From: fc@all.net (Dr. Frederick B. Cohen)
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 95 02:58:24 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: SAIC bought InterNic, but who is SAIC?  A spook contractor!
In-Reply-To: <9509290018.AA08111@toad.com>
Message-ID: <9509290956.AA14949@all.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> From:  Wes Thomas <wes@ora.com>
> 
> The press recently reported that the National Science Foundation has turned
> over Internet Domain Name registration to Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) of
> Herndon, VA. The press failed to note some interesting connections.
> 
> Tomorrow morning (Sept. 26), Web Review, a biweekly online magazine (see
> Special Report at http://gnn.com/wr/) will reveal that NSI was purchased in
> May by Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of San

That's Science Applications ...  An employee owned systems integrator. 
They are one of the largest systems integrators in the world, 2nd largest
to the US government (last time I looked).

> Diego. SAIC is a $2 billion company indicted by the Justice Department on
> ten felony counts for fraud in managing a Superfund toxic cleanup site (SAIC
> pleaded guilty) and sued by the Justice Department for civil fraud on an
> F-15 fighter contract.

Interesting summary, but you forgot to note that what really happened
was that SAIC made some bookkeeping errors, noticed them in a
self-audit, and reported themselves to the government.  Unlike some
companies that try to cover these things up, SAIC found the problems
themselves and didn't cover them up.

> SAIC's board members include Admiral Bobby Inman, former NSA head and deputy
> director of the CIA; Melvin Laird, Nixon's defense secretary; and retired
> General Max Thurman, commander of the Panama Invasion. Recently departed
> board members include Robert Gates, former CIA director; William Perry,
> current Secretary of Defense; and John Deutch, the current CIA director.
> Current SAIC government contracts include re-engineering information systems
> at the Pentagon, automation of the FBI's computerized fingerprint
> identification system, and building a national criminal history information
> system.

SAIC is also one of the largest companies in the information security
field, with over 500 active info-sec contracts at any given time.  They
work for industry as well as government in info-sec, systems
integration, and outsourcing.  For example, they currently do all of the
IT work for BP, handle info-sec for several banks and wall street firms,
have contracts with some of the large players in the entertainment business,
and sponsored the last Americas cup entry from the US.

> "At the very time the Internet community is struggling with the issues of
> encryption and privacy, I'm more than a little uneasy to find this bunch of
> ex-spooks sitting at the very entry point of the Net," says Jim Warren (a
> leading activist in making government records accessible) in the article,
> which was written by investigative journalist Stephen Pizzo, Web Review
> Senior Editor and co-author of the book Inside Job, an expose on the savings
> & loan looting.

The real ex-spooks aren't that heavily embedded in SAIC.  The company
was started by a well known physicist who is still the CEO and chairman,
and they do a lot of research in preserving the environment, undersea
research, business reengineering, and other things that are not spookish.

Just thought I would present the rest of the story.

By the way, I have been a consultant for them from time to time, and I
have found them to be hard working, intelligent, and highly motivated. 
They do indeed have a lot of very intelligent people working for them,
many of whom used to work in high-level positions for both democratic
and republican administrations, but I don't think you should hold that
against them - after all, if you were a major government contractor,
wouldn't you want to get people who know how the government works?

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