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I want to raise an issue that people often ignore. We put the government's fault onto an employee's fault. But I will state my position clearly: I do think the

by yeukhon 13y ago

I want to raise an issue that people often ignore. We put the government's fault onto an employee's fault. But I will state my position clearly: I do think the resignation is a good thing. I don't agree with the word "removal". The biggest problem to me is not about NSA involvement, it is how WE treat people who work at NSA and other government intelligence agency. If the fear of a single man is what makes the issue hot, I beg to differ. You can disagree with him and not pass the standard. If the whole committee thinks there is something fishy, I see no reason why the proposal would get through the internal draft. It is that distrust. My school and many schools out there would send out internship notice; if you are a public school one of those would be government internship and among them is NSA and FBI. How do we treat these kids in the future? How should we treat our future or current co-workers who had worked as contractor or done internship at NSA, FBI and CIA? Do we trust them? The fact that "NSA [employees] (edit, response to http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03556.html http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03556.h...) should not be in any position in the cryto committee" is too far. He should resign in fact, to avoid interest conflict; people don't trust NSA right now. But how are we treating these employees? Have we asked him privately? Should this email be in the public in the first place? Have they ever had a private conservation about this? I think like it is more of an attack and a warning to all NSA-title employees that they should never reveal their affiliations, even on resume. Since everyone does things differently, some will never join NSA and some will for either money or technical development or patriotism, how do we as people treat these employees? I am upset that when people look down at them and think they are rat. This is a stronger ethic issue that few notice. The whole "removal" sounds like "one ought not be an NSA employee." Being someone new to security and admire open standard and fear of backdoor, I think it is nicer and professional if that has been raised to Kevin Igoe first privately. From the way the mail is phrased: it never happened.

bandushrew 13y ago
"The whole "removal" sounds like "one ought not be an NSA employee." It is not that one 'ought not'. It is that the NSA is spying on us all. It is also lying about what it is doing, and being deceitful about its tactics. People need to make a choice about where they stand. If they want to stand with the NSA, that is fine. Unfortunately from a practical POV, it means I cannot trust them. On the bright side, I cannot think of any reason an ex employee of the NSA would be honest about their previous employment.
semiel 13y ago
I'm happy to state it directly: One ought not be an NSA employee.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  That's rather radical and unprofessional to say. One can say such thing to Google, Facebook, Adobe or any company out there if they dislike that company. Any nsa contractor who depends on government contract to feed their families - is it wrong? If I can't find a job at private industry but NSA hired me for 3 months is it wrong that I did it for the money for my family? How would you know that was my story? You won't and you will just penalize me for being a contractor once. And people have different degree of tolerance and standard for patriotism. i don't endorse what they do, but that's exact false attitude we have toward NSA affiliations. We put government's fault onto the workers and it is wrong.
  - bandushrew 13y ago
    "That's rather radical and unprofessional to say." In what sense is it unprofessional? "Any nsa contractor who depends on government contract to feed their families - is it wrong? " in a moral sense? who knows. but from a practical sense it genuinely does mean I cannot trust you. hey, I understand what you are saying - and I sympathise, but at the end of the day there are clear, solid reasons why I cannot trust an ex NSA employee. "And people have different degree of tolerance and standard for patriotism. i don't endorse what they do, but that's exact false attitude we have toward NSA affiliations." working for the NSA is not patriotic. it is the opposite of patriotic. it is associating with sneaky people who deceive and lie.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      Unprofessional because we put the government's fault onto an employee's fault. Let's take a secretary. There is no technical skill she did. She was just a secretary under some general at NSA. Sure she could be a spy. So now every NSA employee is marked as "untrustworthy". If I may allowed to be radical in my own response, isn't this what the red scared is all about. You are a friend to X who is a known communist and now I cannot trust you. You were a secretary for this communist spy, I cannot trust you even though you didn't know. You just deal his daily accounting. There are simply people who work for NSA for reason like employment. > working for the NSA is not patriotic. Yes, I will agree that jeopardizing democracy and liberty is not patriotic. But I am saying from the guy who started out at age 20 and thought it was everything he could do for the country, and now he realized he was wrong. Now do you trust him? The ultimate issue is again, we are equating NSA is untrustworthy == employees are untrustworthy people.
walls 13y ago
> The fact that "NSA should not be in any position in the cryto committee" is too far. Why? There's absolutely zero reason to allow people taking part in the NSA's antics into groups deciding public policy. We need to make working for the NSA a big red 'untrustworthy ' flag, regardless of alleged level of involvement.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  I meant to say NSA employee. My response is directly to this: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03556.html http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03556.h... The moral issue is about someone's affiliation with NSA makes him or her a spy, unworthy in the crypto community. If people have different opinion when they were young (or in the case of a student who just want a god damn internship), it sounds like we will punish them and discriminate them in the future, given their past involvement with NSA.
  - bandushrew 13y ago
    I dont think we will punish them. We simply cannot trust them. If they want to be trusted, they need to stand apart from the people who are lying and deceiving us about their tactics and their data gathering.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      > I dont think we will punish them. We simply cannot trust them. Will you risk your company's integrity and reputation over hiring someone who had worked for NSA? An undergraduate? A father who had three kids to feed and just took the job to make a living? Not trusting often turns out to be punishing. And in many cases we simply just discriminate them. This is a serious issue, a real moral issue.
      - bandushrew 13y ago
        as always, people have to make choices. I cannot save others from the impact of the choices they make. and I would not want to. You appear to be arguing that we should not judge people based on their actions - I am unsure where that leaves us?
discardorama 13y ago
> The biggest problem to me is not about NSA involvement, it is how WE treat people who work at NSA and other government intelligence agency. An organization is made up of people. If you don't like what the organization is doing, you start by holding the people accountable. I see nothing wrong with shunning people who, in their professional capacity, are a part of machine that uses said capability to undermine my rights and privacy.

