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United States Security Your Rights Online

NSA to Become Government Net 'Traffic Cop?' 170

Posted by CowboyNeal from the traffic-redirector dept.
OriginalArlen writes "The NSA may be appointed 'Internet traffic cop', overseeing data sharing among US government agencies for Homeland Security, according to an A.P. report on SecurityFocus. Apparently the aim is to improve security of all government networks." This would seem to follow in the footsteps of creating the Department of Homeland Security, since the aim is to enable better sharing of data between government institutions.
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NSA to Become Government Net 'Traffic Cop?' More

NSA to Become Government Net 'Traffic Cop?'

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  • Interesting Statistic (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:23AM (#11676825)
    If the NSA becomes the "Internet Traffic Cop", can it be said that 99.9% of the NSA's budget is devoted to pornography?
    • > If the NSA becomes the "Internet Traffic Cop", can it be said that 99.9% of the NSA's budget is devoted to pornography?

      So the old joke about getting a job with NSA by calling up your mother and talking about cryptography needs to be rewritten? Eew!

      "NSA is now funding research not only in steganography, but in all areas of advanced mathematics. If you'd like a circular describing these new research opportunities, just fire up your newsreader, download a .JPG of your mother, and ask for one!"

    • "Bill, what are you looking at!?"

      "I'm looking at porn sir! It's work, I swear!"

  • Anybody want to guess? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "It also was unclear how much the effort might cost."

  • NSA == Spy && !SecurityInforcer (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Space_Soldier ( 628825 ) <not4_u@hotmail.com> on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:24AM (#11676853)
    "Apparently the aim is to improve security of all government networks." That does not make sense; is not the job of the NSA to brake security of any network in order to easedrop on the conversations? It is a spy agency, not a security agency.

    • Re:NSA == Spy && !SecurityInforcer (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's definitely a security agency [too]. Part of their job is to make sure US government use secure systems and protocols.

    • Re:NSA == Spy && !SecurityInforcer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by qbzzt ( 11136 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:28AM (#11676891)
      That does not make sense; is not the job of the NSA to brake security of any network in order to easedrop on the conversations? It is a spy agency, not a security agency.

      The assumption is that a spy agency will have a good idea what kind of holes would allow other spy agencies to break in. Not a bad idea, IMAO.

    • Re:NSA == Spy && !SecurityInforcer (Score:4, Interesting)

      by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:38AM (#11676985) Homepage
      I don't know if you remember the Clipper Chip initiative from the Clinton Administration -- '93/'94, but the NSA was pushing to get a key-escrow encryption chip in production and mandated for use when communicating sensitive data with the Feds.

      Of course, nobody outside the US would use it, since the gov't would keep a backdoor key...

      Here's some info from NIST about it [nist.gov] that plainly talks about the NSA's involvement.
    • NSA says differently:

      The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is America's cryptologic organization. It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information. A high technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and data processing. It is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the government.

      This and more at their web site.htt [nsa.gov]

    • You are wrong, the NSA's first goal is to break enemy cyphers, but a strong second goal is to keep our own cyphers secure. Witness the tweak to the DES sbox selection, it made DES more secure against a class of attacks that the civilian sector wouldn't reinvent for several decades. It makes sense to have your people that know the most about security and breaking into secure systems establish the practices for other agencies to follow, now having them actually enforce said policies is another matter. It migh
      • That was denied to even exist into the 1980's, and you claim to know what their mission is?

        "It was in the New York Times, all the news that's fit to print!"

        Reading this thread is like watching denizens of the Matrix, speculating on the meaning of the things they read.

        • That was denied to even exist into the 1980's, and you claim to know what their mission is?
          Hello, it's 2005 now.

          NoSuchAgency's mission has been public knowledge for over 20 years. Hell, they have their http://www.nsa.gov/about/about00003.cfmmission statement on their frelling web site.

          Crawl out from under your rock sometime, troll.

          • Troll?

            Because a formerly unacknowleged agency now publishes it's "mission' publicly?

            "Yes, we Secret Police have now abandoned our culture of secrecy!" Publishing this is a great cover.

    • No. Their job is "To Protect and Exploit". This would fall under "Protect"
    • I'd say that making sure the government communications are secure is part of the NSA's job.

      They usually screen the ciphers to be used so they are secure enough (like DES and AES).

