Thread: NSA Cryptologs declassified

So NSA has declassified the Cryptologs form 1974 - 1997.

NSA Communicators - NSA/CSS

Lots of interesting stuff...I've just done a little poking and prodding, no serious reading.

3 tidbits that I found really interesting:

March 1977

Examples of this uneven nature of data distribution are quite pronounced now and will be
greatly exaggerated when the IBM storage system called OAK is added to the present IBM
370/168 complex. With its 169 billion byte
storage and "virtual disk" concepts, it is
bound to lead to a large imbalance in storage
of data throughout the general purpose system.

So basically, NSA had a 157gb hard drive 30 years before it was available to the public.


Spring 1997

(D) Second, the public reaction to this new age has a direct relationship to the National Security
Agency and the way we do business. At the beginning of the Industrial Age, the public centered in on
industrialists and/or capitalists as being "the problem." Labor unions were created and child labor laws
were enacted to curb their power. In today's Age, the public has centered in on government as "the problem." Specifically, the focus is on the potential abuse ofthe Government's applications of this new information technology that will result in an invasion of personal privacy. For us, thisis difficult to understand.
We are "the government," and we have no interest in invading the personal privacy of U.S. citizens.

Seems almost the total opposite of the direction that the gov't is heading nowadays.

March 1979

COMMON OPERATING SYSTEM VULNERABILITIES
Operating system vulnerabilities general1
fall into one or more of the following seven
classes:


Incomplete parameter validation
Inconsistent parameter validation
Implied sharing of privileged confidential data
Asynchronous validation and inadequate serialization
Inadequate identification, authentication or authorization
Violable limits
Exploitable logic error

I just find it somewhat amusing that this is still true 30 years later


Quite a bit of the 90's stuff is pretty interesting...unfortunately I don't have much extra time on my hands to do some more reading.