Talk:National Security Agency/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 → Archive 5

dubious claim about electricity usage

Surely the claim here about NSA HQ drawing 4x the power of an Earth simulator is bogus? I cannot believe that an entire building (including coffee makers, microwaves, lots of PCs, lighting, heating, pumps, etc etc) draws only 4x this amount. Just doesn't pass the mental back of the envelope plausibility test/ There's something odd about this sentence if it's not merely OTL. Can anyone make sense of this? If not, I think it should be rubbed out. Call Edward G Robinson! ww 15:38, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

The amount of electricity is derived from NSA themselves: http://www.nsa.gov/about/about00018.cfm#18

The only online reference to a comparison with Earth Simulators appears to be: http://tim.movementarian.com/archives/000115.html — Matt 08:28, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Matt, I'm still dubious. BGE is said (by NSA site noted above) to sell $21 x 10^6 of electricity to NSA/year. Earth Simlulator is said (in a PR leaflet on their Web site) to use 6MW of electricity, meaning 24 MW for four of them. At an assumed $.10/kwh, $21 million is 21 x 10^5 MW if I haven't dropped some decimals. This is just a tad larger than 24MW for 4 of those Earth Simulators. Anyway it's not quite what was implied as the, as nearly as I can figure from the leaflet, the 6MW figure includes the entire building, the 5120 NEC vector processors, and all the AC and lighting too. So it's not just the Earth Simulator, it's a lot of auxillary stuff too. On the other hand, NSA's bill is for the entire facility including the fab plant and the incinerators for secret stuff and the cafeteria(s) and so on for several 10's of thousands of folks. Sure sounded impressive didn't it?
I'm removing the comparison forthwith. ww 18:53, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Good idea, it seems to not be a verifiable fact. — Matt 22:26, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Not to mention an irrelevant comparison... Adraeus 00:53, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Is it possible that power generation is done on site? (Solar/Garbage disposal (see White elephant) As such, Adraeus is on point, a irreleavent comparison etc. --ORBIT 00:13, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Be more specific

  • "Many people oppose NSA's"
  • "It has been suggested that in practice, NSA/CSS implements an end run"
  • "In the past, there have been alleged instances of improper violations"
  • etc.

Read Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms. Thanks. --Eleassar my talk 13:42, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Famous people (non cryppies)

Not sure where to put that stuff... but people may be interested. RevRagnarok 00:40, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Previous Directors

I just reverted a change on Hayden, who is now a General but when heading it up was a Lt. Gen. Should we have the position that the director help in the position, or the position upon that person's retirement/death? Seems to be a pain if you were to go make changes to all entries every time somebody gets promoted... RevRagnarok 23:11, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The given rank should be what he was at the time of his directorship. If there is an article about the guy then that should explain that he was promoted after completing his directorship. --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 23:31, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, then User:Caligatio needs to stop changing it back to General. RevRagnarok 23:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

My Page Reversion POV

User posted very slanted Point of View- not appropriate for Wikipedia--Adam (talk) 00:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV revert

Reverted the following, contacted author:

And what the mainstream media, and the Democratic Party would not like you to know, is that the President is authorized to order such activities, see Executive Order#12333, Signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981...see it here https://www.cia.gov/cia/information/eo12333.html, and that this whole contraversy is just another attempt to smear the Bush administration!
Also this very same Executive Order was used by President Bill Clinton, and vetted by his the Deputy Attorney General, Jamie Gorelick...here is her testimony,
"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."
"It is important to understand," , "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick
Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee
July 14, 1994
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp

--KJK::Hyperion 02:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

It it just me, or is this just bizarro world? Even with the rewrite, the article implies the Office of the President has the authority to do something because it gave itself that authority via an executive order. It could be argued that the President has this authority via the Constitution, but not by granting that authority to himself. --User:Belltower 03:30 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed Text

I removed the text of Executive Order 12333. There's already a link in the main section (when it should likely be a reference). If it's something you really want around, start a new article and move it there. Especially since the person who added it never bothered to preview or wikify it, it looked horrible. -- RevRagnarok 23:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