      Also SELinux (although it started as a semi-independent project) seems to show that security is indeed part of its task. They made SELinux to make a point about the need for mandatory controls, and to make others adopt MAC, enhancing security in the process.

      They probably develop ciphers and hardware for government use, too. Alth
    • I thought the NSA already did this. I used to work for a security company, and I have vague memories of the NSA evaluating our product on behalf of the US government (i.e. to secure non-military traffic). We even had to drive off to a secure building in order to teleconference with them.

      -a
    • Uh, no.

      Like most information intelligence agencies, NSA [nsa.gov] has two parts; they're prominently featured on the main webpage as "Information Assurance" and "Signals Intelligence." They are simultaneously a spy agency (in the SIGINT mission) and the government's security agency (in the INFOSEC mission.)

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:25AM (#11676856)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:erm... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Nastard ( 124180 )
      I'll karma whore and help you out at the same time...

      The article:

      White House may make NSA the 'traffic cop' over U.S. computer networks

      By Ted Bridis, The Associated Press Feb 14 2005 1:28PM

      The Bush administration is considering making the National Security Agency -- famous for eavesdropping and code breaking -- its "traffic cop" for ambitious plans to share homeland security information across government computer networks, a senior NSA official says.

      Such a decision would expand NSA's responsibility to

    • Oh that. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:34AM (#11676958)
      That's hyperbole.

      It's how we have debates over here in America. First we take out the facts. Look at them. Create the most extreme, yet superficially similar argument from them. Then we shoot them in the head, and bury them in a shallow grave. If anyone dares to impugn our integrity we first call them a "name-caller" but in much less flattering terms, and cite the fact that they are thus as proof of their unreasonable bias. If that doesn't work, we turn of their mic while our friends yell at them until we throw to commercial.

      Why do we behave in such a course, pointless and ignorant manner? A good question. I'm glad you asked it. We do it for the children. Now I've really got to take a break.
      • Have you ever watched British Parliament on TV? You've pretty much described it perfectly. The USA doesn't have anything remotely resembling a monopoly on hyperbole.
    • Realizing that you couldn't see the article...

      It's unclear how the NSA's efforts would affect private companies, which own and operate many of the electrical, water, banking and other systems vital to government. Wolf said the agency already works to secure such systems important to military installations, but he denied that NSA would have any new regulatory authority over private computers. "When we talk about being the traffic cop, we're not in charge of these networks," Wolf said. "We're not running
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Government can certainly require stricter security procedures where private networks interact with government networks. Private organizations can choose to impliment the new procedures or they can ignore them and face the possibility of disconnect. In this situation, I'd say government is doing the same thing a corporation is doing in securing itself and requiring certain security methods if you wish to interact with their network. The original poster stated 'Internet traffic cop' but NSA doesn't appear
      • Here is a link that tells of some of the various agencies and techniques used in survellence.

        http://www.guide2net.net/security/articles/priv a cy _and_pc/index030220.html

        NSA and ECHELON is looking at all kinds of what we might term "private" communication, It does not make sense that they are not also looking at the Internet in general to gather intellegence. The FBI seems to do more of that with its new powers to listen in on traffic. With the new "Homeland Security" initiatives, don't think that they are
    • isnt there already an existing UK government equivalent called GSI ? i understood UK government agencies had to go through this organisation to get internet/email access or presence.
      • GSI = Government Secure Internet. It's basically a big intranet with access through heavy duty firewalls to the outside world.

        You'll normally see it being used in contact email addresses etc.,so you get (for example) defra@gsi.gov.uk
    • how is policing Government networks the same as policing the entire Internet???

      It's not, but this is Slashdot, home of the paranoid tinfoil hat crowd. Most people not only do not read the story, they don't read the Slash dot summary either. So, they missed: "overseeing data sharing among US government agencies".

  • NSA domestic? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought the NSA didn't have jurisdiction to spy on USA citizens?
    • I thought that was CIA....not that it would stop them.

      • Re:NSA domestic? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You have that backwards. The NSA monitors communications going in and out of the United States. The CIA is the foreign spy network. They're the ones monitoring foreign countries.

        • Re:NSA domestic? (Score:2, Informative)

          by ratnerstar ( 609443 )
          The CIA is indeed a foreign intelligence agency, but the grandparent post is correct: NSA does not, under usual circumstances, monitor "US persons." A US person is defined as a:

          a) US citizen
          b) Known permanent resident alien
          c) Unincorporated association substantially composed of US citizens or resident aliens
          d) Corporation is it is incorporated in the US and non directed or controlled by a foreign government.

