Traceable Infrastructure is as vulnerable as traceable messages.

[Tim May]

On Thursday, August 9, 2001, at 06:32 PM, Faustine wrote:

> Jim wrote:
>> Faustine:
>>> I think it's dangerous and entirely to your disadvantage to
>>> dismiss everyone doing government work in computer security as
>>> a donut- chomping incompetent Barney-Fife-clone imbecile.
>>>
>>> Anyone can laugh at the department heads on C-SPAN, but did you  ever
>>> stop to think about who's really doing the hardcore
>>> research for the NSA at Ft. Meade--and elsewhere?
> I know of an old-school NSA red teamer who's been teaching programming 
> and
> engineering since before either one of us was born. An honest-to-god
> mathematical genius. Some of those old wizards could teach us all a 
> thing
or two.

Since I have no idea how old the "Jim" you cite is, and since I suspect 
you are less than 25 years old,  your claims are not very impressive.

We have had (and may still have) list members who were developing 
systems for the NSA in 1963, fully 37 years ago. (Cf. "Harvest" in 
Bamford's 1983 book. A hardy reader will known what I'm talking about.)

You twentysomething grad student should be very careful when talking 
about 'before either one of us was born." While probably true, of little 
significance.


--Tim May