I question wether the "phone taps" section should be included at all. There is a lot of information on it because it has happened since the creation of this site, however the agency has been involved in several controversies throughout its history none of which have their own section. If it is to be mentioned at all, the "phone taps" issue ought to be included under a "Controversies" section in which other issues such as the Iran-Contra affair are discussed. -Bunbury

I removed "they are also going to help us legalize marijuana for the common good." from the ROLE section for pretty obvious reasons. -GeorgeFromNY

Sen. Leahy

Senator Leahy refused to comment when asked why the same foreign wiretapping measures were praised by democrats during
the Clinton administration in the previous decade.

Actually, Leahy disputed that the measures were the same. "Foreign Intelligence" was not interpreted by the Clinton administration to apply to every American citizen calling overseas, absent a warrant. Skyraider 00:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

There's some additional information here. Skyraider 01:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Chantilly, Virginia

I live near Chantilly Virginia, where there is a large black building in the Westfield Business park. It is commonly understood to be a NSA building, but little more is known beyond that. I mistakenly belived it was the headquarters for the NSA. Anyone know anything about this? If so, can it be added as it is a NSA building, but is not mentioned in the article.

Zidel333 03:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

NSA has increased from 16,000 to 58,000 some odd employees worldwide since 2000. I don't think they all fit in one building. NMAP 4 just arrived from Fydor so have fun. Ask them at the Directors Service Program Department of Defense National Security Agency 9800 Savage Road Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6515 Attn: R1 (DSP), Suite 6515.

[https://www.vmware.com/company/federal.html GTSI Chantilly, Va. (703) 502-2000 gtsi.com]... agreement for a joint initiative with the US National Security Agency (NSA) to enhance and certify the security of VMware's virtual machine technology...My recollection is that 15,000 Chantilly Drive used to be Contel Federal Systems which put in all the fiber optic backbones, cell phone repeaters and satellites,but I think they were obsoleted by GTE back around ninety and seven and its now hyperdigm.

whois.nic.ddn.mil (192.112.36.5)whois.internic.net (198.41.0.5)Government Systems Inc. Attn: Network Information Center 14200 Park Meadow Dr.Suite 200 Chantilly, VA 2200,

As we head toward the year 2000, http://www.controlconceptsinc.com/profile.htm Control Concepts] has formed strong alliances with many leading manufacturers. These companies include American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), RDI Computer Corp., Seagate and Western Digital (through DSS) and others that have led to our successful implementation of a General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule. Initiated in the 1994/1995 Fiscal year, this GSA Schedule has provided a very successful vehicle to sell to the government on all levels. The GSA Schedule has also led to a major win in November of 1996 with the Naval Information Systems Management Center (NISMC). Sea level 01:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Etc

Would anyone care to comment on how recent revelations ....<snip>Sea level 14:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
No. As you've been told repeatedly, this is not an NSA discussion board. Please don't post off-topic here, otherwise I might have to start being more threatening, and I don't like doing that. By all means, give us feedback and suggestions on how we can improve this article, but please avoid off-topic comments on the NSA itself. — Matt Crypto 14:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I hope I won't be blocked for this! But can Matt explain why writing...
"Keeping these things in mind, I would like to see some discussion in the article as to what sort of internal checks and balances exist to keep any rogue elements in check and whether that is possible, or desirable. The main question is just whether there is a way to address these concerns in the article?"Sea level 14:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
... is off-topic? To me, it seems like the basis of constitutional law, doesn't it? Tazmaniacs 23:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, that paragraph is quite reasonable and on-topic, and we certainly can discuss how to improve the article's treatment of this matter. My comments should be taken in the context of the history of Sea level's posts to this page, nearly all of which were off-topic. Eventually he started re-adding them with "is there a way to discuss this in an article" at the end, presumably hoping to keep his comments on-topic by a technicality, but by that point it was clear he wasn't really interested in improving the article, but just having a forum to air his views (and clutter up this page in the process). — Matt Crypto 23:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry Matt, but this article needs to start getting more encyclopedic. It should be dealing with the facts of what the NSA is, what it does, who it does it to, who it does it for and what the extent of its operations are. There are ongoing Congressional investigations and law suits, public policy statements, and disclosures almost every day so its properly considered a current event.

