From: david.lloyd-jones@canrem.com (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 95 20:04:16 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: The NSA (Was Re: Factorin
In-Reply-To: <9502130231.AA19651@snark.imsi.com>
Message-ID: <60.20378.6525.0C1CFB64@canrem.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com> writes:
 
PM+The black community also has lots of day-to-day experience that we
  +don't have, and they understand both the threat model and the
  +practical side of things a lot better than we do.
 
Perry,
 
I don't see too much reason to suppose that this is true.  The CIA
has had almost everything wrong since 1960, and it routinely becomes 
clear a few weeks after the fact that smart bombs, air breathing 
missiles, SCUD hunts and the like are an almost total waste of good 
silicon.
 
When the Russians first landed stuff on the Moon it was semi-amateurs 
in England, not the vaunted NASA folks, who were tuned in. 
 
My guess would be that the folks at NSA spend most of their time 
worrying about getting a better parking spot, the same as everybody 
else in Washington.
 
PM+Overall, I'd say that in the long run the open community is going to
  +catch up regardless of what the NSA likes. That does not mean,
  +however, that this is going to happen particularly soon, or that they
  +don't still know decades more than we do.
 
I think you're right about the superiority of the open community, but 
it may not be out there in the future.  It may be accompli.
 
                                   -dlj.

david.lloyd-jones@canrem.com

 * 1st 1.11 #3818 *       Gingrich, n. abbrev. :  "Giving to the rich".