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NSA Releases Secret Pre-History of Computers

Posted by samzenpus on from the please-forget-about-that-other-stuff dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The National Security Agency has declassified an eye-opening pre-history of computers used for code-breaking between the 1930s and 1960s. The 344 page report, entitled It Wasn't All Magic: The Early Struggle to Automate Cryptanalysis (pdf), it is available on the Government Attic web site. Government Attic has also just posted a somewhat less declassified NSA compendium from 1993: A Collection of Writings on Traffic Analysis. (pdf)"

7 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Pay no attention by Tokolosh · · Score: 5, Funny

    to the man in the Russian airport.

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    1. Re:Pay no attention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      What man? The media is now reporting that Snowden never made it to Moscow. In fact, they are now reporting that there is no record of a US citizen with that name, anymore. It was all a big misunderstanding. It was just an intelligence training exercise.

    2. Re:Pay no attention by ibwolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pay no attention to the man in the Russian airport.

      No, they want you to pay attention to him, to this, to ANYTHING except for what they (the US government and the NSA in particular) are actually doing with regards to you personal liberties. That is what they are trying to distract you from thinking about.

  2. First pwned! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Am I crazy for opening a PDF from the NSA?

  3. PDFS by stewsters · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey you guys who are talking about Snowden, download this PDF with some cool additional code! Don't worry about it. I promise we didn't buy exploits from Adobe or Microsoft!

  4. wrong topic by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear NSA, I think you're confused. The current topic of discussion is your ongoing violation of the 4th Amendment of the U.S. constitution.

    Compared to that, I truly doing give a fuck about your history of codebreaking.

  5. Oh, isn't this convenient... by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Squirrel!