Please explain why its your opinion any of that should be considered off topic, it certainly wouldn't be Wikipedia policy for anything as contraversial as the NSA to be discussed on the discussion page. Sea level 15:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

If you don't comprehend why extended discussion about the NSA is off-topic on this talk page (as opposed to extended discussion about the encyclopedia article on the NSA) then I can not, and will not, waste my time explaining it to you any further. To put it baldly, if you persist in disrupting this talk page, then I will block you. (You are apparently a sockpuppet of User:Federal Street and User:rktect, to boot.) — Matt Crypto 15:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As to the NSA's first appearance in fiction surely Sneakers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/ predates the example given here.

"believed to be"?

why is the NSA "believed to be" the largest intellegence agency? dposse 02:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I presume someone would write that when it's one of those facts that has never been officially confirmed (e.g. by release of employee numbers or budget), but is widely understood to be true. — Matt Crypto 08:52, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok. thanks. dposse 01:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

san antonio nsa activities

It's interesting to note that no mention is made of NSA's extensive activities at Lackland AFB here in San Antonio (vis: Air Intelligence Agency; AKA: AIA). There was also a recent purchase of a fair amount of real estate in the area intended to house approx 1200 NSA employees initially with room for up to 3000 in total. Anyone interested can verify this with articles published in the San Antonio Express News (the local daily).

Cheers...—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.243.56.169 (talk • contribs) 04:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Industrial espionage

I think it should be mentioned in this article that the NSA has stolen technological knowledge from the german wind turbine manufacturer Enercon, which was used for a fake patent that later kept Enercon from selling its products in the US. -- Imladros

Source? -Harmil 15:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
see [1] (german article in Die Zeit), [2] as well as [3] for many other cases. -- Imladros

Call Connected Thru the NSA

Recently the rock band They Might Be Giants have created a ringtone for download called "Call Connected Thru the NSA" the lyrics consist of " Call connected thru the NSA, complete transmission thru the NSA, suspending your right for the duration of the permanent war." hope you guys can add it in here.

Grossly Exaggerated Claim With No Evidence

"Evidence strongly suggests[citation needed] that in practice, NSA/CSS implements an end run around legal restrictions on internal surveillance by having partner agencies in other countries spy on US citizens while the NSA returns the favor for these agencies, thereby avoiding illegal spying on their own citizens." This information is entirely wrong. There is a specific law that prvents EXACTLY this sort of behavoir. This section should be removed from the Wikipedia article. I came across a legal document on the Internet about this, a while back. Might have been on a site like www.abovetopsecret.com forums. We should figure this out and fix this so we are not misleading people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.221.24.23 (talk • contribs) 05:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've removed it from the article. At the very least, then, we would need to cite a source for this to remain in the article. — Matt Crypto 22:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
While Matt's reaction to 80.221.24.23's comment is certainly correct, as far as I know (though I have indeed come across this allegation), there is a nubbin of truth here. NSA has been confined to non-US intelligence from its establishment, but it has not always obeyed this stricture. In particular, the Church Committee brought to public knowledge that NSA had also been tapping targeted communications entirely within US communications for some time. Apparently in concert with assorted other outrageous acts (eg, by FBI, DoD branches, CIA, etc) over the preceeding two decades+ in continuation of the Cold War struggle, or with what could be construed to be such. I myself think the Houston Plan of Watergate fame was of a piece in this pattern, but I'm aware of no actual evidence for connections (eg, did Houston know about anything being done by the Agencies, outside frankly political bounds of the White House?). The revelations about NSA were a major scandal at the time, though only one among a great many and so less remembered than some, and is claimed to have resulted in a new committment by NSA to hew strictly to the terms of its charter. Since 9/11/01, it would appear that the old days have returned, though perhaps this time with a (secret) revision of its charter, again in service to the greater good of the war being waged. So perhaps something might be said on the Church committee and what it found under the secrecy rocks?
I have even heard testimony (or perhaps broadcast talking-head discussion) from NSA types explaining that the wholesale wiretapping isn't "a danger to privacy because a trained NSA suprevisor must approve anything beyond the mere automatic eavesdropping by pattern search algorithms". This may be evidence only of a terminally paranoid mind, but I am unable to stop myself from asking: how and where did so many NSA supervisors get such privacy protection training, and how many of them are there? But this is merely my own concern, as far as I know. Unless someone actually knows something? ww 20:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

