"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."
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).
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.
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.
“The Wire” in its last season thought-provokingly explores this topic. What got me was the big lie was comprised of a mesh of micro-decisions, not a big monolithic deception.
Firefighter for over 10 years and an IT career spanning Red Team/Blue Team and now SRE, I can't recommend enough taking the FEMA Independent Study course in Incident Command.
Even if you don't adopt the system it will help you frame and understand how complex IR can be. Having a scalable system to a) grow with resources and b) grow with external interactions is crucial to have BEFORE you need it.
Please drop acerbic swipes like "What are you talking about?" from your comments here. Your comment would be much better with just the second sentence.
> Huawei denies having any ties to the Chinese government beyond those of being a law-abiding taxpayer.
I find it interesting that these kinds of verbal games are continually played out in the public eye despite everyone involved knowing exactly what's going on. And that goes for all APT / nation-state actors.
Australia has effectively banned Huawei since 2012 (NBN participation ban). Therefore, there is plenty of discourse and information from Australia about technology sovereignty.
The article at [1] directly addresses the claim:
> Huawei denies having any ties to the Chinese government beyond those of being a law-abiding taxpayer.
Articles at [2] also provide more in-depth analysis.
The irony here in that Australia just passed laws requiring local vendors to put in backdoors at the governments request, not just for national security but also in regards to "national economic well-being" aka industrial espionage.
I have grown weary of statements based on truthiness.
Shackleton's failed expedition goes around in business circles because it was a successful failure. No one died, despite the ship being caught in the ice, the men holed up on Elephant Island, and the incredible voyage of the James Caird to South Georgia and trek across the mountains to the whaling station.
The mythical ad builds on pop culture resonances, like the 2003 book "Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer", and "Leading at The Edge: Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition", plus scores of other books and movies.
Tell me, downvoters, why don't we see 'mythical ads' for real failures, like the Scott's Terra Nova Expedition? Presumably they would have been just as heroic, no?
Or, would you interpret that fake ad the same if you replaced Shackleton's name with Scott's?
Indeed. The Terra Nova Expedition I mentioned is one of those failures.
Would you have the same interpretation if Musk had referenced a similar fake advertisement but recruiting people for Scott's final expedition instead of Shackleton's famed one?
> Anecdotally, I know many a kid who has taken an interest in space and rocketry
I was personally inspired to go to physics partially because of my love of sci-fi and all space related. That's completely orthogonal to the skeptical sentiment or lack of moon landings in my lifetime.
Real "space awarenes" comes with facts, not with hype. You can drive only so much motivation from outside.
Right but to be able to absorb facts you first need to be excited. Like all the efforts for more kids/blacks/women in STEM/programming don't start with "this is a variable, the program will crash if you add a boolean to a string" but instead start with flashy things like games or robots or large salaries to get them excited and interested first.
It's the frequent meta comments like dimillian above about "hate" and "negativity" that I find negative and harmful. They try to steer the tone of discussion to direction that the commentator feel more comfortable with.
Wanting protect feelings from getting hurt even in discussions related to technology and science are absurd.
'Say only positive things or the fragile Mars mission will collapse.'
