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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."
Now, we're supposed to believe that the NSA when they go on national TV and complain about their lack of money? Bullshit! Perhaps if their budget was not classified to begin with, this would warrant looking into. As it stands, I'll take any info from the NSA as the FUD it is.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
The NSA is full of more shit than the christmass turkey. I suppose all their voice recognition systems on echelon are condidered low level technology. NSA can eat shit and die until they stop listening to my phone calls. They just want more money so they can upgrade echelon to peer right through the roof of your house. They won't be satisfied until they can read our minds.
Clearly this is a whitewash, designed to lull the public into complacency. The NSA is a highly-honed machine, and the American public are the victims of a massive hoax.
Spread the word!
It would seem to me that the NSA may benifit from being perceived as behind in technology on several fronts. First it may cause those they monitor to let their guard down, though I cna't imagine anyone with any smarts really falling for that old trick.
Second, and more importantly, it gives them an edge in seeking additional funding. Now I don't know how their funding is approved (does anyone) but I wouldn't be surprised if it has become an issue.
Can we really trust that there is any validity to these statements and what was shown. How would you verify this information.
Be careful about anything said about the NSA. The NSA is one of the departments of hidden activity of the U.S. government.
The NSA has an essentially unlimited amount of money. Citizens of the U.S. are not allowed to know the amount.
Would the NSA spend millions of dollars to engineer an elaborate lie? Yes, it might. We have no way of knowing whether it did.
Hidden activities are anti-democratic. If citizens aren't allowed to know what the government does, how can citizens help govern? Are your tax dollars being spent wisely? You are not allowed to know.
Bush's education improvements were
The NSA probably is behind... way behind. I've worked on several government projects (none classified or anything though) and they've all been way behind the times. Why do you think there was such a big call for legacy programmers a few years back? And why do you think there isn't anymore? Did they just all of a sudden get everything up to date? No... They quit.
Also, the NSA has been really trying hard to get new young faces in their information security departments. They've even gone so far as offering dot-com competitive salaries and benefits to their programmers and systems people.
Besides, they're not gods. They're just people like you or me, and it's just a 'company' like any other. Why couldn't they be having some financial difficulties? Sure, we pay tons of taxes, but the government is more interested in feeding bums and helping other nations than protecting our country.
Really? The NSA is woefully behind in technology? I can't prove that any of these supercomputers went to the NSA but looking at this list, the government now owns at least seven of the top five-hundred supercomputers. Most of these are in the top 200 and all were bought in the past four years. Note the computer's uses are classified so who knows if the NSA got them or all went to the FBI and CIA.
Suddenly? There's nothing "suddenly" about it. It's called self-preservation. And it has nothing to do with them being Chinese. If you were to ask me who's life is more important, mine or yours, I would say mine, hands-down. And if someone were to threaten my life, assuming it comes to that, you can be sure I'd kill him before he could kill me. If I'm given a choice to live or die, then a level playing field is the last thing I want - I want the advantage.
Oh, yes and it gets way better.. from the FAQ..
Aw.. poor NSA only gets $26 Billion dollars. It's only the equivalent to a Fortune 50 company. Yeah.. I'm sure its technology is _ancient_.
You know.. we don't actually know jack about our defense capablities I don't think. Of course, if we did then our enemies would also, and they wouldn't be nearly as effective. For example, living in St. Louis, I was talking to someone from Boeing and mentioned how they must not too happy that their missile tests failed. He just laughed and said he couldn't talk about it's classified. Makes you wonder if maybe he was inferring that those public tests don't totally represent the actually success of the projects...
If the Americans hadn't broken the Japanese
"Purple" code in the 1930s, we in all probability would have lost the Battle of Midway in the 1940s and now in the 21st Century it would have been entirely possible that China would be a Japanese puppet. Likewise, if the Poles (and later the British) hadn't started breaking German Enigma code starting in the 1930s, we would probably lost the Battle of the Atlantic in the 1940s and there might still be a Nazi presence in Europe in the 21st Century. A little intellectual homework now can alter the course of millions of lives a decade or two down the road. America has flaws and is far from perfect, but We Are The Good Guys and hell no, we should NEVER settle for a level playing field in matters of national security. War is NEVER about honor - it is about WINNING. Preferably fast and with minimum loss of life if possible...
Perhaps your forget that the NSA and CIA are agencies designed to keep their activities hidden. Lying is not only acceptable to them, it is encouraged. Do you think that they disclose everything to the elected officials? I think they don't.
I think the elected officials are very busy, and don't have the time to comprehend what the NSA is doing.
Also, this is my guess: I guess that there is not one elected official who understands the technology the NSA uses. If you know of a technically knowledgeable congressman or senator, please tell me who that is. These are the same people who gave us the DMCA!
