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Comment by el-mapache | Hacker News Reader

None of this is surprising to an extremely small subset of the global population, those who have had the means to study computer science and cryptography, and the history(ies) of government sanctioned spy agencies for a long enough period to be able to glean insights into the future behaviour of said agencies.

Since not everyone who reads this site meets those criteria, I suspect that it is even a not-insignificant subset on hacker news as well.

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You might find it helps to mentally (or programmatically) replace every instance of NSA, and its various expansions, with the name of that agency's direct lineal predecessor, which existed in a time when bureaucratic circumlocution was far less pervasive, and which could therefore rejoice in such an ominously portentous name as "the Black Chamber."

To see the effect, let's try it with some headlines I've just cherry-picked from a Google search results page for purposes of demonstration:

"Black Chamber team spies, hacks to gather intelligence on targets, report says"

"Appelbaum: 'Scary' Black Chamber will spy on you – every which way they can ..."

"Black Chamber Secret Toolbox: ANT Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need ..."

"Black Chamber 'spying on Europe-Asia undersea telecom cables' - Yahoo News"

"The Black Chamber Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center"

"Black Chamber can spy on offline computers wirelessly, says security expert"

"A Peek Inside the Black Chamber's Spy Gear Catalog"

"Report: Black Chamber intercepts computer deliveries"

"Black Chamber targets foreigners, catches Americans: Column"

I mean, how can you not love a name like that? You can't even say it in an ordinary tone of voice. See for yourself! No matter how you try, you'll find yourself saying not merely "the Black Chamber," but...the Black Chamber.

I think an official change of name is long overdue.

Clearly you're right, in the sense that, as a simple statement of fact, the NSA revelations are surprising to a great many people, maybe most people who learn of them. But there is a sense in which, when people say "this is not surprising", it implies "to people who know some things about the subject". I guess this expression, used this way, might come off as elitist or haughty, but I think it's a pretty common usage. Another reason I'm surprised at all the surprise is that I never studied cryptography, computer science, or the history of spy agencies systematically. The Puzzle Palace was a popular book, widely read, and I learned about NSA involvement in academic cryptography research by accident while studying up on numerical algorithms for physics simulations.

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