2nd CJ update

Looks like the stalling tactics have begun. I just got a phone call
from "Susan Shea" from the National Security Agency. She said that to
"make a better determination" she would need a copy of the diskette.

I explained (as I had in my written request) that the diskette in
question contained exactly the same source code as was printed in Part
5 of the book Applied Cryptography, byte for byte. But she claimed
that as she did not have a copy of that, she would still need the
diskette.
 
Right. The NSA doesn't have a copy of Applied Cryptography, and has
never seen one. Yet, apparently, they signed off on my original CJ
request to export the printed book (the State letter mentions comments
from the Department of Defense, which is always a code phrase for the
NSA in such situations).

Sigh. I will send it off to them. This should buy them about two days,
unless I get really extravagant and switch from Priority Mail to
Express Mail...

Phil

PS. Does anybody consider it odd that someone from the NSA would actually
identify themselves as such?

Phil Karn writes:
 > Looks like the stalling tactics have begun. I just got a phone call
 > from "Susan Shea" from the National Security Agency. She said that to
 > "make a better determination" she would need a copy of the diskette.

Well, this *might* be a stalling tactic, or it might just be typical
bureaucratic behavior.

Put yourself in the bureaucrat's place: you start working on this
problem, and you decide everything looks OK for approving the request.
You take the approval form to your superior for a sign-off, and she
asks "How thoroughly did you examine the material?"  Nobody in their
right mind would want to be in this position and have to answer "Well,
I didn't look at it at all.  They said it was the same as this other
stuff here."

--
| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

> 
> Phil
> 
> PS. Does anybody consider it odd that someone from the NSA would actually
> identify themselves as such?
> 

They've been doing this for years. There's even a nice sign outside
the Fort Meade facility saying "National Security Agency." (It also
said "No photography allowed," but I snapped some anyway when I was
visiting the area in April, 1992. The NSA sign apparently went up only
months earlier.)

Such "outings" of spy agency names follow a similar progression:
ignorance, denial, revelation, overexposure, nonchalance.

I can recall when I was attending Langley High School, in Northern
Virginia of course, that the CIA headquarters next to Langley H.S.
only had a sign saying "Department of Transportation Testing Track,"
or somesuch. This was circa 1967. (Of course, keeping "secret" the
location of the CIA headquarters was a joke....we all knew it, and so
did the Russians, etc.)

-- in the early 1970s, the CIA became widely known (hated on campus,
etc.).

-- in the early 1980s, the NSA become widely known (well, widely known
to a certain class of activists and folks like us)

(Prior to the 1980s, mention of NSA was rarely made. Employees of NSA
didn't mention it, and "Fort George Meade" was the only thing
mentioned. Prior to the mid-70s, the NSA name never even appeared in
Congressional budgets or reports. Its existence was very widely known,
though.)

-- in the late 1980s, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) became
known to the public (e.g., the book "Deep Black," about spy
satellites...also the works of Richelson and others).

Makes you wonder what TLAs are still largely unknown to the public.

Paraphrasing "She," "The Agency Whose Name May Not be Spoken."

My bet is that FinCEN is just the tip of the iceberg. I have reason to
believe an economic espionage unit has been in existence for many
years, deriving from the Economic Warfare Unit in World War II. 


--Tim May


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