someHost@nsa.gov

In message Sun, 28 Aug 94 03:11:00 EDT, Carl Ellison <cme@tis.com>  writes:
> I ran into an NSA policy office person at CRYPTO'94 and suggested to him
> that the NSA should set up a WWW page from the crypto museum -- and also
> post occasionally to sci.crypt from some nsa.gov host.  He was very open
> to the first idea but not to the second.  (problem apparently with the
> standard disclaimer not being good enough for them. :-)

This is strange. I see no difference between somehost.nsa.gov
and docmaster.ncsc.mil
ncsc is nothing but a public front for NSA. It is located at Ft Meade, etc.
This is not news.

Why wouldn't they be willing to post from dockmaster?

Pat

Pat Farrell      Grad Student                 pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu
Department of Computer Science    George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Public key availble via finger          #include <standard.disclaimer>

>Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 10:37:28 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Pat Farrell" <pfarrell@netcom.com>

>This is strange. I see no difference between somehost.nsa.gov
>and docmaster.ncsc.mil
>ncsc is nothing but a public front for NSA. It is located at Ft Meade, etc.
>This is not news.

There's a difference.  docmaster.ncsc.mil gives guest accounts to all sorts
of private security consultants -- perhaps to dilute/mask any NSA presence.
Everyone I've talked to from dockmaster has been non-NSA.

>Why wouldn't they be willing to post [...]

The answer I was given was that anything coming from a host named "nsa"
would be taken as an official statement from the NSA (remember the alleged
loose cannon who tried to tell the IEEE not to have an international
meeting on crypto?).

 - Carl