Bush's education improvements were
It looks to me like the NSA is fishing for new hires. Let me explain. Every post here seems to be extrememly paranoid about the NSA. "Don't trust them. They're massively powerful. They're trying to trick us." But Slashdot represents a fair slice of the technophile community. If all the geeks fear the NSA, then who is working for them? I think the Good Will Hunting monologue is a fair representation of how most intelligent people feel about the NSA. The NSA needs geniuses to work for them, but the geniuses will have none of it. The NSA is nothing if it doesn't have great minds working for it, so I really have no doubt that it is waning in power. If it loses smart people, it produces fewer results and suddenly it is less necessary, and less funded, etc., etc.
So, it seems to me that they have changed their strategy in an attempt to become more attractive to the people they want to hire. They got burned on their whole attempt to regulate cryptography, and managed to alienate everyone who believes in freedom of inquiry in the process. Maybe they've realized that they can't rely on secrecy anymore, because it doesn't work, and have decided they need to stay ahead technologically. And in order to do this, they need smart people, and in order to get these people, they have to be open and trusted by the public.
In the end, the only thing the NSA is about is National Security. They have a history of being sneaky and untrustworthy and classified, but if they finally realize that it doesn't help national security to be that way, then why wouldn't they change? In government agencies, old habits die hard, but the other thing that dies hard is government agencies. If they get pushed into a corner (which I think they have been by the availability of good public cryptography tools), then I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly did a policy 180. And I think that would be a good thing.
Feel free to disagree =)
seeing it on T.V., openly discussing it, and knowning it exists is the first step for the NSA to be accepted. Desensitize the public, put positive spin on it (we fight crime and terrorist.) then continue to secretly snoop. Mean while the public is not so critical of the NSA and there sneaky objectives. NSA lobbies for more money.....and gets it. It is all about raising awareness of our good friend the NSA.
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
Pal, you need to do some reading. The Chinese military took over Tibet, pretty routinely has attacked India and North Vietnam every few years over border disputes, and last but not least killed thousands of Americans in the Korean War. All of this is nothing compared to what the Chinese military did to its own people during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s - literally millions died in what was effectively a civil war where the Maoists consolidated their power. And remember who drove the tanks over the students in Tienneman Square?
As for the US, we do not specifically target civilians in any of the countries you mentioned although I agree civilians do unfortunately die in American attacks. Nevertheless, the US attacks have stopped the governments of those countries from wholescale slaughter of Kurds and Muslims. I am sorry that scattered civilians are killed by US bombs but that is peanuts compared to the mass graves of hundreds of minority civilians killed by the armies of those countries.
Yes, I do believe the US are the Good Guys. We conquered Japan and Germany and gave it back. We conquered a dozen little countries over the past fifty years - Honduras, Congo, Lebanon, Grenada -others - and gave them all back. We kept a Cold War from going hot and gave our beated opponents tens of billions in IMF aid that was squandered by corruption. We conquered a trillion dollar reservoir of oil and had a half million troops in a land totally unable to resist militarily, and we gave it all back. No other country in the world or all of history has conquered so much and walked away from the spoils the way America did in the 20th century. Only the Good Guys do that.
Now, is the US perfect? Worthy of unquestioned loyalty? Guarenteed to always be the Good Guys in the future just because they have been in the past? Hell, no. We have bad people that can make bad decisions at the drop of a hat. The citizens of the US must ALWAYS stay on their toes and strive to act responsibly. We will often fail. Nevertheless, if we become so cynical that we no longer recognize or acknowledge just how amazing America has been on the world stage, we do something worse than making mistakes of judgement - we will kill hope that ANYBODY is going to try to make the world better from the madness raging in the Congo and Zaire and Cambodia and Kosovo and Bosnia and Iraq and a dozen other flashpoints. That would be a tragedy of epic proportions. Resist it.
Back in high school I read a fiction book by Steven Coonts called the Minotaur. The book was about a high placed mole within the American government feeding information to the Soviets. The whole concept was to feed the Soviets "actual" information about our defense capabilities to get them to move and upgrade certain parts of their defense and essentially give up hope of trying to win.
I thought this was an interesting concept so I started to do a little researching. During the Cold War the Soviets employed a VAST array of missle and radar techonolgy throughout the country in order to combat the bomber threat of a US nuclear strike headed by B-1bs, B-2s, A-10s, and F-117a's and other airborne flight systems including going after AWACS aircraft guiding all these weapon systems.
In the end though the Soviets left the oceans open. This is where America truly deployed its nuclear defense arsenal as opposed to ground and air-based systems. The "boomers" Ohio-class and the nuclear-powered Los Angeles and enhanced LA "hunter-killers" versus an aging fleet of Soviet subs gave the US defacto reign underneath the water. Whereas the U.S. was able to track Soviet Typhoon (boomers) class subs, the Soviets could never track the Ohios with any consistency during the Cold War (if at all) due to its silent operation and sound dampening technologies.
