitorage (a word?) is very rare.

They might be less forgiving about the degree. Don't know. Not NSA myself.

Cyrogenic computing

[Animats]

NSA and IBM had a sizable effort to develop high-speed cyrogenic computing components in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Did any usable hardware ever result from that effort? It would be an interesting footnote to computing history if it did.

Re:Code talkers

[RyuMaou]

Speaking of the Japanese...
Do you think they had an advantage in code breaking because of the pictographic nature of their written language? Was it harder to crack Japanese codes for the same reason? Or did it have any impact at all?

Just wondering...
RyuMaou

Re:why a museum at NSA at all?

[drinkypoo]

On top of this, what makes anyone think that the people caring for the items in the NSA museum isn't a professional curator with job experience at the smithsonian or something?