NSA Circles the Wagons - Ditching 90% of its System Administrators to Keep Lid on Secrets

[bigtree]

from Raw Story:


The National Security Agency (NSA) intends to eliminate the majority of its system administrators as a way to reduce the number of humans who could leak sensitive data, Edward Snowden-style.

NSA director Keith Alexander told a conference in New York City that headcount among its system administrators would be severely curtailed in the future. “What we’re in the process of doing—not fast enough—is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent,” he said, according to Reuters. The newswire added that roughly 1,000 such employees maintain the agency’s networks and equipment.

The NSA is dismissing all those people in the name of secrecy. “What we’ve done,” Alexander added, “is we’ve put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing.” An automated system operated by a minimum of human beings, on the other hand, will make the NSA’s digital assets more defensible.

The NSA claims this automation initiative began before Edward Snowden leaked top-secret information about the agency’s surveillance programs to The Guardian, but that it accelerated the timetable following that fracas . . .


read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/10/nsa-ditching-90-percent-of-its-system-administrators-to-avoid-leaks/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[hobbit709]

1. Murphy is always waiting.

[HereSince1628]

2. Yet, the basic problem seems to remain elusive

Democracy can't function in a surveillance state organized by secret laws, secret courts, through secret debates all based around the idea that citizens at liberty in the nation are the primary source of the national security problem.

[bigtree]

9. I think there will be a move by Congress to provide more 'transparency'

I can't see that effort pulling the lid off of the more insidious provisions of the 9-11 era intelligence regime, and that's really what we need to get at - issues related to e-mails and other private communications which involve the new and emerging technology. Somehow, government is bent on carving out special exceptions and denying new forms of communication like internet and cellphones protections that ordinary private communications have been provided by the law - like phone or postage communications.

Moreover, there is definitely an effort by this present administration - much like the past one - to string Congress along until they come up with a plan which doesn't put them or their present snooping efforts in jeopardy, or make them liable for any overreach, illegality, or impropriety, as legislators uncover and reform the system of collecting data and intelligence.

It's almost certain that the administrations efforts have gone beyond what many legislators believe is the letter and intent of the protections they provided in earlier legislation. It's the finer points of Obama administration rationale and legal justifications for their own snooping which have not been completely forthcoming from the WH.

It's that deliberately 'greyed' area which is the key to whether there will be real reform of the system of intelligence, or, just tweaks and polish to make Americans more comfortable - or more willing - to accept these intrusions of privacy and the limiting or evisceration of rights.

[bemildred]

3. Well I must say that is an interesting approach to that problem.

Since generally the sysadmin types are the only people who have a clue about such things.

[bigtree]

4. on one hand, I'd think it would be better to have less eyes on the mass of data

. . . then, as you say, you can wonder about the centralization of that authority and analysis and suppose it will be better or worse.

[bemildred]

7. One only collects everything for one of two reasons:

1.) You don't know any better, as a technical matter, i.e. you are not smart enough to figure out how to be selective. Sometimes that problem will be intrinsic, there is no reductive representation that is better, it's random in other words, low or no serial correlation.

2.) Anal retentive fantasies of being able to do something useful with it, or the fear of "missing something".

In this case, I think it's both, they don't really know what they are looking for and they don't really know what they want to do with it, and they live in a world dominated by fear so they don't want to miss anything.

[bigtree]

12. so right. Garbage in, garbage out

. . . and the assumption by humans that machines which make reasoning more efficient, make that reasoning more sound.

[Jesus Malverde]

25. They are also engineers who like to solve technical challenges

Given little oversight and unlimited budgets, a smart nerd can be a dangerous thing.

[bemildred]

34. Only too true. Strange and beautiful (sometimes) things get done.

Beautiful when it works, when it doesn't it could take a leg off. That desire just "to see if it would work" can lead to all sorts of trouble.

[Th1onein]

31. "Anal retentive fantasies of being able to do something useful with it" YEP, but it's not Anal

retentive.

It has to do with amassing vast stores of future "evidence" against anyone and everyone who gets in the way of anything and everything they want. Don't like this particular prosecutor (Eliot Spitzer, say)? They have his bank account records and they see he's paid for escorts. Bingo! They bring him down before he can bring down Wall Street.

Hey, their system works!

[jmowreader]

41. Very snotty way of putting it

The first one is kinda like what you do when you're looking for the wooden spoon your toddler was playing with. You know it's in the house but he has access to every room so you look everywhere. NSA's problem is the things they're looking for, specifically terrorists, don't follow schedules so you have to look really hard for them. In the wooden spoon example, inject an Irish setter that digs under your fence. As was stated in the op-ed the Rand Corporation guy wrote, if you're looking for a needle in a haystack you need a haystack.

The second has been repeatedly proven, that if you identify a guy who you've seen before you should go back and look at what he did before you knew who he was.

[bemildred]

43. Yep, once you know who a guy is, that's a good time to look into what they did before.

Start a dossier. Keeps one pretty busy I imagine, but well worth it to some.

