Why NSA Rules Say No to Smartphones, No to Texting, Yes to Podcasts

newyorker.com

23 points·fortran77··4 comments

Took me a minute to parse the headline. The article seems to be about the podcast the nsa puts on. And maybe about how the agency’s own rules acknowledge that smart phone tracking and text messages are both a security nightmare. (It’s not possible to really secure either one).

Shouldn’t our national security agency try to protect us by working to fix the critical security vulnerabilities Americans face? Not gleefully working to subvert what little security is possible? Whatever, we’ve known for decades that they’re the villains.

I’m not going to bother with reading the paywalled article, but here’s an archive link in case anyone cares.

https://archive.ph/fjkd9

The NSA publishes excellent cybersecurity resources:

https://www.nsa.gov/press-room/cybersecurity-advisories-guid...

I've highlighted advisories that may give you some perspective, listed in chronological order:

Iranian Cyber Actors’ Brute Force and Credential Access Activity Compromises Critical Infrastructure Organizations

Russian Military Cyber Actors Target U.S. and Global Critical Infrastructure

North Korea Cyber Group Conducts Global Espionage Campaign to Advance Regime’s Military and Nuclear Programs

PRC MSS Tradecraft in Action

SE Linux was created by the NSA back in 2001. And that is super popular, but that was also before Snowden.

As someone said when the Snowden archives were published, "Nobody wants to be on the blue team anymore. Everybody wants to be on the red team." Whatever goodwill the US population still had towards the NSA ended with Snowden.

TLDR: the NSA has a recruiting tool by way of podcast that mentions the lack of smartphones and texting in secure areas.

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