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NSA, The Technology Future, and Where It Is
cowmix writes "It was weird watching 60
Minutes II last week when the head of the NSA was complaining that
his organization was totally behind in technology. Further, he told of stories
of the organization's horrible inefficiencies and even went into how at
the first of January 2000 all the computers in the NSA were down for three
days. The thing that really shocked me was seeing pictures of the inside
of one of the NSA headquarters and also SEEING people decoding telephone
conversations.
I didn't know what to make of it."
It's not the first time we've heard of the Y2k incident... read Body of Secrets by James Bamford. It's an excellent book detailing the entire history of the NSA.
Old News. It was reported in Jan 2000.
I was involved in Y2K remediation at the time and I remember it being reported in mainstream news media, although it was ususally (but not always) reported as "DoD Satellite Intelligence".
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Here's a three page article which appeared in the Washington Post Magazine about a month ago. More in-depth then the 60 mins one and goes into the some details about the problems facing The Agency in the coming years... Washington Post NSA article
Ironically the super spy agency was one of the
few organizations to report a serious Y2K problem.
My aunt works with crypto for The Company. She's amazingly good at avoiding conversation on the topic, but from what I've been able to pick up, the concept of the NSA being a more open, friendly, and underfunded is completely bunk. It's an interesting PR move, though. They must have a reason for saying and doing such things, and I suspect is has to do with gaining the public's trust.
If citizens aren't allowed to know what the government does, how can citizens help govern?
This is what being in a representative democracy is all about. You don't necessarily know what the gov't is doing. You have to trust your elected officials. If you don't like what they're doing (did) you just don't vote for them next time. It seems like a haphazard way to run things, but it has worked this far.
Remember that the NSA, CIA, and what have you do need to justify themselves to commitees of the officials you elect. So you are indirectly controlling how your tax dollars are spent.
No sig for you.
> Aw.. poor NSA only gets $26 Billion dollars
Read your citation again. The NSA is *one segment* of the intelligence funding group. From the same page:
There are 13 federal organizations in the Intelligence Community. They
are:
National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS);
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA);
National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA);
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA);
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO);
Department of Energy (DoE);
Army Intelligence;
Air Force Intelligence;
Navy Intelligence;
Marine Corps Intelligence;
Department of Treasury;
The $26 billion would have been split among the intelligence activities of all 13 of these groups.
Visit the
The NRO is the same age as NSA, and has a completely different mission. NRO is responsible for launching and operating surveillance platforms. They pass the data on to various agencies (including NSA) to do whatever they do with it. NRO does not use or analyse anything.
There is nothing sinister about the new openess with both NRO and NSA. They have merely been directed to open up a bit so the budgets and operations can be scrutinized a little better. This began about 5 years ago. Regardless, you will still never see the things they regard as truly classified, and there are still a few programs that will not be admitted to.
Use the spatula, Luke
I'd believe the part about some of their tech being behind the times.
Tempest workstations are costly, clunky, and a few years behind the state of the art. The time and effort required for certification is long!
The certification is real fun. You give them the equipment and get back either a pass or fail. No indication as to why it failed. Guess, fix and try, try again. Happy happy joy joy!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
What people don't realize is that the NSA is more than just what it seems. All COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) technology that is being considered for use in most any part of the gov't/DoD has to be evaluated by these people, and this process is just a very long one at that. At the rate of new stuff coming out, there is a reason why they don't have the funding that they really do need.
Why do normal people laugh at the gov't when they just announce that they are switching to a "new" technology, when in reality it's been out in public for some time. It's the same reason as above...they have to make sure that it fits all the standards to become FIPS compliant for the specified level that they want it at.
Also, quite a bit of technology is in house also, and that requires a really big chunk of money as well.
Of course, another big chunk is the "black" stuff that most people picture the gov't (or just NSA) to be.
Free the mallocs.
The interview on 60 Minutes was not with the Director of NSA - it was with the ex-director of NSA. How else do you think he got on 60 Minutes?
The current director, General Hayden, has made leaps and bounds in overcoming the beaucracy in the NSA in the recent years.
Things are getting better. It's difficult to create a government organization that's dynamic, flexible and responsive to changing trends in the technological sector. The NSA was at one time, and perhaps will be again.
The NSA has an essentially unlimited amount of money. Citizens of the U.S. are not allowed to know the amount.
This is simply no longer the case. It was true of the NSA and other intel agencies during the cold war, especially during the Reagan years. However, with Congressional interest in a balanced budget, these agencies have been scrutinized fairly intensely and now have to operate their programs within budgets.
That is actually one reason that they are 'behind' in some ways. They used to have all the money they wanted to build anything they needed from the ground up. Now they are shifting from that model to needing to use prebuilt components ('COTS' - Consumer Off The Shelf). There is not as much expertise with using these types of components, and in many cases they engineer systems in sort of strange ways because the COTS products are treated as if they were developed internally in regard to testing and design.