          The NSA is not allowed to collect on any of those entities; see Executive Order 12333 [cia.gov] and USSI [cryptome.org]

      • Nah, the CIA likes to keep their info to themselves.. they're pretty greedy w/ regards to their info and other gov. agencies.
        • I know people who have had jobs with a relatively low level security clearance. These people claim that they could hear their phones tap at random times. I can't even imagine what people with high level clearance have to deal with.

    • ...you apparently didn't read the *summary*. From the first *sentence* of the summary:

      "The NSA may be appointed 'Internet traffic cop', overseeing data sharing among US government agencies for Homeland Security [...]"

      • Re:Not only did you not read the article... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        ...you apparently didn't read the *summary*. From the first *sentence* of the summary:

        "The NSA may be appointed 'Internet traffic cop', overseeing data sharing among US government agencies for Homeland Security

        You apparently still don't get it. If the NSA is looking at the data going back and forth between ALL U.S. government agencies, what do you think 99% of that data is? American citizens, or Sudanese?

        The NSA is a spy agency. Their task is to collect data from foreign communication interce

    • Re:NSA domestic? (Score:3, Informative)

      by quarkscat ( 697644 )
      Correction to parent post:
      "NSA did not have jurisdiction to spy on USA
      citizens on USA soil."

      That is why the ECHELON project was started.
      The British spy on USA citizens, the USA spys
      on Canadian citizens, the Canadians spy on the
      Australian citizens, and the Australians spy on
      the British citizens (or some other variation
      thereof). That way, no one country can be
      charged directly with spying on its own citizens,
      but all the information goes into the black bag.

      Today, however, the USA has the USA Patriot Act,

  • Better sharing of data isn't what's needed... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...since the aim is to enable better sharing of data between government institutions.

    The system, imperfect as it was, got information about the 9/11 attacks to the top of the political food chain in time to do something about it. The president did nothing about it.

    The problem isn't reorganizing data sharing. It's reorganizing leadership.
    • Not really. If you read the 9/11 Commission Report it's pretty clear that the communications were pretty fouled up. It wasn't clear until after flight 93 went down how many aircraft had been hijacked, and what was being done about it.

    • Re:Better sharing of data isn't what's needed... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jim_Maryland ( 718224 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:53AM (#11677118)
      While the information made it to decision makers in some form, acting on every threat would be impractical. How many other reports did decision makers get that turned out to be invalid? Hind sight is always much clearer.

      As for data sharing, the problem isn't technical rather it's a policy issue. "It's reorganizing leadership." - Leadership can be blamed, but it's not only at the top level as your statement about "The president did nothing about it." indicates. Each agency tends to consider their "secrets" to be more important than other agencies "secrets". Many people are responsible at various levels in the intelligence gathering process and placing blame on a single person, the president in your case, is not realistic. Many of the policies to protect information have been in place for quite a bit of time. DHS has the task of breaking down these barriers and will hopefully lead to better communication, but even with that, determining which threats are truly credible will still be a judgement call at various levels.
      • it's amazing how easily people will just ignore that fact. Yes - there are thousands upon thousands of threats that are made that are just noise. As Bush has said, as defenders we have to get it right *every time*, but the attackers only have to get it right once.
    • "The problem isn't reorganizing data sharing. It's reorganizing leadership."

      Taken directly from the rhetoric of Michael Moore and Co.

      Seriously, it's that kind of petty finger-pointing, instead of an honest effort to find and address the REAL problems, that make these things impossible to fix.

      And yes, ineffective leadership could very well be a contributing factor. But knee-jerk reactions like "President Bush is teh suck!" don't solve anything.

  • Well hey... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@nOSpAM.etoyoc.com> on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:27AM (#11676887) Homepage Journal
    The best cops are the ones you don't know are there.

    • Re:Well hey... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zoloto ( 586738 )
      Well, this is very true in most cases however, I'm always worried about the abusue of power that sometimes comes with authority and especially with anonymity. You could have 100,000 seriously awesome, kick-ass agents out there that do in fact protect the rights and privlidges of the USA citizens while thwarting criminals, crime and other malicious deeds. But all it takes is one. One dishonest, power absorbed individual to abuse his granted powers of authority and it becomes public. Suddenly, these hidden co

  • Ambiguous (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nastard ( 124180 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:28AM (#11676892)
    After reading TFA, I'm a little confused. From what I gathered, they won't be "traffic cops" so much network guards slash data escorts. It seems to me that "traffic cops" is misleading, since it implies that they'll have some sort of authority over personal data as well.