ECHELON and Domestic activities

What reason in ECHELON listed under domestic activities? Its my understanding that ECHELON is exclusively foreign. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 15:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, ECHELON section moved out of Domestic activities to it's own section. Sleigh 12:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

location

what state is the NSA in where's the nearest city?

The article says, "Headquarters for the National Security Agency is at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, approximately ten miles (16 km) northeast of Washington, D.C." — Matt Crypto 20:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ft. Meade is adjacent to Bowie and Laurel, Maryland, and not far from Columbia. — DAGwyn 02:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Oops, I meant Jessup, not Bowie (which is also very near). — DAGwyn 01:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

In fiction

I'm afraid that with this article, we're looking increasingly like the encyclopedia that Slashdot built: specifically, the ballooning size of the "in fiction" section. I suggest we split out this information into a separate article like NSA in fiction, and in this article we write a paragraph or two on "popular understandings of the agency" which would include mentions (but not lists) of how the agency is treated in fiction. — Matt Crypto 08:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I would add references to Enemy of the State, and to Sneakers, for getting way out ahead of the game and actually bringing some of the more intense parts of cryptography into the public consciousness. That said, I'd reject with prejudice any movie that plugs the NSA in as their evil villain of the month -- the two movies I cited are more topical as far as the political concerns that pervasive eavesdropping suggests. Even if have to keep our articles neutral, we can definitely cite those films. ;) --GodelMetric 08:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I note that you have repeatedly deleted reference to official State Department intelligence policy, and wonder if you could explain why you consider this a fiction?Federal Street 12:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Erm, what are you talking about? — Matt Crypto 12:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Your edits of 1-3 Feb, 2006Sea level 14:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
As to the general suggestion, please do so. It's one of my pet peeves with Wikipedia's articles on military and intelligence related topics. --Robert Merkel
I see you've got to it before me, thanks! — Matt Crypto 17:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Missions

NSA has two distinct missions. One is Information Assurance and the other is SIGINT. I can't find anything on IA on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.3.211 (talk • contribs)

See STU-I, STU-II, STU-III, and NSA encryption systems along with others in Category:NSA encryption devices. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 01:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the IP. The SIGINT mission gets too slight stress in article. Maybe subsections should be created instead of listing main articles only. @pple 15:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

History

"For a long time its existence was not even acknowledged by the U.S. government." When did the government first publicly admit that the NSA exists? Jimpartame 03:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that they have -- my impression is that it's merely an open secret at this point. this article explains that the NSA wasn't actually a statutory beast -- elsewhere in the article I recall discussion about Truman's 1952 memorandum (not Congressional Act!) establishing the NSA. But check out this weirdness:

Less well known than the Church Committee was its House counterpart, the Pike Committee. Chaired by Otis Pike (D-NY), it also operated from 1975 to 1976, and likewise focused on the NSA. When Pike demanded a copy of the 'charter' establishing NSA, he was rebuffed, as the so-called charter was actually Truman's secret memorandum. Although the committee subpoenaed the directive, the NSA, with help from the Justice Department and the Pentagon, successfully blocked them from seeing it. Aside from a very small portion (revealed only for the purpose of showing that NSA was exempt from certain legal restrictions on the use of communications intelligence), the NSA 'charter' remains one of the most deeply buried secrets of the federal government.

