[6223] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: NSA pre-oversight-hearing moaning and weeping [was cracking GSM A5/1]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Julian Assange)
Tue Dec 7 10:41:45 1999
To: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
Cc: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>, Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>,
cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@algebra.com, aucrypto@suburbia.net
Cc: proff@iq.org
From: Julian Assange <proff@iq.org>
Date: 07 Dec 1999 17:19:46 +1100
In-Reply-To: Vin McLellan's message of "Mon, 6 Dec 1999 01:55:52 -0500"
Message-ID: <wxd7sj1ddp.fsf@suburbia.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net> writes:
> Talking about timely and untimely comments.....
>
> Check out Newsweek's credulous, confused, and tech-ignorant report
> about the (pre-oversight-hearing) moaning and and weeping at Fort Meade.
This [Sy Hersh] story has been re-reported all over, yet no one [in
the media] has called this [NSA] posturing for what it is. I'm glad
you have Vin. It seems that no-one else is brave enough to call Sy
Hersh (from whom these General Hayden stories originated, and a
proverbial one man institution among journalists in the US), a patsy
-- an old man dazzled by flashing lights and pin-stripes, playing the
tune of someone else's agenda as if it were his own.
US intelligence agencies and the DoD used to be all about `can do' to
their political overseers. We are now in the era of understatement.
Intelligence failures, once known, are not greeted by minimisation and
ass-covering, but, incredibly, by amplification. ``There was a
non-optimal outcome due to overly broad focus [incompetent management
and misguided direction], which has resulted in some staffing
changes. We have great confidence in the Agency's new direction on
these type of matters'', has become, ``We screwed up badly due to lack
of funding, and what's more, we're going to screw up again, and again,
and again unless more dollars come our way in the next appropriations
bill. $18bil goes as far as one misanthropic teenage computer hacker
in a good year. It's not a good year. It's y2k; not only are computer
glitches are being used as cover for nefarious plots to take over the
western world, but the very weapon corporate America has employed
against them -- namely cheap Indian y2k consultants -- are really
agents of a foreign power, intent on corrupting our digital purity of
essence''.
The primary reason we've seen this [Sy Hersh] story re-reported all
over is that it went out on a newswire service. Now the average man
may think that this means that the Sy Hersh story had legs, and
newswire reporters scooped it up accordingly. Not so. The newswire
service in question is PRNEWSWIRE. You maybe wondering what PR is an
acronym of. Not "Pulitzer Reporter", that's for sure. Yes, it's
"Press Release". Someone, hopefully NewsWeek, paid around $500 to put
this story out on the wire.
Cheers,
Julian
--
Stefan Kahrs in [Kah96] discusses the
notion of completeness--programs which never go wrong can be
type-checked--which complements Milner's notion of
soundness--type-checked programs never go wrong [Mil78].