    Or perhaps I read it wrong, and they'll be setting up speed traps and beating ethnic people.
    • So, they are becoming Johnny Mnemonic [imdb.com]?
    • On the next episode of "Packets..."

      Cop: Son, is that an evil bit I see on your header?

      Kid under flashlight: No sir, it's... it's my brother's. Yeah...

    • A traffic cop can the person standing in the street directing traffic and seeing that one confused persons doesn't stop everyone, at least if the cop can help it. This seems to be a rather good analogy for what is being proposed. No one in this article is suggesting that the NSA become a cyber 'SWAT' teams that can as shock troops against criminals. The evolution of the NDA's role from traffic cop to SWAT team will depend upon the will of the American people, a thought that I find disquieting but not hop
      • The problem is that those cops sitting on the side of the road monitoring traffic with laser guns are now called traffic cops. I agree that's not right and dictionary.com only lists your definition, but I hear it used the new way more often than the old way.

  • DHS is redundant (Score:1, Interesting)

    by _iris ( 92554 )
    I never could come to grips with creating a Department of Homeland Security when we already had a National Security Agency. It seems more like Bush had more out-of-work friends than he had positions to appoint them to.

    On a side note, has anyone else heard that the entrance to the DHS building is in an alley, and the entire office space is about as big is the lobby of the CIA HQ?

    • Re:DHS is redundant (Score:5, Informative)

      by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:43AM (#11677037)
      "I never could come to grips with creating a Department of Homeland Security when we already had a National Security Agency."

      The National Security Agency's mandate is nothing at all like DHS's. Not even similar. If you thought about this for three seconds more, you would have also realized that NSA cannot, by law, conduct surveillance on US citizens or on US territory. This would prevent them from doing criminal investigations of any sort, wouldn't it?

      This is basically akin to asking why we need the FBI when we have the CIA. The organizations have the same general goal (protect the citizens of the United States), but are supposed to be doing two entirely different things.

      -Erwos

      • Re:DHS is redundant (Score:3, Insightful)

        by skraps ( 650379 )
        If you thought about this for three seconds more, you would have also realized that NSA cannot, by law, conduct surveillance on US citizens or on US territory.

        You must forget that we're talking about the people who make the laws. Your statement about whether the NSA can lawfully monitor US citizens shows your lack of thinking here. If it was possible for them to pass a law *creating* the DHS, then it was certainly possible for them to pass a law *modifying* the NSA, FBI, CIA, or whatever other acronym yo

        • You must forget that we're talking about the people who make the laws. Your statement about whether the NSA can lawfully monitor US citizens shows your lack of thinking here. If it was possible for them to pass a law *creating* the DHS, then it was certainly possible for them to pass a law *modifying* the NSA, FBI, CIA, or whatever other acronym you want.

          Only your parent post was talking fact, whereas you are talking speculation. Right now it IS against the law for the NSA to conduct surveillance on US ci

    • Re:DHS is redundant (Score:3, Informative)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 )
      I never could come to grips with creating a Department of Homeland Security when we already had a National Security Agency. It seems more like Bush had more out-of-work friends than he had positions to appoint them to.

      This is not interesting, this is a political troll. DHS focuses strictly on what its name says: domestic stuff. The NSA, traditionally, is tasked with listening in on those international communications that would imply threats to our interests. The NSA happens to be the best technical match

    • Re:DHS is redundant (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:56AM (#11677136)
      That's because you don't understand what NSA does.

      "The National Security Agency (NSA) is a United States government agency responsible for both the collection and analysis of message communications, and for the security of government communications against similar agencies elsewhere. It is a part of the Department of Defense. Its eavesdropping brief includes radio broadcasting, both from organizations and individuals, the Internet, and other intercepted forms of communication, especially confidential communications. Its secure communications brief includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive, confidential or secret government communications."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA

      "The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a Cabinet department of the federal government of the United States that is concerned with protecting the American homeland and the safety of American citizens. This department was created primarily from a conglomeration of existing federal agencies in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Depar tm ent_of_Homeland_Security

      Office of the Secretary
      Directorate of Border and Transportation Security
      Transportation Security Administration
      U.S. Customs and Border Protection
      U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
      Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
      Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Resonse
      Federal Emergency Management Agency
      Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
      National Cyber Security Division
      Directorate of Science and Technology
      U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
      U.S. Coast Guard
      U.S. Secret Service
  • Well at least we will get some regulation for all that signal intercept.