James Bamford also suggested in a talk that prior to The Puzzle Palace (1983) there really wasn't any public awareness of the NSA at all -- the book was the catalyst for that. He claims he went on a talk show with Sen. Bill Bradley, and mocked Bradley because the Senator didn't know about it... Regardless, everything I can find seems to indicate that there was never a "moment of disclosure."--GodelMetric 07:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" contained a substantial amount of coverage of the NSA in general terms; it was a best seller (and Book of the Month club primary selection), so clearly it contributed to "public awareness" of the NSA, well before Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace". As to government "disclosure", there definitely have been changes along those lines; at one time the NSA was not shown in the US Govt. Organization Manual, and NSA employees were told to say that they worked for "the DoD". In recent times, road signs have appeared, maps now show the Agency HQ, many EO secrecy orders have been rescinded, etc., etc. So the "hide its very existence" policy has definitely been aupplanted. There is now even an NSA Web site. I no longer recall whether there was one single "coming out" event. — DAGwyn 17:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Include SE-Linux ?

The NSA does have a secondary mission, which is to secure the american government computer systems. This is not mentioned in the article. To accomplish that mission, research is performed. One interesting research project was the implementation of Mandatory Access Controls in the Linux kernel. This research project was done to show that such a thing is possible, but also possible for internal use by the NSA, since linux is free and they own lots of computers. I recommend this project be mentioned. You can read about it at [ http://www.nsa.gov/selinux ]. Also, does the article mention that the NSA improved the security of the DES encryption algorithm? Or that it invented the SHA and SHA-1 hash? I'm not sure because I didn't read it all.

Aaaand I recommend not mentioning this project suggested by the anonymous user in order to avoid polluting the page with even more useless fluff. If this article included every toy that the NSA had ever implemented, it would run for miles. That trivia belongs on the algorithms' specific pages, and perhaps the general page on encryption algos, both with links back to this article, which is about the NSA, not "stuff the NSA made." That is far too much of a niche topic to justify a mention -- perhaps under a broader paragraph tying together NSA work and cryptography in general? Even then I'd be reluctant. And: "Also, does the article mention ... I'm not sure because I didn't read it all." ...noted without further comment.
All in favor of deleting this graf and freeing up some space at the top of our page?--GodelMetric 07:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
The proper procedure for a Talk page is to archive the "long stable" inactive discussion at the time of the "deletion". Having just added to this topic, however, you must leave it in place for a while so other interested parties get a chance to see the addition. — DAGwyn 17:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
It's an anonymous comment that's been here for at least 6 months. (Could be longer -- I didn't look back further than that.) What qualifies as "a while"? --GodelMetric 23:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Specific Instances/Eras of Involvement

The CIA article includes brief summaries for different eras and specific instances of Agency involvement, and I think something similar should be included on this article. Too much of the article's focus is currently focused on domestic activity when that is not the Agency's primary role (or even technically its role at all). A good reference for pre-NSA intelligence (relevant, as it was performed by the AFSA and other precursors to the NSA) can be found here. At this point, I'm not sure yet where good summaries/lists of major NSA involvement in the last 40 years can be found. --Rodzilla 03:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Almost all of them are still classified, for a variety of reasons including political sensitivity and not wanting to disclose sources and methods lest they "dry up." — DAGwyn 07:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the specifics about a lot of them are, but there's a good number that at the very least, the existence of isn't classified. For example, the USS Liberty incident, the USS Pueblo incident, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc...I doubt Body of Secrets would have made it to 600 pages if everything NSA has done in the last 30 years was still classified. --Rodzilla 07:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I was referring to a large number of intelligence successes that have not been disclosed to the public. — DAGwyn 07:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
RodZilla is answering you. Body of Secrets has detailed rundowns of major NSA involvement in a number of important international incidents throughout the Cold War. They're obviously not classified.--GodelMetric 07:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
No he wasn't. The numerous intelligence successes are rarely reported publicly (almost never). What "Body of Secrets" was able to report was pretty much limited to politically visible problems that had attracted public (news media) attention. It should be obvious that this presents a badly distorted view of the Agency's actual activities. — DAGwyn 17:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I tend to disagree -- e.g., my recollection is that Bamford's chapter on the U.S.S. Liberty, for example, was something of a revelation at the time. Regardless, RodZilla is correct -- the book is a pretty good rundown of the NSA's involvement in a number of important events since its creation. The original question was where there were lists of NSA involvement in various events, and while Bamford's list obviously can't be comprehensive, it's clearly informative. I'm not sure why we'd want a comprehensive list anyway, even if it were available, which, as you point out, it's not. -- GodelMetric 23:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a good list of various documents here as well. --Rodzilla 03:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't there a rather heavy-handed attempt by the NSA to suppress dissemination of the RSA algorithm in 1977? I remember following the controversy quite closely at the time, in Scientific American. Does that belong in the article? DavidCBryant 12:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Commanders

