[3114] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: NSA Losing Crypto Experts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rick Smith)
Wed Jul 29 20:00:13 1998
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 18:22:16 -0500
To: nelson@media.mit.edu (Nelson Minar), cryptography@c2.net
From: Rick Smith <rick_smith@securecomputing.com>
In-Reply-To: <199807292149.RAA19267@pinotnoir.media.mit.edu>
Nelson Minar wrote about not wanting to work at NSA:
>What's the fun
>in producing a great piece of software crypto if the only way it gets
>out the door is in embedded military applications?
According to NSA tradition, by the way, crypto and software don't mix. You
can do one or the other, but never, never do both at the same time. They're
traditionally spooked by the fact that it's hard to make reliable
predictions about the behavior of software. If you look at what the Orange
Book tried to do, the underlying and unspoken theme is that a true A1
system might allow them to run crypto in software with an acceptable level
of confidence.
Rick.
smith@securecomputing.com