  • My Rights Online? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yotto ( 590067 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:30AM (#11676922) Homepage
    How does this affect MRO? They're not looking at my traffic, impeding my traffic, or even thinking about my traffic. They're routing government traffic.

    And they're a government agency. /confused.
    • Because it's the government boogiemen doing something online. Every time the spooks do something involving the internet, it seems to go into 'Your Rights Online' because that's the closest-fitting category (they're supposed to protect your rights, and they're doing something online).

      That said, it's not really that fitting a description - the link between stories such as this and the idea of 'Your Rights Online' is tenuous at best, unless the editor who posted it was looking for the 'OMG NET WIRETAPPINGZ!'

    • huh? (Score:2)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      You think that no slashdot readers work in government offices, or that none of your data is possible going to pass to/from/through one?

  • Whew.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cyberfunk2 ( 656339 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:32AM (#11676942)
    The way the story read at first sounded like it was the NSA reading all internet traffic..

    if it's some sort of government central aggregation DB for the various agencies, I dont see why we should have a problem with it.

    • Re:Whew.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by PornMaster ( 749461 )
      Just because it's not the subject of this article, don't assume that they're not watching your traffic.

      Echelon doesn't get much coverage these days, but I'm sure it's still out there.
  • Isn't this idea the real-life version of the "Net Force" books?

  • Can't think of a better entity for the job (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:35AM (#11676963)
    Virtually every government agency is subject to evolution in their mission, especially when we experience a fundamental change in the technological landscape. The NSA probably has more experience, nuts-and-bolts-wise, with this subject than any other collection of humans on the planet. No question they've got the chops, but the budget warfare will be a bloody one, just like it was with the TSA or is shaping up to be on things like border crossing security or container shipment inspection. Compared to years past, these changes are happening very, very quickly. At least the NSA won't have to run out and figure out what sort of people to hire, or invent new tools to understand their mission in this case. It's more a matter of scale, and of getting, say, the IT guys at the Commerce Department to understand their nerdy new friends.

    • At least the NSA won't have to run out and figure out what sort of people to hire, or invent new tools to understand their mission in this case. It's more a matter of scale, and of getting, say, the IT guys at the Commerce Department to understand their nerdy new friends.

      There's several related issues here. And they all point to the NSA as being the likely agency to manage them.

      First - the one enforcing infosec practices can not be in the same chain of command as the entity implementing them. IT and I

  • They already monitor it all. Why expand their charter to give them offical control too?

    Makes sence to me. The NSA would be the most qualifed existing governemntal agency to do this. ( at least of the agencies that are on the books.. )

  • Government networks (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:39AM (#11676995)
    This has nothing to do with the Internet. Government networks [wikipedia.org] are separated from the Internet by an air gap. Unless you have physical access to a terminal (behind the nice guys with automatic weapons who check your credentials, at least where I worked), you can't get on SIPRNet [fas.org] or JWICS [fas.org].

    I'm all for NSA making these classified networks more secure.

  • ... microsoft.com gets hacked, and they send Frank Parker back in time 7 days to fix it...

  • NSA has -always- had dual roles (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ishmalius ( 153450 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:49AM (#11677090)
    Once again, this is not news. NSA has always had the dual mission:
    • Cryptography : the design and implementation of secret communications.
    • Cryptology : the analysis of existing secret communications.
    Ever since its inception, it has had these two tasks... making secure codes for this government, and breaking the codes of other governments.
    Here is their mission statement [nsa.gov]

  • The NSA? (Score:3, Informative)

    by tholomyes ( 610627 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @09:51AM (#11677098) Homepage
    There's No Such Agency.

    • Re:The NSA? (Score:3, Informative)

      by nelsonal ( 549144 )
      If you want to learn more about the NSA and you find yourself in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, I whole heartedly reccomend going to check out the national cryptological museum which has several excellent exhibits regarding the history of codes used by countries (they have an enigma or purple and a Cray which is more than I've ever seen in other museums).
  • Securing these data is good, and NSA might be able to help. Harmonizing accessibility and authorization sounds needful, but NSA is a strange choice for that role, I'm thinking.

