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Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be Abolished

Posted by timothy on from the well-if-you'd-like-my-opinion-gentleman dept.

First time accepted submitter MetalliQaZ writes "Last week, Dr. Joseph Bonneau learned that he had won the NSA's first annual "Science of Security (SoS) Competition." The competition, which aims to honor the best 'scientific papers about national security' as a way to strengthen NSA collaboration with researchers in academia, honored Bonneau for his paper on the nature of passwords. And how did Bonneau respond to being honored by the NSA? By expressing, in an honest and bittersweet blog post, his revulsion at what the NSA has become: 'Simply put, I don't think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form.'"

4 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Google is part of the NSA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    So he wants Google to be abolished.

  2. Shortsighted techie ... by golodh · · Score: 0, Troll
    There we go again.

    A techie who never had any responsibility for whatever part of national security (and never will have) feels 'Simply put, I don't think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form.'

    A very "American" sentiment, approximately equivalent to the "thinking" that led to the US marked inferiority in decryption and signals intelligence in the 1930's which in turn allowed Pear Harbour to happen.

    Yes, there are good reasons to reign in the NSA when it comes to reading every email sent within, to, from, or through the US. Even though all electronic communications must be "tappable" unless you want to provide absolutely everyone with a safe channel for communication about their criminal, terrorist, or otherwise hostile business.

    But those reasons don't abolish the need to have a functional NSA (and not some crippled shadow of it).

    There is a difficulty of course: cripple the NSA, and you give free and secure communication to all sorts of undesirables. Allow the NSA unchecked, and make people transparent to the Government, (and worse expose them to typically stupid Government dragnet trawling). I'm not sure myself which way we ought to go, but I'm pretty sure that abolishing the NSA isn't one of the sane ones.

  3. Re:Profiling fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    "WTF are they collecting this data for?"

    To identify conservatives for "random" IRS audits.

  4. Re:He's 1 hell of a guy imo... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Linus speaks the way he does because he is a bully and thinks his shit doesn't stink. This guy is miles above Linus.