[RC]

5. Yep. Hopefully, this will end well.

I wonder what the NSA is gonna do when something goes pear shaped, and it will. Hard drive crashes, memory goes bad, CPU's get squirrely. Even a intermittent connection(s). Programs get corrupted. We can only hope.

[bemildred]

8. I think it's safe to say it has already not ended well, except it is by no means ended. nt

[fredamae]

6. So they say n/t

[kelliekat44]

10. Well one thing Snowden has done to reduce outside contractors. And that's good. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Gotta admit...the headline word "eliminate"

made my stomach lurch.
Then I thought....NSA is only about 2-3 steps away from doing something like that.

[Brigid]

13. So now there are a bunch of disgruntled systems administrators running around?

That doesn't sound good for the NSA.

[hootinholler]

18. For the moment they are still gruntled

So they can get their insurance policies together.

[LondonReign2]

14. He's not doing this to

make the system more efficient....or to make it run better....or make it more accurate...or make it less costly.

He admits that the reason he is doing it is TO MAKE IT MORE SECRET.

[reformist2]

16. It's an increasingly paranoid circle that keeps drawing smaller and smaller circles around itself.

Sorry, don't mean to alarm, but this is EXACTLY how dictatorships start.

[reformist2]

15. The circle of people "in the know" is shrinking to an increasingly elite few. Not a good thing.

[dembotoz]

17. how long before the system becomes self aware

[Fumesucker]

23. Becomes?

[ljm2002]

19. That is amusing...

...and I'm sure the NSA will not find any downside to getting rid of 9 out of 10 sysadmins. I'm sure they will not experience any system outages, or security breaches since they will now have overloaded sysadmins who as a result will make more errors. How long do you think it will be before they suffer a system outage, or worse, a security breach because of this action?

And as another poster pointed out, what a good idea to create a bunch of disgruntled sysadmins who have worked on NSA systems. Nothing could go wrong there...

Well it will be interesting to monitor this development.

[Th1onein]

29. Talk about leaks! Whoa! This was NOT a good move.

[Dash87]

20. "We've decided to destroy every NSA computer"

They'll never get our secrets now!

[hughee99]

21. Now all this work can be done without involving a human,

so it will be easier for those who know how to get information to get it with less oversight. Can't have all those sysadmins knowing who accessed what and why.

[AppleBottom]

22. Wait I thought that not just anybody could access the information that Snowden was talking about.

If that's true why do they need to can these people. Unless somebody is lying... and it wouldn't be Snowden if you understand simple arithmetic.

[Th1onein]

28. Good catch, AppleBottom!

What was it they said the other day? That what Snowden said that he did couldn't be done?

Yeah, right. That's why you're getting rid of people who might actually do it again.

Fucking liars. They are really burying themselves in lies, aren't they?

[AppleBottom]

45. They think that if the throw out enough garbage propaganda we'll get tired.

Well I'm not getting tired.

[ljm2002]

32. +1000! n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Get those humans out of here! They may have CONSCIENCES!!

[Th1onein]

27. Wahahahaha! Thank you for that!

[liberal_at_heart]

33. +1

[woo me with science]

39. +10000

Can't have that.

[Th1onein]

26. Cat's out of the bag, boys; horses out of the barn. TOO LATE. YOU LOSE.

STOP SPYING ON ME.

[wtmusic]

35. +1

[millennialmax]

30. Those getting their pink slips can thank Snowden and Greenwald.

Standing in the unemployment line as the people who blew all of this out of proportion laugh all the way to banks in Moscow and Brazil.

[wtmusic]

36. Why can't they cash in too?

Because your meme is bullshit.

[millennialmax]

37. Coming from someone with your avatar, that's rich.

[bobduca]

38. Evil Greenwald and nasty Snowden!111

Is there no end to the villainy from these two treasonous gadflies !?!?!?

Weep, O Ye Patriots for the private contractor system administrators !!!

Pity their poor ballerina girlfriends!

[backscatter712]

46. If you make a living by violating people's Constitutional rights,

I've got no sympathy for you if you lose your job.

[Sancho]

40. Welcome Skynet!

[whttevrr]

48. Darn... I was gonna use that one...

Do they have cyborgs?

[jmowreader]

42. Good.

The next thing he needs to clean out is the $85,000 Private Corps at the Pentagon. In The Big One we sent soldiers to cook meals and deliver ammo, and they made $50 per month as any modern-day GI who's ever visited a World War II veteran will attest. In Bushwars I and II we sent civilian contractors and paid them $85,000 a year, because Bush hates the government.

We could cut down unnecessary wars by requiring anyone who participates in one to be an active duty soldier or a reserve soldier whose unit has been called to active duty.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. Gee, you'd almost think they have something to hide.

[Rex]

47. Wow, so they don't want anyone at the helm of the Titanic?

What a completely stupid move. Sounds like they are in full panic mode.