Why the head of the NSA is military generals ? its not part of the DoD --Jonybond 20:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

NSA/CSS is a component of the DoD. — DAGwyn 17:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

does not redirect

according to the article

"NSA" redirects here. For other uses, see NSA (disambiguation).

but it does not. check it if you don't believe me.

--Kushalt 01:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Page history shows that "NSA" redirected to this article until 24 October, 2007; "nsa" and "Nsa" still do. Given the quantity of other (wikilinked) uses of the acronym on the disambiguation page, I question its redirection to this article by default, and will add a different notice instead. —Adavidb 05:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
After finding that a far greater number of articles currently link to this article via "NSA", I've reconsidered and will restore the former redirection. —Adavidb 05:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction

The section Involvement with non-government cryptography appears to contradict articles Data Encryption Standard and differential cryptanalysis; both of these articles claim that the NSA did NOT design the S-boxes for DES, but IBM was already aware of the differential cryptanalysis.

So which is it? I remember that the DES article also used to say that NSA fixed DES's S-boxes. Were the S-boxes in DES changed in the first place, by IBM or NSA? -- intgr [talk] 18:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the section in Data Encryption Standard covers the claims and counter claims.. While some have speculated (and Alan Konheim has claimed) that the NSA (re)wrote the DES S-boxes, there are others who deny it. I've edited the section to hopefully avoid making an assertion in one direction or the other. — Matt Crypto 19:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, details of NSA involvement in DES development remain classified (at least they were when I last checked a few years ago). I will say that NSA employees did not "design the S-boxes", but they did have some influence over their design. Also that the publicly known "differential cryptanalysis" methodology is but one form of a class of similar methods of attack, and that it is therefore misleading to apply the current usage of the term to the historical situation. I restored the original text, with a clarification, because it is needed to counter the accusation. — DAGwyn 21:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I've tweaked it a bit further, simply because the extent of NSA's influence in the design of the S-boxes is not known, or even if there was any influence, because Tuchman has stated, "We developed the DES algorithm entirely within IBM using IBMers. The NSA did not dictate a single wire!" — Matt Crypto 21:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
But what you seem to infer from Tuchman's statement has been contradicted by other IBM DES developers. For example, the Data Encryption Standard article quotes Konheim as saying, "We sent the S-boxes off to Washington. They came back and were all different." Also, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence review reported that "NSA ... indirectly assisted in the development of the S-box structures". Keep in mind that (a) the right hand doesn't always know everything that the left hand is doing; (b) even though IBM staff did the work, they were influenced by NSA advice; and (c) often, public statements are misleadingly worded. The speaker can easily believe that there is a difference between "changing the design of the algorithm" and "suggesting changes to the S-box tables to work more effectively within the given design"; also between "dictate" and "suggest". You have to consider that to reconcile Tuchman's comments with the other sources. I'll look at your tweaks and if necessary further adjust them. — DAGwyn 22:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying that I believe the NSA had no involvement with the S-boxes (to me, it seems they must have had at least some role, and I don't disagree with your reconciliation of Tuchman's comments). It's just that I feel the sources are not clear enough for us to come down definitively one way or the other on Wikipedia. I think the current version is a reasonable take on it, as at DES. — Matt Crypto 19:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Style:"NSA" vs "the NSA"

