After retiring in 2014 from an uncharacteristically long tenure running the NSA (and US CyberCommand), Keith Alexander founded a cybersecurity company called IronNet. At the time, he claimed that it was based on IP he developed on his own time while still in the military. That always troubled me …
The NSA’s “ National Cryptographic School Television Catalogue ” from 1991 lists about 600 COMSEC and SIGINT training videos. There are a bunch explaining the operations of various cryptographic equipment, and a few code words I have never heard of before. [...]
The “ long lost lecture ” by Adm. Grace Hopper has been published by the NSA. (Note that there are two parts.) It’s a wonderful talk: funny, engaging, wise, prescient. Remember that talk was given in 1982, less than a year before the ARPANET switched to TCP/IP and the …
The NSA has a video recording of a 1982 lecture by Adm. Grace Hopper titled “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People.” The agency is (so far) refusing to release it. Basically, the recording is in an obscure video format. People at the NSA can’t easily watch it …
Longtime NSA-watcher James Bamford has a long article on the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). [...]
Former NSA Director Paul Nakasone has joined the board of OpenAI. [...]
Through a 2010 FOIA request (yes, it took that long), we have copies of the NSA’s KRYPTOS Society Newsletter, “ Tales of the Krypt,” from 1994 to 2003. There are many interesting things in the 800 pages of newsletter. There are many redactions. And a 1994 review of Applied …
Via a FOIA request, we have documents from the NSA about their banning of Furby toys. [...]
It finally admitted to buying bulk data on Americans from data brokers, in response to a query by Senator Weyden. This is almost certainly illegal, although the NSA maintains that it is legal until it’s told otherwise. Some news articles. [...]
There seems to be no end to warrantless surveillance : According to the letter, a surveillance program now known as Data Analytical Services (DAS) has for more than a decade allowed federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to mine the details of Americans’ calls, analyzing the phone records of …
Interesting article about the Snowden documents, including comments from former Guardian editor Ewen MacAskill MacAskill, who shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras for their journalistic work on the Snowden files, retired from The Guardian in 2018. He told Computer Weekly that: As …
The NSA is starting a new artificial intelligence security center: The AI security center’s establishment follows an NSA study that identified securing AI models from theft and sabotage as a major national security challenge, especially as generative AI technologies emerge with immense transformative potential for both good and …
Jake Appelbaum’s PhD thesis contains several new revelations from the classified NSA documents provided to journalists by Edward Snowden. Nothing major, but a few more tidbits. Kind of amazing that that all happened ten years ago. At this point, those documents are more historical than anything else. And …
The Washington Post is reporting that the US is spying on the UN Secretary General. The reports on Guterres appear to contain the secretary general’s personal conversations with aides regarding diplomatic encounters. They indicate that the United States relied on spying powers granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance …
In 2013 and 2014, I wrote extensively about new revelations regarding NSA surveillance based on the documents provided by Edward Snowden. But I had a more personal involvement as well. I wrote the essay below in September 2013. The New Yorker agreed to publish it, but the Guardian asked …
No details, though: According to the complaint against him, Al-Azhari allegedly visited a dark web site that hosts “unofficial propaganda and photographs related to ISIS” multiple times on May 14, 2019. In virtue of being a dark web site—that is, one hosted on the Tor anonymity network—it …
Here in 2022, we have a newly declassified 2016 Inspector General report—”Misuse of Sigint Systems”—about a 2013 NSA program that resulted in the unauthorized (that is, illegal) targeting of Americans. Given all we learned from Edward Snowden, this feels like a minor coda. There’s nothing really …
The NSA (together with CISA) has published a long report on supply-chain security: “ Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices Guide for Suppliers. “: Prevention is often seen as the responsibility of the software developer, as they are required to securely develop and deliver code, verify third party components, and …
An ex-NSA employee has been charged with trying to sell classified data to the Russians (but instead actually talking to an undercover FBI agent). It’s a weird story, and the FBI affidavit raises more questions than it answers. The employee only worked for the NSA for three weeks …
Someone hacked the Ecuadorian embassy in Moscow and found a document related to Ecuador’s 2013 efforts to bring Edward Snowden there. If you remember, Snowden was traveling from Hong Kong to somewhere when the US revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia. In the document, Ecuador asks Russia …
Nadiya Kostyuk and Susan Landau wrote an interesting paper: “ Dueling Over DUAL_EC_DRBG: The Consequences of Corrupting a Cryptographic Standardization Process “: Abstract: In recent decades, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which develops cryptographic standards for non-national security agencies of the U.S. government, has emerged …
Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the NSA, said so in an interview: The NSA already has classified quantum-resistant algorithms of its own that it developed over many years, said Joyce. But it didn’t enter any of its own in the contest. The agency’s mathematicians, however …
Pangu Lab in China just published a report of a hacking operation by the Equation Group (aka the NSA). It noticed the hack in 2013, and was able to map it with Equation Group tools published by the Shadow Brokers (aka some Russian group)....the scope of victims exceeded …
MIT Technology Review published an interview with Gil Herrera, the new head of the NSA’s Research Directorate. There’s a lot of talk about quantum computing, monitoring 5G networks, and the problems of big data: The math department, often in conjunction with the computer science department, helps tackle …
The NSA and CISA have released a document on how to harden your VPN. [...]