    But it seems to me that the greatest needs are for someone to go round applying the boot to appropriate posteriors in order to actually dislodge jealously hoarded information, and for Congress to wake up long enough to tune laws regarding appropriate disclosure to be a little more subtle than the current don't-give-anyone-anything-e

  • P2P Government Filesharing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NardofDoom ( 821951 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @10:11AM (#11677281)
    The government should take its 'information sharing' cue from college students. You can find just about anything on P2P networks, right? So why not have a secure and authenticated P2P network available to government employees. That way, an FBI agent in Florida looking for information could fire up this application and search on the computers of everyone in the FBI, CIA, and NSA that he had access rights for. This information would be available instantaneously and freely. Think KaZaA + Kerberos. This doesn't seem to be that hard to implement. I even came up with a cute name for it: FiBbIr, the governmental knowledge engine.

  • Analogy overuse alert level: RED (Score:3, Interesting)

    by miu ( 626917 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @10:12AM (#11677286) Homepage Journal
    In an interview preceding his speech, Wolf told The Associated Press that computer networks at U.S. organizations are like medieval castles, each protected by different-size walls and moats.

    He then proceeds to add traffic cops, building standards, and interconnectedness to the mix and try to maintain the castle analogy.

    I know that analogy and metaphor can be a powerful tool in helping people understand systems, but it is painful to watch a speaker twist and manipulate their explanations trying to fit things into the framework they decided to use.

    It also makes me wonder if the speaker is intentionally misleading his audience.

  • NSA (Score:1)

    by sxmjmae ( 809464 )
    There is
    No
    Such
    Agency

    How could one agency manage that much network traffic? Would they black mail the governement official for all the goatS*x sites they visit?

  • Actually, NSA has been the go-to agency for computer security for at least 20 years. Look for the National Computer Security Center on Google.
  • I, for one, welcome our fellow super secret nerd overlords. Don't forget, the NSA gave us SELinux and their intellectual property is second to none. Once many of their technologies and software are declassified, you will see some fantastic innovations released into the free world. Read Body of Secrets and let your imagination run rampant as to the computing and information processing capabilities if focused on sheer capitalism.
  • I'm sure this comment won't rest well with most /.'ers, but personally I wouldn't mind seeing the NSA (or perhaps a UN version of the NSA) become the traffic cops for the internet. Perhaps we could actually cut down on viruses, worm, spyware, etc with a legally empowered entity in charge.
  • The first thing that came to my mind, when I saw this article, was Netforce.

  • Here comes the new Sheriff (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DrDebug ( 10230 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @10:56AM (#11677736) Journal
    The innocence (ignorance) of the early Internet is long gone. The hackers and scammers and spammers and phishers and terrorists have found they can profit from the current state of the Internet. Their exploits will cost us all.

    Our freedom and liberties are now fading. We will no longer be anonymous in our posts. The age-old question of liberty tempered by security concerns once again raises it's head.

    The NSA may be the new sheriff in town. They will require more money and more computer power than what they have now; but given the will of a security-conscious government, it will happen. Big Brother will be born again, unless a knowledgable judiciary reigns in their power.

    It was fun while it lasted. Everything changes.

  • Hey... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @10:59AM (#11677762) Homepage Journal
    If it means that the black helecopters abduct those fuckers who keep sending me Nigerian E-Mail scams and phishing scams, I'm all for it. They could stash them in the cell next to Manuel Noriega. Whatever happened to ol' Manuel anyway? Did he ever even get a trial? Is that a black helecopter? Ow! Hey quit it! #^!#@!~ [NO CARRIER]
  • "NSA to oversee communication between government agencies"

    The original reading gives the impression that the NSA is going to be watching all internet traffic, rather than limiting their scope to traffic going between governmental offices and departments.

    There's nothing about this that would seem to have a limiting effect on the rights of the general public, only the rights of those sending information from, say, their desk at the State Department to someone else's desk in the DIA.

  • Paranoid blathering by people who don't know a firewall from a fire hydrant aside, what TFA is talking about is giving the NSA authority over network security standards. This means that the NSA will CERTIFY that a particular network, say the FDA, meets the minumum standards necessary to take part in the information sharing network of the DHS. They will most likely also audit said networks regularly.

    In this light, they will be much more of a building inspector than a traffic cop, ensuring that your foun

  • If not, then you are kinda naive.


    Maybe not every packet on every wire...but you can damn well bet that is their goal.


    1984, 20 years late.....

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