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cryptography/WikiProject Notice.:...On another nit altogether, it feels better (in AE perhaps) to say '...that NSA has taken this position...' than '...that the NSA has taken...'. In parallel usage, I think, with NASA which is almost always used without 'the'. It's been a jarring note for me as folks add 'the' before NSA. I've usually let it slide, but sometimes removed 'the'. Don't have any good ideas on how to handle this nit, however. A note at NSA? Too nitty? Frankly, I've contracted a bit of an obsession about it. Perhaps it will be resolved by Valentine's Day? ww 14:45, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have, I must confess, added a couple of "the"s in front of "NSA"s, which I'll stop. Both styles are probably OK, though...Usage research: Bruce Schneier's section in Applied Cryptography on (the) NSA switches between adding a "the" and omitting it. The web pages at nsa.gov favour omitting the "the" most of the time. — Matt 08:39, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
In the American English I'm familiar with, typically NSA is written as "the NSA", whereas NASA is written simply as NASA. This is somewhat inconsistent of course, but it's how heard it almost exclusively. As in "I went to work for the NSA" (substitute: "the CIA", "the FBI"—but not "the NASA"). --Delirium 08:48, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)
I've been pondering this since I posted that nit. Perhaps the distinction (again, it may be an AE thing) is that 'the' is used when contrasting the agency (NSA) to others in the American pantheon of alphabet soup. For instance, "...the NSA, a division of the DoD, competes with the CIA and with the DIA for funds...". DIA, by the way has the same ambivalence about the 'the' as with NSA, but CIA does not. "CIA has infiltrated..." sounds just as acceptable as "the CIA has infiltrated.." though the factual status of any such claim however worded seems in recent years to have been a little dicey.
Anyway, NSA sounds best with the 'the' dropped in circumstances in which there is no possibility of confusion with others of its soup fellows. As in, "NSA announced today that ww will be charged with munitions trafficing..." or "..Berstein was very incensed at NSA's action yesterday...". But, like most less than blatantly obvious langauge usage points, I (or my ear) may feel differently tomorrow about all this.
ww 15:06, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
I think a reason for people's variant usage on this depends on whether they are mentally expanding "NSA" into "National Security Agency" or not; if you are, it can be jarring to read without a "the" prelude. I guess that sometimes the acronym takes on a life of its own and becomes a proper noun in its own right, e.g. NASA or DES (though very rarely you will see "the DES", which is quite odd to read!). I'm guessing that "NSA" is used in both ways. — Matt 09:21, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
Matt, Indeed, that sounds reasonable. I'll ponder on it. I've thought of another illuminating, I think, example. DEC (of fond memory alas) was never used with 'the'. Perhaps that, along with the NASA case (<--- NB, not even relevant -- different thing altogether!) is what has shifted the ear to NSA being correct w/o the. ww 15:40, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
I think Matt's explanation sums up why the NSA sounds right to me, but not the NASA. To use other examples from the U.S. governmental agencies, the IRS and DEA articles prefix their respective acronyms with the, whereas the FEMA and OSHA pages sensibly omit the definite article. The ATF and TSA articles have both usages. Wmahan. 22:30, 2004 May 3 (UTC)

<== left shift, saves us all from squinting at ':' for a while

Having pondered this for some days, I feel queasy. NSA sounds right (no 'the') when the image in my mind's eye (now there's a shaken, not merely stirred, grammatical virtual metaphor!) is of the crypto org. When I'm thinking about its existence as one among many government agencies (the image here is of a herd of large behemouths -- imagine bronto sized mastodons from here to the horizon), then 'the NSA' feels right. The key (hah, good one that!) seems to be that it be used in accord with the general use of 'the' in English. It notifies the listener the speaker is now / was just / will be shortly talking about one particular thing out of a herd of possible things that might have been meant. When 'the' doesn't sound right, there was only one possible thing, namely that large crypto behemouth in Ft Meade; there "aren't any others" possible at this point in the discussion. Thus, among us cryptiacs (or cryptonauts?), and in articles on same, it should be NSA, no 'the'. When discussing non crypto things, it should take the 'the' there. That's the best I'm been able to do whilst hanging over the rail. Still seasick. Any comments? ww 16:54, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

