Talk:National Security Agency

Missing image Key-crypto-sideways.png WikiProject on Cryptography

This article is part of WikiProject Cryptography, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to cryptography in the Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Template:CryptographyReader

	Pending tasks for [[Template:Articlespace:National Security Agency]]: (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:National_Security_Agency&action=purge)	edit (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:National_Security_Agency/to_do&action=edit) - watch (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:National_Security_Agency/to_do&action=watch) - purge (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:National_Security_Agency&action=purge)
	Talk:National Security Agency/to do

Contents

1 Style:"NSA" vs "the NSA" 2 dubious claim about electricity usage 3 budget 4 Employer of mathematicians

Style:"NSA" vs "the NSA"

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cryptography/WikiProject Notice.:...On another nit altogether, it feels better (in AE perhaps) to say '...that NSA has taken this position...' than '...that the NSA has taken...'. In parallel usage, I think, with NASA which is almost always used without 'the'. It's been a jarring note for me as folks add 'the' before NSA. I've usually let it slide, but sometimes removed 'the'. Don't have any good ideas on how to handle this nit, however. A note at NSA? Too nitty? Frankly, I've contracted a bit of an obsession about it. Perhaps it will be resolved by Valentine's Day? ww 14:45, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have, I must confess, added a couple of "the"s in front of "NSA"s, which I'll stop. Both styles are probably OK, though...Usage research: Bruce Schneier's section in Applied Cryptography on (the) NSA switches between adding a "the" and omitting it. The web pages at nsa.gov favour omitting the "the" most of the time. — Matt 08:39, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In the American English I'm familiar with, typically NSA is written as "the NSA", whereas NASA is written simply as NASA. This is somewhat inconsistent of course, but it's how heard it almost exclusively. As in "I went to work for the NSA" (substitute: "the CIA", "the FBI"—but not "the NASA"). --Delirium 08:48, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

I've been pondering this since I posted that nit. Perhaps the distinction (again, it may be an AE thing) is that 'the' is used when contrasting the agency (NSA) to others in the American pantheon of alphabet soup. For instance, "...the NSA, a division of the DoD, competes with the CIA and with the DIA for funds...". DIA, by the way has the same ambivalence about the 'the' as with NSA, but CIA does not. "CIA has infiltrated..." sounds just as acceptable as "the CIA has infiltrated.." though the factual status of any such claim however worded seems in recent years to have been a little dicey.

Anyway, NSA sounds best with the 'the' dropped in circumstances in which there is no possibility of confusion with others of its soup fellows. As in, "NSA announced today that ww will be charged with munitions trafficing..." or "..Berstein was very incensed at NSA's action yesterday...". But, like most less than blatantly obvious langauge usage points, I (or my ear) may feel differently tomorrow about all this.

ww 15:06, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I think a reason for people's variant usage on this depends on whether they are mentally expanding "NSA" into "National Security Agency" or not; if you are, it can be jarring to read without a "the" prelude. I guess that sometimes the acronym takes on a life of its own and becomes a proper noun in its own right, e.g. NASA or DES (though very rarely you will see "the DES", which is quite odd to read!). I'm guessing that "NSA" is used in both ways. — Matt 09:21, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Matt, Indeed, that sounds reasonable. I'll ponder on it. I've thought of another illuminating, I think, example. DEC (of fond memory alas) was never used with 'the'. Perhaps that, along with the NASA case (<--- NB, not even relevant -- different thing altogether!) is what has shifted the ear to NSA being correct w/o the. ww 15:40, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

I think Matt's explanation sums up why the NSA sounds right to me, but not the NASA. To use other examples from the U.S. governmental agencies, the IRS and DEA articles prefix their respective acronyms with the, whereas the FEMA and OSHA pages sensibly omit the definite article. The ATF and TSA articles have both usages. Wmahan. 22:30, 2004 May 3 (UTC)

<== left shift, saves us all from squinting at ':' for a while

Having pondered this for some days, I feel queasy. NSA sounds right (no 'the') when the image in my mind's eye (now there's a shaken, not merely stirred, grammatical virtual metaphor!) is of the crypto org. When I'm thinking about its existence as one among many government agencies (the image here is of a herd of large behemouths -- imagine bronto sized mastodons from here to the horizon), then 'the NSA' feels right. The key (hah, good one that!) seems to be that it be used in accord with the general use of 'the' in English. It notifies the listener the speaker is now / was just / will be shortly talking about one particular thing out of a herd of possible things that might have been meant. When 'the' doesn't sound right, there was only one possible thing, namely that large crypto behemouth in Ft Meade; there "aren't any others" possible at this point in the discussion. Thus, among us cryptiacs (or cryptonauts?), and in articles on same, it should be NSA, no 'the'. When discussing non crypto things, it should take the 'the' there. That's the best I'm been able to do whilst hanging over the rail. Still seasick. Any comments? ww 16:54, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

My guess is that part of the explanation is much simpler. American English tends to "NASA" and "DEC" because these acronyms are pronounced as words. When pronounced as a word, "the" never sounds right. Compare also "FEMA" and "OSHA" which are pronounced. With an initialism like "CIA" or "NSA", saying "the cee-eye-ay" or "the en-ess-ay" seems more natural, and the same with "IRS" and "DEA".

