Bitcoin philosophical musings and pressures 7 years in [drifted from: txrate, forking, etc]

Softy softservant at gmail.com
Tue Jul 7 21:39:41 PDT 2015


> From: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l at odewijk.nl>
> To: Sean Lynch <seanl at literati.org>
> Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" <cypherpunks at cpunks.org>
>



> > his documents are genuine. I see no reason for the NSA to be
> substantially
> > more competent than, say, the OPM.
>
>
> There's absolutely no reason to think the NSA doesn't have a
> layered/multi-cell operation wherein a mere contractor is not given access
> to nation-essential secrets. If there's a foreign spy you want him to
>


​They do have such a layer system.  The problem is the fluidity of the
people.  Soldiers become Contractors become Government Employees become
Contractors ad​-infinitum.

Once cleared, the system has not managed to remain opaque from within.  In
times past it was -- and that successful model was condemned as having "not
prevented" the Sept 2001 bombing.  Thus the stovepipe security model was
banished; "war effort" requires exorbitant high staffing increases which
led to inevitable, and predictable lowering of tactics, techniques and
procedures.

That trend has since reversed (I would argue pre-Snowden) and the beast is
once again slowly shrouding itself within and increasingly outward.  As
with any good Corporate makeover, with a kinder gentler face.


[[ my removal of your excellent government employee summary is not because
of any disagreement - whether military or civilian employee, the vast
majority are of a mind you described.  But, as has been eloquently stated
Power Corrupts Absolutely. ]]



> shows a certain amount of rot in NSA_Public. The recent Trident leak shows
>
>

'​NSA_Public' is an excellent​

​characterization.  That which we know of the Agency will forever be
shadowed by it's hidden complexities.  Having exposed a portion of one
small stovepipe, the tubing now changes and reworks itself hiding the
un-discerned exposed parts, and more closely guarding the vast un-exposed
bulk.

​I use my description of "small" ​completely intentional.  The scale of the
"Snowden Topics" is minor compared to the remaining unknowns.  Carefully
protected within the 'NSA_Closed'.  Not only by the regrowing stovepipes,
but as well by the people you aptly described as genuinely, legitimately,
and correctly striving to maintain the integrity of the beast.  Just as
they don't understand the oppositions claims aptly describing the
illegitimacy of the beast, neither will the opposition.  Sadly the two are
closer in philosophical agreement than either realize.  And probably won't
without the benefit of hindsight, whatever sort of post-empirical change
allows for the creation of a commonly agreed on framework of reference.
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