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PGP Division to Work With NSA on Secure Linux

Posted by jamie on from the didn't-see-that-one-coming dept.

NAI Labs, a division of PGP Security, just sent out a press release announcing that they're "joining with the National Security Agency (NSA) and its other partners to further develop the NSA's Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) prototype." Wow.

4 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. clever folks by J.J. · · Score: 5

    You know, I've really got to hand it to the NSA. Somewhere, deep in that organization, is an individual who is driving this whole SELinux project, and I think it's safe to say that He's got a clue.

    Don't think that it wasn't difficult for the NSA to do what we've seen with SELinux. For an organization who's entire history has been built upon the idea that incognito is good, this movement of opening up and embracing the open source community was certainly hampered by the knee-jerk reaction of middle-managers who can't imagine working openly with private companies, much less thousands of developers worldwide.

    Bravo, NSA. And bravo, Mr. Man-behind-the-scenes who's making this happen. My hat's off to you.

  2. Nice by Cheshire+Cat · · Score: 5
    All I've read so far are numerous posts about how the NSA will now be able to spy on PGP-encrypted material. Personally, I think this is a load of bullshit. I doubt the NSA needs to ask the people at PGP labs for assistance in cracking this. Either its been cracked (doubtful) or else the NSA has been so impressed by it, that its decided to integrate it into its OS.

    Come on, stop being so damn paranoid. Trust me, you're not nearly as intersting to the government as you might think you are.

    --

    Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
  3. NSA hysterics by Canonymous+Howard · · Score: 5

    Great, another round of NSA hysterics.

    You know what the saddest thing is about this?

    Somebody busted his hump to get his boss at NSA to let him work on Linux. Said person then busted his hump even further to get his boss to actually allow the release of the source code. What, you think it was easy to get the NSA to release the source code?

    I can only imagine how many levels of authorization this poor guy had to go through to get permission to release the source code. Can you even begin to imagine the hell he went through for our benefit?

    And as his reward, this poor soul now gets a bunch of idiots screaming about the NSA trying to break Linux's security. If he ever gets invited to speak at a conference, he'll probably be booed off the stage for his efforts.

    Doesn't anybody think before going into hysterics?

  4. Re:There goes the neighborhood by Guppy06 · · Score: 5

    If the NSA has to be working with an operating system, I'd prefer it to be Linux. Even if they were to put in back doors, at least the users have the legal right to look at the source code and try to find it and fix it. And I can almost guarentee that anything that has the NSA stamp of approval on it will be rigorously tested by the community, if for no other reason than because it says "NSA" on it.