Unfortunately this isn't an absolute rule for initialisms, since "HP" and "IBM" are never prefixed with "the". Also, this applies only to common usage. I think that insiders of some organizations like the CIA (but not others like the IRS) always omit the "the", so a spook would probably say simply "CIA". --165.189.91.148 21:52, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think with IBM and HP, it's probably because you'd expand it to "the International Business Machines" and "the Hewlett-Packard", which is clearly not right. Things like NSA and CIA, standing for "Foo Agency", can accomodate a "the" more naturally. — Matt Crypto 00:12, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

dubious claim about electricity usage

Surely the claim here about NSA HQ drawing 4x the power of an Earth simulator is bogus? I cannot believe that an entire building (including coffee makers, microwaves, lots of PCs, lighting, heating, pumps, etc etc) draws only 4x this amount. Just doesn't pass the mental back of the envelope plausibility test/ There's something odd about this sentence if it's not merely OTL. Can anyone make sense of this? If not, I think it should be rubbed out. Call Edward G Robinson! ww 15:38, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

The amount of electricity is derived from NSA themselves: http://www.nsa.gov/about/about00018.cfm#18

The only online reference to a comparison with Earth Simulators appears to be: http://tim.movementarian.com/archives/000115.html — Matt 08:28, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Matt, I'm still dubious. BGE is said (by NSA site noted above) to sell $21 x 10^6 of electricity to NSA/year. Earth Simlulator is said (in a PR leaflet on their Web site) to use 6MW of electricity, meaning 24 MW for four of them. At an assumed $.10/kwh, $21 million is 21 x 10^5 MW if I haven't dropped some decimals. This is just a tad larger than 24MW for 4 of those Earth Simulators. Anyway it's not quite what was implied as the, as nearly as I can figure from the leaflet, the 6MW figure includes the entire building, the 5120 NEC vector processors, and all the AC and lighting too. So it's not just the Earth Simulator, it's a lot of auxillary stuff too. On the other hand, NSA's bill is for the entire facility including the fab plant and the incinerators for secret stuff and the cafeteria(s) and so on for several 10's of thousands of folks. Sure sounded impressive didn't it?

I'm removing the comparison forthwith. ww 18:53, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good idea, it seems to not be a verifiable fact. — Matt 22:26, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not to mention an irrelevant comparison... Adraeus 00:53, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible that power generation is done on site? (Solar/Garbage disposal (see White elephant) As such, Adraeus is on point, a irreleavent comparison etc. --ORBIT 00:13, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

budget

In the Puzzle Palace, does it not say that NSA has no budget?

I haven't read Bamford's book, but I can't imagine that those supercomputers were donated out of the goodness of Seymour Cray's heart...he may have meant the NSA's budget was classified. See: [1] (http://www.nsa.gov/about/about00018.cfm#7) — Matt 07:19, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

They have no published budget. Even something as simple as how much toilet paper they want to order could give enemies information (how many people use the building, and therefor an estimate of staff). It's all classified. [[User:GregNorc|GregNorc|Talk]]

Employer of mathematicians

Despite being the world's largest single employer of Ph.D. mathematicians,

Hem. I strongly doubt this. In many countries, the university and research system is government-run, and thus the largest single employer of PhD mathematicians is probably the government of any of those countries. David.Monniaux 20:46, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps, although I'd think it reasonable to class these mathematicians as being employed by whatever institution they work at for this kind of thing. But at the least, I'd like to see a half-decent source for the claim. (With an agency as secretive as the NSA, it's quite difficult to get solid fact, rather than mere speculation. Particularly on this topic, I think we need to be quite careful about citing sources.)

Having done some digging, I've found that NSA themselves claim, "It [NSA] is said to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States and perhaps the world." [2] (http://www.nsa.gov/about/index.cfm) and "Currently, we are the largest employer of mathematicians in the country." [3] (http://www.nsa.gov/techtrans/techt00003.cfm) (Conspicuous lack of "Ph.D.", though.); also "In 1996 we hired 60 mathematicians, 40 with PhD's. In 1997 we made 50 hires, 30 with PhD's, and we expect this trend of aggressive pace of hiring [to continue]. Let me stress that hiring at a pace of 50-60 mathematicians per year (equivalent to a good-sized math department) is a good measure of our commitment to math in an era of declining resources.". [4] (http://www.ams.org/government/minihan198.html). — Matt Crypto 23:12, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As you said, it of course depends how you define "employer".

I think that we should be very prudent with those claims; everything surrounding NSA seems to be based on hearsay. Once, at a conference, I met a NSA researcher in cryptography and I asked him whether they did a lot of fundamental research, like what he was presenting (as opposed to more applied activities); he said that they actually did not. While of course the guy probably could not say anything precise without stumbling into "classified" areas, this, to me, indicates that there are conflicting reports about the real size of the NSA research departments.

Furthermore, the NSA probably has an interest in having such rumors etc. floated around, to increase the aura of power that it has. The mere fact that its budget is classified is of the same tendency. David.Monniaux 07:16, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)