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Trustworthy Software For The NSA?

Posted by simoniker on from the secrets-lurking-behind-installer dept.

Janus Daniels writes "There's a new story from the New York Times, as reprinted at CNET News, about security concerns for Government agencies buying software from overseas. According to the article, a whistle-blower who helped sell software to the National Security Agency says that much of the development work is subcontracted to China, raising serious national security risks. He also discovered in the sales-support database... the names of more than 30 [identity-classified] employees of the United States National Security Agency...'"

2 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. NSA, CIA, HSA... by Hentai · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Okay, I've wondered this for a long time, and it's tangentially on-topic:

    Given that secretive government organizations invariably lead to unchecked abuses, and given that the global environment does not allow for a country to operate entirely in the open, how do we, as citizens, ensure that organizations like the NSA are helping us more than they hurt us? Hell, how are we to even know how MUCH they hurt us, if we - as citizens - are not allowed to know what they are doing? But if we ARE allowed to know what they're doing, and are allowed to travel abroad and associate with whomever we please (it's a free country, after all), how do these organizations ensure the safety of their personell and the effectiveness of their missions?

    Do we even NEED the NSA? Does it do more for us than it does to us? And how could we ever possibly find out for sure?

    --
    -Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
  2. war with china by MSenhanced · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    [sarcasm]
    cool.. we're finally going to go to war with china
    [/sarcasm]

    --
    I write sig's like I know what I'm talking about.