a new role for the NSA

[""L. Detweiler"" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

"Pat Farrell" <pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu>
>The "government" as a whole is not against crypto. The NSA is _very
>strongly_ against it. There are 60,000 or more bureaucrats in NSA that would
>be effectively put out of work by widespread strong crypto. All the
>$17 Billion that they use on signal intercepts would go to competing
>approachs (satelite recon, spys in the field, etc.) that are controlled by
>other agencies. Why? because signal intellegence is so easy now that it is
>extremely cheap and cost effective. Widespread strong crypto will not make
>evesdropping impossible, but it will make it _very_ expensive in time and
>money, and thus make it much less attractive.

Hey cypherpunks, I recognize that it is critical to balance our
criticisms with proposals for improvement. For example, in an earlier
list of chief criticisms on Clipper I also brought up the point that a
cryptographic standard developed under an impartial standards-creation
process would be acceptable.

Hence, let's get this into the collective psyche: NSA is definitely
extremely endangered in the `signal interception' role. However, just
to prove that we're not totally out to get all those black spooks, I
propose that we emphasize that the NSA pursue a different role that
they are in an immensely beneficial position to undertake: *promoting*
cryptography use among the public and in government. Don't laugh! A
very major part of NSA is dedicated to maintaining and developing the
codes and machines that the rest of the military uses.  The dichotomy
in the two aspects of the organization was apparent with e.g. Kahn's
speculation on the development of DES (make it stronger! say the
makers.  make it weaker! say the breakers).  If we gently or jarringly
prod NSA into more of the `making' instead of the `breaking' role, that
would be a way of not overly offending too many bureacrats by giving
them the sacred escape hatch.

So: don't advocate completely dismantling the NSA. (That may happen,
but if it does it will happen on its own without any encouragement.)
Instead, say that in the Post Cold War era they are better suited to
shift into the code*making* arena instead of the overlong insistence of
the code*breaking* domination. Gosh, think of all those lonely NSA
geniuses who have secure schemes but are being overruled. Imagine what
this expertise could do for commercial cryptography and American
technological competitiveness/supremacy if they were allowed to say
`your algorithm is weak because' and not
`---[CENSORED-CONFIDENTIAL-INFORMATION]---'.  We have to paint
ourselves as moderates before we can shine as extremists.

Also, let me remind everyone to COUNTER the arguments that we now need
a vast framework of intelligence gathering on `commercial espionage' --
I'm not denying that it is a problem or even an increasingly
significant one, but this is *not* the role for government. That's why
the word `commercial' is in there! Government involvement here will do
nothing but restrain and restrict the mobility of companies involved;
they have plenty of opportunities to hire deft independent consultants
but a large bureacracy can do nothing for them but endanger them.

* * *
Satellite Torque

By the way, I've been reading a lot about how satellite intelligence
data is starting to get freed up based on pressure by companies such as
Martin Marietta, who would like to sell the lucrative information
(surprise, other countries already are and since we aren't allowed to
we're dying in an important market we could potentially dominate). 
There is a great deal of classified satellite surveillance data out
there and the fact that some of it might be on the way to being
unchained is highly encouraging for the overall Cypherpunk cause. Just
a little sunshine disinfectant leaking through, eh?

Opening up satellite data is a way of putting more pressure on NSA,
which, from what I understand, devotes a great deal of staff toward
interpreting it. Or maybe that's another intelligence agency. Either
way, it's a valuable wedge and torque we need to pry loose some major
obstacles. If anybody is in a position to facilitate the release or
dissemination of this data, go for it!

* * *
NSA: a big bureacracy or a bunch of bureacrats?

Someone brought up the point that NSA is really just a whole lot of
disconnected bureacrats who are really more interested in saving their
own careers than any selfless motive such as promoting the stability of
any overall government agency.  This of course has relative accuracy,
but either way we should try to use it as leverage against Clipper and
the NSA cryptography-regulation role.  I'd say the first step is to get
in contact with whoever makes these policies or is involved!  If we
could get a list of email addresses of `VIPS in CRYPT' together to
lobby, that would be stupendous. However, it seems to me that as soon
as anyone tries this they are going to find out pretty fast how much of
a uniform monolith the whole of NSA is.  It's extremely isolated and
guarded as a cohesive *whole*.

But! I get the feeling there are a lot of independent *contractors* and
*consultants* associated with the NSA. Anybody have any idea of how to
get a list of them? We have the people from Mycotronx by name--why
don't we have any email addresses? What about AT&T? Surely somebody who
matters besides jim@rsa.com has an email address.  Consider this the
Great CypherPunk Treasure Hunt.  happy hunting!