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X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com In-Reply-To: <8163C9BE-C23D-4E96-A754-0D3AC18C5CF4@lrw.com> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:23:16 -0500 From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <hallam@gmail.com> To: Jerry Leichter <leichter@lrw.com> Cc: John Kelsey <crypto.jmk@gmail.com>, cryptography moderated list <cryptography@metzdowd.com>, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson@gmail.com> Errors-To: cryptography-bounces+crypto.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@metzdowd.com --===============0210773049854029137== Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=089e012281ac66a04d04f0926148 --089e012281ac66a04d04f0926148 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 10:18 PM, Jerry Leichter <leichter@lrw.com> wrote: > > Look, I'm not defending NSA. I'm telling you that I, and many other > people I knew, and from what I could see most members of the broader > community, were fooled by their charm offensive. If you found little > support in those years - this is why. You were out-maneuvered by some of > the best professionals in the business. > This is why I think it is so important to think rather harder about the NSA/RSA issue than assume that the $10 million was paid as a direct pro quo to a company that knew they were taking a bribe. If defeating the NSA was so easy, all we would need to do is to be on the look out for people taking huge bribes. But that is not the simplest or the safest way for the NSA to have achieved their objective so it is almost certainly not the tactic they used. I think we also need to have the right mode for the people running the NSA. I don't doubt their patriotism or their devotion to duty. But I have met ex-NSA directors and they all suffer from the limitations of the military mind. They have a particular comfort zone which is based on their experience of what they call 'kinetic' warfare. They don't like facing up to the realities of what they are doing so they talk in jargon designed to insulate themselves from the moral consequences of their decisions. When they are outside their comfort zone they are liable to panic. We saw this happen on a massive scale in the 1950s and 60s. The series of coups in emerging democracies were all engineered by elites panicking at the prospect of popular government. In many cases the US elites that panicked first. I do not believe that it is safe to let these people loose with such power. Hayden in particular strikes me as the type of person who might well panic and declare martial law if he thought the republic under threat. The problem is that I strongly suspect that the sort of things he considers a threat are rather different to the ones I consider threats. There is a large portion of the power elite in the US that spends its time talking about the President being born in Kenya and equating Obamacare to communism and talking about traitors. When people do that sort of thing I suspect them of being the traitors themselves and working up a pretext. -- Website: http://hallambaker.com/ --089e012281ac66a04d04f0926148 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <div dir=3D"ltr"><br><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><br><div class=3D"gmail= _quote">On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 10:18 PM, Jerry Leichter <span dir=3D"ltr">= <<a href=3D"mailto:leichter@lrw.com" target=3D"_blank">leichter@lrw.com<= /a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1p= x #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class=3D"im"><br></div> Look, I'm not defending NSA. =A0I'm telling you that I, and many ot= her people I knew, and from what I could see most members of the broader co= mmunity, were fooled by their charm offensive. =A0If you found little suppo= rt in those years - this is why. =A0You were out-maneuvered by some of the = best professionals in the business.<br> </blockquote><div><br></div><div>This is why I think it is so important to = think rather harder about the NSA/RSA issue than assume that the $10 millio= n was paid as a direct pro quo to a company that knew they were taking a br= ibe.</div> <div><br></div><div>If defeating the NSA was so easy, all we would need to = do is to be on the look out for people taking huge bribes. But that is not = the simplest or the safest way for the NSA to have achieved their objective= so it is almost certainly not the tactic they used.=A0</div> <div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I think we also need to have the right m= ode for the people running the NSA. I don't doubt their patriotism or t= heir devotion to duty. But I have met ex-NSA directors and they all suffer = from the limitations of the military mind. They have a particular comfort z= one which is based on their experience of what they call 'kinetic' = warfare. They don't like facing up to the realities of what they are do= ing so they talk in jargon designed to insulate themselves from the moral c= onsequences of their decisions.</div> <div><br></div><div>When they are outside their comfort zone they are liabl= e to panic.</div><div><br></div><div>We saw this happen on a massive scale = in the 1950s and 60s. The series of coups in emerging democracies were all = engineered by elites panicking at the prospect of popular government. In ma= ny cases the US elites that panicked first.</div> </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I do not believe that it is safe t= o let these people loose with such power. Hayden in particular strikes me a= s the type of person who might well panic and declare martial law if he tho= ught the republic under threat. The problem is that I strongly suspect that= the sort of things he considers a threat are rather different to the ones = I consider threats.</div> <div><br></div><div>There is a large portion of the power elite in the US t= hat spends its time talking about the President being born in Kenya and equ= ating Obamacare to communism and talking about traitors. When people do tha= t sort of thing I suspect them of being the traitors themselves and working= up a pretext.</div> <div><br></div><div><br></div>-- <br>Website: <a href=3D"http://hallambaker= .com/">http://hallambaker.com/</a><br> </div></div> --089e012281ac66a04d04f0926148-- --===============0210773049854029137== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography --===============0210773049854029137==--
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