My guess is that part of the explanation is much simpler. American English tends to "NASA" and "DEC" because these acronyms are pronounced as words. When pronounced as a word, "the" never sounds right. Compare also "FEMA" and "OSHA" which are pronounced. With an initialism like "CIA" or "NSA", saying "the cee-eye-ay" or "the en-ess-ay" seems more natural, and the same with "IRS" and "DEA".
Unfortunately this isn't an absolute rule for initialisms, since "HP" and "IBM" are never prefixed with "the". Also, this applies only to common usage. I think that insiders of some organizations like the CIA (but not others like the IRS) always omit the "the", so a spook would probably say simply "CIA". --165.189.91.148 21:52, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think with IBM and HP, it's probably because you'd expand it to "the International Business Machines" and "the Hewlett-Packard", which is clearly not right. Things like NSA and CIA, standing for "Foo Agency", can accomodate a "the" more naturally. — Matt Crypto 00:12, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Having been at NSA headquarters, I can inform you that NSA personnel simply use "NSA" and not "the NSA". 204.221.76.252 (talk) 16:16, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Coordinates?

Um... why do we need the geographical coordinates of the NSA Operations Building to the nearest, what, foot? - dcljr (talk) 03:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

When we want to dig safe it helps to know where the utilities are Sea level 00:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Having GPS coordinates on this page is un-necessary as nobody is going to be able to actually drive that close to the building anyway. So what is the point? --74.52.3.50 23:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Hasn't this user been disrupting the page elsewhere (discussed below)? The coordinates bit struck me as weird, too. Is that common practice on any other pages? --GodelMetric 07:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
To answer my own question, no, it's not. It's used for geographical locations alone, such as the locations of Fort Meade or Langley, but not for any of the other agencies. The coords on the NSA page proper merely point to Fort Meade, and are therefore redundant with that information -- and inaccurate as well with regard to the location of the NSA, which is just a bureaucratic organization, after all. Anyway, slight epistemological digression aside, I'm changing it.--GodelMetric 07:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I removed the coordinates when somebody added them on a previous occasion a few months ago. — DAGwyn 17:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed; GPS coordinates let the terrorists win. Agalmic (talk) 13:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, largely I just think it's unnecessary to provide that information for nearly any Wikipedia site; also it's pretty much useless, since if you need to know where NSA HQ is, you will be told where to go and what to do when you get there. But I would agree that there is no point in making life even the least bit easier for terrorists. — DAGwyn (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
We should also include the coordinates to NSA's Friendship Annex (FANX) compound, as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.221.76.252 (talk) 16:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
There are a lot of locations controlled by NSA, so why single out some of them and not others? Is there a good reason for giving GPS coordinates? — DAGwyn (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

What's the NSA been known to have done first?

What's the NSA been known to have done first? I believe I read an article a couple years ago about how the NSA had created something that was pretty much the same as PGP about 10 years before it was created publically. They were now declassifying that information and allowing the employee that had originally created it to say what he'd done (since he was retiring) -- the employee was hoping for some recognition for what he'd done. EDIT: found a CNN story that said that the UK said that they'd created public-key encryption first. I swear that I saw a bunch of news articles about the NSA creating it first, though. 97.93.88.4 (talk) 09:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Since GHQ and NSA have a close relationship, the development reached people in both organizations fairly quickly. For the most part, NSA's tasks did not benefit from public key encryption, so they didn't make much use of it. NSA has produced numerous innovations, including contributing to development of computing technology, but many developments remain classified, for fairly obvious reasons. — DAGwyn (talk) 22:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
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