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Comment by mrguyorama | Hacker News Reader

>a new initiative at NSA dubbed "Turn a New Leaf,"

More like "do the actual job they are paid to do"

They are paid to collect intelligence for the benefit of the american people, not american companies. Luckily citizens united hasn't stretched that far.

Their mission also explicitly includes information assurance:

Mission Statement The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (now referred to as cybersecurity) products and services, and enables computer network operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances.

They've got to balance both roles.

IIRC, in earlier times the government didn't use as much COTS stuff, and civilian computer systems weren't so critical, so the roles were easier to separate. The NSA developed whole series of secret encryption algorithms for the exclusive use of the government/military, and civilian algorithms weren't approved to secure classified communications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_cryptography

I always wondered why Barr, Comey and basically every AG I paid attention to, consistently want to break encryption for the populace.

I guess it makes sense proponents of those changes would be ok of breaking it for the proles of they thought their secrets are protected.

You don't see how a lack of critical vulnerabilities is software infrastructure is of benefit to citizens?

No, I don't see how this is part of foreign intelligence/surveillance/espionage work. It is good that these vulnerabilities are fixed, of course. But shouldn't that be at least a separate partially independent branch of the NSA? Otherwise you get a large conflict of interest.

Their job is to collect signals intelligence and execute cyber warfare operations. Not whatever you think it is.

Their job is more than that.

"The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (now referred to as cybersecurity) products and services, and enables computer network operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances."

[1] https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission-values/

So...SIGINT and CNO. Exactly as I stated.

Security assurance isn’t necessarily cyber warfare. To have the high ground is not the same as using it offensively, hence the expectation of defensive posture as part of the NSA’s mission (although admittedly some offensive activities are to be expected, depending on the situation, such as Stuxnet and Iran).

Not sure if you’re just being snarky, but the NSA’s stated mission includes helping with cyber security: https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission-values/

It also involves breaking enemy cyber security (signals intelligence).

It's actually a rather fascinating incongruity, since we live in a world where "the enemy" is more likely than not to be using the same software systems that the NSA themselves are, and that therefore any exploitable flaws they find in enemy systems are pretty likely to be just as exploitable in their own. (And that similarly, disclosing the flaw in order to fix the issue in their own systems is very likely to result in "the enemy" fixing the flaw as well.)

A couple years ago the White House released a document explaining the process they use for deciding what vulnerabilities they keep secret: https://www.cnet.com/news/white-house-trump-administration-h... noting that "In the vast majority of cases, responsibly disclosing a newly discovered vulnerability is clearly in the national interest". Though from what we've seen in past leaks, it's pretty obvious they don't reach that conclusion for all vulnerabilities they find.

And what do you think the end state of all that cybersecurity research is?

NSA has long had an explicit offensive and defensive mandate. They even recently created a cyber defense directorate:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/nsa-launche...

NSA has both attack and defense mandates and organizations. Currently, the attack org has priority, but it's not like the defense org does nothing. So if the attack org doesn't want a vuln, they can let the defense org reveal it for PR points.

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