I mentioned NSDD-145 and Ed Carp asked for more information:
Savage Road is the actual address of the Agency; Fort Meade per se is huge. NCSC as created in 1984 as part of NSDD-145 (National Security Decision Directive-145, a very important one). Prior to that date it had been called the DoD Computer Security Center, located smack dab in the center of SIGINT City.
Why is Directive 145 important? <curious>
National Security Decision Directive 145 (NSDD-145) was signed by Reagan in 1984 as the "National Policy on Telecommunications and Automated Information Security." It extended the charter of the NSA from just the protection of government information (I'm talking about the COMSEC part of NSA, of course) to commercial, non-gov't information as well. The "Commercial COMSEC Endorsement Program" (CCEP). (I believe COMSEC, Communications Security, has since been changed to INFOSEC. One thing the Agency does is to frequently change the names of groups, departments, functions. Security by bureaucracy I guess.) You may recall that the Feds said around this time that DES was basically dead, that the CCEP would result in a new line of crypto systems...several companies, including Cylink, Intel, etc., developed products for inclusion on the Evaluated Products List (EPL). NSDD-145 also created the NCSC, as noted earlier. As everyone knows, "DOCKMASTER" is a not-especially-secure machine used by NCSC-affiliated researchers and vendors to send mail, etc. The frequent comments about how the NSA/NCSC is "on the Net" are hardly revelatory. Many machines are on the Net, and you can surely bet that the important machines are not. (And of course various nets exist. Milnet (or MILNET, or whatever) is one, and various successors to the old AUTOVON and AUTODIN command and control nets.) The National Computer Security Act came later, circa 1987. I have a lot more stuff in my files, but this ought to satisfy the casually curious. -Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.