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NSA Publication Indices Declassified
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."
To find out what the article is on about, you must file a Form 9923479821789123 (Freedom of information request) to the Government and wait upto 3 years for delivery of said document.
Please note however that the document will be placed on public display in the basement of the town hall at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
liqbase
Freedom isn't free. It costs folks like you and me. C'mon man, pitch in your buck-oh-five.
2^4 * 3 * 20929
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.
- "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"
* Build a waterboarding setup using common household items!
* Exclusive interview with ECHELON! The Journal: Boxers or Briefs? ECHELON: Beep...beep...
* The top ten things not even the President knows!
* Keith Alexander's Beauty Tips!
* More inside!
Some titles are obviously encrypted, such as:
"Extraterrestrial Intelligence",
"Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages"
which, when decyphered are:
"IT lie alters electing Rex* in Terrae#",
"Relax, see eager tits stroke thy master"
* Rex = latin for King
# Terrae = latin for Earth
One is obviously describing the manipulation of the electoral process and the other describes the appropriate response.
Your analysis makes the mistake of assuming that there's only one enemy (or "potential opponent", if you prefer that term). You also underestimate the value of doubt.
Even if nations A, B, and C know your secret, there's still D thru Z that don't unless you publish it. Furthermore, A, B and C may not know for sure that they know your secret until you confirm it by publishing. Confirming it tells them not only your secret, but it also tells them that the channel by which they obtained it originally is reliable. At least, assuming you're not just publishing the phony secret that you already know they've obtained, in order to "confirm" a tainted channel.
-- Alastair