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NSA Publication Indices Declassified

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the waiting-game dept.

Schneier is reporting that a 3 year old freedom of information act request has finally come to fruition showing us indices from the NSA Technical Journal, Cryptographic Quarterly, Crytologic Spectrum, and Cryptologic Almanac. From the article: "The request took more than three years for them to process and declassify -- sadly, not atypical -- and during the process they asked if he would accept the indexes in lieu of the tables of contents pages: specifically, the cumulative indices that included all the previous material in the earlier indices. He agreed, and got them last month. Consider these bibliographic tools as stepping stones. If you want an article, send a FOIA request for it. Send a FOIA request for a dozen. There's a lot of stuff here that would help elucidate the early history of the agency and some interesting cryptographic topics."

8 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Ancient Documents *Should* Be Declassified by dshaw858 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's kind of disgusting that it takes so long for documents to be declassified and released to the public, but I understand that there is always the imminent threat to national security and these things can't be rushed. I understand why many of these documents simply *cannot* be released to the public, but this indexing is truly whetting me appetite for what I cannot have! I would love to read almost any of the articuals in the NSA Technical Journal, and some articles such as 'BS: Dealing with Beaurocracies' sound quite entertaining. Come on, can you really say that What Every Cryptologist Should Know About Pearl Harbor doesn't make you want to storm the NSA headquarters and grab a few copies?

    Sigh, such is life... still, this declassification is the first step to a full release of these documents.

    - dshaw

    1. Re:Ancient Documents *Should* Be Declassified by jd · · Score: 1, Interesting
      I would argue that any Government entity that assumes that because they have not published something it is still a secret from any enemy that matters is so naive as to be a threat to national security on a far greater scale than any release they could possibly do. (Since you can only know for sure what such an enemy has published, you cannot - by definition - know everything they have acquired from you and have not published. Whatever intelligence you gather by any other means is guaranteed to be partial and is necessarily whatever said enemy was sufficiently unconcerned with you knowing that they didn't take better care of it.)

      For this reason, "national security" has no validity as a reason to withhold information, as it is impossible to know what measure of security you are achieving for the nation by withholding it. This doesn't mean they should publish everything, and there are plenty of times when it would be far more hazardous for the public to know something than any perceived or real enemy. After all, there are far more corporations investing in Congressmen than foreign Governments.

      There are some things that are secret out of habit and for no legitimate reason at all. Ciphers and hashing functions, for example. Those secure information in transit, but it's insane to assume the plaintext is secure at either end - the US caught an Israeli spy in the highest echelons of the DoD, and they're an ally! (And, from what was published, it sounds like the guy got careless, and that was the only reason for being found out.) You've then got to consider that each and every cryptoanalyst on your side that is testing for vulnerabilities could either deliberately or accidently expose any such weakness, or that the if an enemy obtained the algorithm, they could figure it out and not tell you they'd done so. (You think they would?!)

      For these reasons, keeping algorithms secret really doesn't buy you a whole lot. Again, it prevents Joe Public from using those same codes to keep commercial information private, but the NSA really should stop spending so much time on Airbus. There are genuinely important things to be watching, guys! If the NSA and DoD published all of their cryptographic functions tomorrow, the risks of any serious damage being done that wouldn't have happened anyway would be minimal, and the added attention may even serve to boost the security of such algorithms. That does happen. Rarely, bit it does happen. Even the RSA has released bugfixes and dropped methods, and they're far from stupid.

      I can see some of the apparently "nonsense" papers being more of a concern. ET messages are unlikely as a reality, but as a scenario designed to study information extraction from an undecrypted message in an unknown language - damn, that's potentially hot. If the NSA can extract meaningful amounts of information from something that cannot be decrypted or interpretted directly, or even has a working group studying methods of doing so, then that is something that the NSA probably wouldn't want to publish. In a case like that, then Joe Public is most definitely a major threat, as there are far more paranoids than there are Governments, and even protecting the slimmest chance of such a method from leaking to even the friendliest of nations would definitely have some major advantages.

      Historical texts, such as Pearl Harbour intelligence failures/successes, disinformation in the Vietnam era, the menu at the caffeteria during the NSA's opening ceremony, etc, are probably someting that barely need glancing at before releasing. If there's any substantial lesson unlearned after 50 years, nobody is going to suddenly learn it tomorrow, and the odds are high that most organizations being monitored learned it by rote the day after whatever the disaster was. And, again, if they didn't, they're too stupid to learn it now, so screw 'em.

      Of course, none of my conjectures or speculations here are worth a damn. We know the NSA reads Slashdot, 'cos their m

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. A damn good start. by glittalogik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A huge part of the effectiveness of FOIA legislation is in knowing what there actually is to ask for in the first place. I can just imagine the flood of new requests they're going to be receiving over the next couple of weeks.

  3. a real WTF moment... by VoidEngineer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    - "The Arithmetic of a Generation Principle for an Electronic Key Generator"
    - "CATNIP: Computer Analysis - Target Networks Intercept Probability"
    - "Chatter Patterns: A Last Resort"
    - "COMINT Satellites - A Space Problem"
    - "Computers and Advanced Weapons Systems"
    - "Coupon Collecting and Cryptology"
    - "Cranks, Nuts, and Screwballs"
    - "A Cryptologic Fairy Tale"
    - "Don't Be Too Smart"
    - "Earliest Applications of the Computer at NSA"
    - "Emergency Destruction of Documents"
    - "Extraterrestrial Intelligence"
    - "The Fallacy of the One-Time-Pad Excuse"
    - "GEE WHIZZER"
    - "The Gweeks Had a Gwoup for It"
    - "How to Visualize a Matrix"
    - "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages"
    - "A Mechanical Treatment of Fibonacci Sequences"
    - "Q.E.D.- 2 Hours, 41 Minutes"
    - "SlGINT Implications of Military Oceanography"
    - "Some Problems and Techniques in Bookbreaking"
    - "Upgrading Selected US Codes and Ciphers with a Cover and Deception Capability"
    - "Weather: Its Role in Communications Intelligence"
    - "Worldwide Language Problems at NSA"

    1. Re:a real WTF moment... by chill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages"

      Say what?!

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    2. Re:a real WTF moment... by uufnord · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, it's not.

      Here's a link to Crank, Nuts, and Screwballs:
      https://www.cia.gov/csi/kent_csi/docs/v09i3a09p_00 01.htm

      "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages" hasn't been declassified. However, in a different paper, "The Intelligence Revolution and the Future", the CIA has this to say:

      "Should project SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) ever receive a signal from outer space, there will be yet another role for intelligence services, not in arming the lasers, but in trying to decode the messages."

      You can see this link for that quote: https://www.cia.gov/csi/kent_csi/docs/v37i4a04p_00 06.htm

      It looks like they got the messages, AND THEY FOUND THE KEY TO DECODE THEM!

      [cue 50's theremin music]
      WooOOoooOOOooo-ooooOooooooOOOoooo..

  4. Subscription? by xanthines-R-yummy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not TS cleared but just for argument's sake, how does one about getting a subscription to a classified journal? Do they mail it to you? Is it in one of the black pastic bags like my "gentleman's" magazine? Is it an electronic system? Internet? Are the little cards that fall out classified too? Etc etc.

  5. Re:or take the easier route by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or you could just join the agency and get access to the full articles. I'm sure they would love to have access to some of the brightest new minds out there.

    I considered it, not too long after 9/11. But I couldn't shake the concern that what talents I have would be employed against my own countrymen, leveraged in unproductive and possibly unconstitutional ways.

    As it turned out, my concern was valid. But I still don't know if I really did the right thing by walking away.