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Are there any cases where the actions of the NSA are in any way beneficial to US citizens? Can they show that they have ever done anything positive at all? Have

Are there any cases where the actions of the NSA are in any way beneficial to US citizens? Can they show that they have ever done anything positive at all? Have they saved a single life? Stopped a single threat? Or are they too busy jerking it to sexting pics and playing WoW (seriously? Come on, guys) to actually do anything useful with the BILLIONS of dollars of money that they get to play with?

sp332 13y ago
Lots of education: Conferences, teacher training, student scholarships. Also, selinux.
mikeash 13y ago
The NSA has done a lot of beneficial things, such as helping design more secure crypto primitives (e.g. strengthening DES against differential cryptanalysis, fixing SHA-0 to produce SHA-1) and helping build secure software (e.g. SE Linux). I assume what you really mean is whether their dragnet surveillance in particular is ever beneficial to US citizens, and that certainly seems to be a "no".
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  Why should we assume that SELinux is secure? I would suspect that if there was NSA involvement then it is necessarily less secure because they would want to be able to access it at will.
  - dfc 13y ago
    You can login to Russell's selinux debian box and see for yourself. He gives the hostname and the root password here: http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html
mpyne 13y ago
> Are there any cases where the actions of the NSA are in any way beneficial to US citizens? Can they show that they have ever done anything positive at all? Yes, and quite easily. If that's your only testing criteria for whether a government agency is useful then NSA will pass with flying colors.
dfc 13y ago
It is posts like this that make me think twice about reading the comments on NSA stories. For starters how many intelligence agencies publicize their successes? Do you think other four eyes purchase full page ads detailing the highlights of successful intelligence operations? Anyway lets skip the banal "intelligence agencies failures are public and the successes are private" and get to actual examples: DES SBoxes SELinux NSA Academic Centers of Excellence VENONA
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  Exactly my point. An organization like the NSA can say "Oh, yeah. We've had great success. We can't tell you what it was, of course. Just take our word for it. What's that you're typing there? Don't want to tell us? It doesn't matter, because we already know."
  - dfc 13y ago
    And yet off the top of my head I was able to provide you with four programs/ways NSA has benefited the lives of US citizens. Why did you ask for examples if you were going to completely ignore them?
    - zacinbusiness 13y ago
      I don't trust a cryptography tool that the NSA says is secure when they openly and proudly spy on US citizens. Centers of Academic Excellence? They are probably also involved in the School of the Americas. Just calling something a school doesn't make it a good thing.

sp332 13y ago

Lots of education: Conferences, teacher training, student scholarships. Also, selinux.

mikeash 13y ago

The NSA has done a lot of beneficial things, such as helping design more secure crypto primitives (e.g. strengthening DES against differential cryptanalysis, fixing SHA-0 to produce SHA-1) and helping build secure software (e.g. SE Linux). I assume what you really mean is whether their dragnet surveillance in particular is ever beneficial to US citizens, and that certainly seems to be a "no".

zacinbusiness 13y ago
Why should we assume that SELinux is secure? I would suspect that if there was NSA involvement then it is necessarily less secure because they would want to be able to access it at will.
- dfc 13y ago
  You can login to Russell's selinux debian box and see for yourself. He gives the hostname and the root password here: http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html

mpyne 13y ago

> Are there any cases where the actions of the NSA are in any way beneficial to US citizens? Can they show that they have ever done anything positive at all? Yes, and quite easily. If that's your only testing criteria for whether a government agency is useful then NSA will pass with flying colors.

dfc 13y ago

It is posts like this that make me think twice about reading the comments on NSA stories. For starters how many intelligence agencies publicize their successes? Do you think other four eyes purchase full page ads detailing the highlights of successful intelligence operations? Anyway lets skip the banal "intelligence agencies failures are public and the successes are private" and get to actual examples: DES SBoxes SELinux NSA Academic Centers of Excellence VENONA

zacinbusiness 13y ago
Exactly my point. An organization like the NSA can say "Oh, yeah. We've had great success. We can't tell you what it was, of course. Just take our word for it. What's that you're typing there? Don't want to tell us? It doesn't matter, because we already know."
- dfc 13y ago
  And yet off the top of my head I was able to provide you with four programs/ways NSA has benefited the lives of US citizens. Why did you ask for examples if you were going to completely ignore them?
  - zacinbusiness 13y ago
    I don't trust a cryptography tool that the NSA says is secure when they openly and proudly spy on US citizens. Centers of Academic Excellence? They are probably also involved in the School of the Americas. Just calling something a school doesn't make it a good thing.