by yeukhon 13y ago

bandushrew 13y ago

"The whole "removal" sounds like "one ought not be an NSA employee." It is not that one 'ought not'. It is that the NSA is spying on us all. It is also lying about what it is doing, and being deceitful about its tactics. People need to make a choice about where they stand. If they want to stand with the NSA, that is fine. Unfortunately from a practical POV, it means I cannot trust them. On the bright side, I cannot think of any reason an ex employee of the NSA would be honest about their previous employment.

semiel 13y ago

I'm happy to state it directly: One ought not be an NSA employee.

yeukhon 13y ago
That's rather radical and unprofessional to say. One can say such thing to Google, Facebook, Adobe or any company out there if they dislike that company. Any nsa contractor who depends on government contract to feed their families - is it wrong? If I can't find a job at private industry but NSA hired me for 3 months is it wrong that I did it for the money for my family? How would you know that was my story? You won't and you will just penalize me for being a contractor once. And people have different degree of tolerance and standard for patriotism. i don't endorse what they do, but that's exact false attitude we have toward NSA affiliations. We put government's fault onto the workers and it is wrong.
- bandushrew 13y ago
  "That's rather radical and unprofessional to say." In what sense is it unprofessional? "Any nsa contractor who depends on government contract to feed their families - is it wrong? " in a moral sense? who knows. but from a practical sense it genuinely does mean I cannot trust you. hey, I understand what you are saying - and I sympathise, but at the end of the day there are clear, solid reasons why I cannot trust an ex NSA employee. "And people have different degree of tolerance and standard for patriotism. i don't endorse what they do, but that's exact false attitude we have toward NSA affiliations." working for the NSA is not patriotic. it is the opposite of patriotic. it is associating with sneaky people who deceive and lie.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Unprofessional because we put the government's fault onto an employee's fault. Let's take a secretary. There is no technical skill she did. She was just a secretary under some general at NSA. Sure she could be a spy. So now every NSA employee is marked as "untrustworthy". If I may allowed to be radical in my own response, isn't this what the red scared is all about. You are a friend to X who is a known communist and now I cannot trust you. You were a secretary for this communist spy, I cannot trust you even though you didn't know. You just deal his daily accounting. There are simply people who work for NSA for reason like employment. > working for the NSA is not patriotic. Yes, I will agree that jeopardizing democracy and liberty is not patriotic. But I am saying from the guy who started out at age 20 and thought it was everything he could do for the country, and now he realized he was wrong. Now do you trust him? The ultimate issue is again, we are equating NSA is untrustworthy == employees are untrustworthy people.

walls 13y ago

> The fact that "NSA should not be in any position in the cryto committee" is too far. Why? There's absolutely zero reason to allow people taking part in the NSA's antics into groups deciding public policy. We need to make working for the NSA a big red 'untrustworthy ' flag, regardless of alleged level of involvement.

yeukhon 13y ago
I meant to say NSA employee. My response is directly to this: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03556.html http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/cfrg/current/msg03556.h... The moral issue is about someone's affiliation with NSA makes him or her a spy, unworthy in the crypto community. If people have different opinion when they were young (or in the case of a student who just want a god damn internship), it sounds like we will punish them and discriminate them in the future, given their past involvement with NSA.
- bandushrew 13y ago
  I dont think we will punish them. We simply cannot trust them. If they want to be trusted, they need to stand apart from the people who are lying and deceiving us about their tactics and their data gathering.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    > I dont think we will punish them. We simply cannot trust them. Will you risk your company's integrity and reputation over hiring someone who had worked for NSA? An undergraduate? A father who had three kids to feed and just took the job to make a living? Not trusting often turns out to be punishing. And in many cases we simply just discriminate them. This is a serious issue, a real moral issue.
    - bandushrew 13y ago
      as always, people have to make choices. I cannot save others from the impact of the choices they make. and I would not want to. You appear to be arguing that we should not judge people based on their actions - I am unsure where that leaves us?

discardorama 13y ago

> The biggest problem to me is not about NSA involvement, it is how WE treat people who work at NSA and other government intelligence agency. An organization is made up of people. If you don't like what the organization is doing, you start by holding the people accountable. I see nothing wrong with shunning people who, in their professional capacity, are a part of machine that uses said capability to undermine my rights and privacy.