So what do we learn. Sometimes you can divulge information that is factual to mask your true intentions. Using a truth to cover up another truth. The Soviets were scared enough of the B-1B with its ability to go supersonic and a big payload, also they much have known about the B-2 and F-117a's before the public did, why else would you invest that heavily in radar and missle technology. I won't say it all happened this way but it sure falls into place and makes a lot of sense.
Here's something for you to chew on boy genius. Let's say indeed someone launched 100 nuclear warheads at the US and we shot down 99 of them but one got through but through faulty upkeep didn't explode. I bet you would be pretty damn happy then wouldn't you. The world is a very ugly and dirty place. There are MANY people and countries who hate the United States for a number of different reasons. Why did Saddam Hussein not ever launch chemical warheads at Israel during the Gulf War? He knew if he did Israel would fire nukes right back at him.
Personally, I hope we never have to goto war. I don't feel its a good way to solve anything but extremists and irrational people don't responsd to logic and sometimes it takes a good-old-fashioned buttkicking to get it through there heads, ie Saddam Hussein. However there are a special breed of people who don't think about consequences of their actions and are willing to die for their cause. Do you believe a full reactionary nuclear strike from the United States is going to deter someone who has a deathwish and willing to die and take all the country's people with him/her? Of course not, because their willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. There lies the fault with MAD it assumes rationality and/or a wanting to live and hold onto power. Saddam was irrational but he was never stupid enough to believe that he wouldn't pay dearly from a nuclear strike. MAD makes sense when you have two superpowers trying to build their influence throughout the world, it doesnt against a dictator with a nuke having a really bad day and genuine hatred of the US so much as to die for it.
HT
"All war is based on deception" - Sun Tzu, China, about 5000 years ago. I believe that's the person you're supposed to credit for that timeless wisdom.
It has been reported many times that the budgets of the secret agencies of the U.S. government are hidden in appropriations for other items. You and I certainly have no way of knowing how much money is spent.
The NSA is an agency that is allowed to lie. The secret agencies of the U.S. government are allowed to put mis-information in U.S. newspapers. How can you determine when they are telling the truth? I don't think you can.
There are no laws that effectively govern secret agencies, because what they do is secret. No one can know whether they lived by the law.
The NSA spies on everyone, you, me, and everyone in the world. This is an issue for everyone, not just U.S. citizens. The NSA is an agency that respects no boundaries. The NSA is part of a worldwide secret police force. It is an example of the U.S. emphasis on being adversarial rather than cooperating.
The result has been extremely expensive and devastating. The U.S. helped Saddam Hussein become strong, then killed 150,000 Iraqis when he became too strong.
We often hear about secret activities of the U.S. government after it is too late to object. The U.S. supported the killing of president Mossadegh of Iran, and supported an extremely weak man, the Shah. (See Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings), for example.) This provoked a revolution in Iran that was hostile to the U.S. Citizens of the U.S. were kept hostage. The U.S. secret agencies' secret answer to the anti-U.S. sentiment was to support Saddam Hussein of Iraq against Iran.
When executives do things openly they make lots of mistakes, and are sometimes held accountable, usually in a very peaceful way, and often by their own staffs. When executives do things in secret, there is little accountability, and the mistakes can become huge.
Not only did the U.S. kill 150,000 Iraqis, the U.S. killed more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese during its war in Vietnam. As I said in an earlier post, the U.S. has invaded 13 countries in the last 30 years.
Invading countries and killing the residents and destroying their property is not a way of relating I consider socially skilled. Why do the citizens of one country think they can kill the citizens of another? If killing is the answer, can't the U.S. ask a better question?
The interference in the affairs of other countries by the secret U.S. agencies has prompted some people to retaliate. These people who retaliate are called "terrorists" in the U.S. The terrorists make everyone in the U.S. less safe. So, U.S. citizens have, in some ways, gotten less security for the money that they spent.
The violent attitude has spread to the internal police forces in the U.S. When some religious fanatics decided to do stupid things in Waco, Texas, the U.S. government responded by bringing in very violent-minded people. The result was death.
There were people who didn't like the activities of the U.S. police forces in Waco. There were people who were psychologically de-centered by these activities. One of them bombed a U.S. government building in Oklahoma. So then the U.S. government killed him.
Secrecy encourages people not to trust. Violence encourages violence.
Secrecy in government does not work. It should be minimized or eliminated. The main issue here is not whether the NSA sometimes does terrible things, or whether one country should maintain secret police forces (the NSA and CIA and others) in all the other countries. The issue is that we have no way of knowing what secret agencies do. When what they do is wrong, they don't even need to hide their mistakes, because everything is already secret.
There in no intent in this to claim that people in the U.S. are better or worse than people anywhere. The main point is only that huge amounts of money combined with secrecy result in huge mistakes.
Bush's education improvements were