
NSA Technology Transfer Program – 2014 Technology Catalog [pdf] - e15ctr0n
https://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_technology_transfer_program.pdf
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mindcrime
I reject the idea that one should have to pay to license technology developed
by a (taxpayer funded) federal agency. If tax dollars funded it, it belongs to
all of us anyway.

I believe I'm going to write my Congressional reps later today and suggest
pushing for the elimination of licensing fees for tech from NSA, NASA, DOD,
etc. I'm sure it won't go anywhere, but what can ya do?

~~~
fit2rule
Indeed, the entire mechanism should be available to the general public for
use, or in other words - entirely radical thinking - why don't we defeat the
NSA by demanding it open-source itself, 100%? After all, it might make all the
difference in the world if maximum intelligence was suddenly and irrevocably
available to every single living human on the planet .. its actually within
our grasp, as a species, to share such a moment. Gimme root, NSA.

~~~
happyscrappy
Giving your enemies all your tech is not wise. Thankfully hipster dufuses have
no real power.

~~~
fit2rule
Too bad the makers of enemies seem to think they're the only ones who can be
trusted with power.

~~~
krapp
Show me a powerful nation without enemies.

~~~
fit2rule
Maybe we wouldn't have so many enemies if we didn't keep so many secrets.

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explorigin
Some of the nuggets:

"Digital Transcription System" (that can handle foreign languages). This would
be awesome to release OSS. Finally the tech giants wouldn't have a monopoly on
good voice recognition.

"All Fiber Optically-Controlled Optical Switch" So they have all they need to
make optical processors/routers. If this is the declassified tech, it's time
to start paying attention to [http://pqcrypto.org/](http://pqcrypto.org/)

"Port Protector Assembly for D-Sub Connectors" I haven't heard of much spying
happening by someone hooking something up to an unused DVI port. Good to know.

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oscardelben
One of their offering under technology is converting computer programs with
loops to ones without loops. Can anyone help me understand what the point of
that is?

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thirsteh
To make it easier to reason about whether the program will terminate. This is
an important part of writing high-assurance software.

From the actual patent text
([https://www.google.com/patents/US7788659](https://www.google.com/patents/US7788659)):
"Because of the possibility of looping and branching within loops, a brute
force attempt to enumerate the paths through a computer program will most
likely fail. Therefore, there is a need for a method of converting a computer
program that contains loops to one that does not."

More info:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis)

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jngreenlee
Another interesting one, I won't post any more. Can anyone think of a current
consumer use of a technique like this? Those Garmin GPS/Radios that track each
other is the closest I can think of:

DETERMINE RANGE AND VELOCITY OF AN OBJECT PATENT NOS.: 7,755,536 AND 7,545,325

This method provides the ability to determine the position and velocity of a
transmitter over a wide range of bandwidths. The second invention models the
Doppler process as a time shift and change of scale of the original signal. In
this process, the received signal is delayed in time and dilated. In this
invention, the method of performing the resampling function is to apply a
forward Fourier transform of one length to the zero-padded signal and apply an
inverse Fourier transform of a different length to the results of the first
transform. This pair of operations results in a resampling of the signal at a
rational multiple of the original sample rate. The scale correlation is then
computed as the normal correlation of the transmitted signal and the resampled
signal.

VALUE Accurate model of Doppler process Rational signal resampling

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shulu
COLLISION FREE HASHING FOR NEAR MATCH INPUTS on page 14 looks interesting.
[http://www.google.com/patents/US8355501](http://www.google.com/patents/US8355501)

This could help improve performance for data stores in general.

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jngreenlee
Interesting, didn't know they were into manufacturing techniques, maybe they
license to their own exclusive fab contracts:

FABRICATING AND INTEGRATING DECOUPLING CAPACITORS PATENT NO.: 7,297,613 This
technology provides a method of fabrication and integration for high quality
decoupling capacitors with high capacitance values, low parasitic losses, good
yield, and long-term reliability. This method enables high-yielding capacitors
and other passive elements to be placed very close to the processor or other
integrated circuit design and provides improved signal integrity. VALUE

[Value:] Reduced signal loss and footprint Reduced cost and increased yields
for RF systems

~~~
DannyBee
The NSA has its own small fab, and they are definitely into manufacturing
techniques, because they build their own architectures :)

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sarciszewski
Patent 7,945,947

lol, they patented a privilege escalation rootkit

~~~
sarciszewski
Technology Transfer Program S ecurity | Page 63 P ROVIDING A C OMPUTER U SER
WITH H IGH -L EVEL P RIVILEDGES P ATENT N O .: 7,945,947 This invention
monitors all terminal sessions i n an operating system, su ch as Microsoft’ s
Windows ® , for a special key sequence and if found, launches a command shell
running with high privileges for use by the logged-on user, regardless of
which user it was and without requiring subsequent authenticati on. The
advantage of this method is that it allows any user to launch a command shell
with high privileges even though the user may only have few privileges, and
does not require a login with a username and password to be entered each time.
VALUE Allows user to launch privileged command shells Simple command for
authentication reduces user input

~~~
jngreenlee
I was confused about this one. It appears that it may be for systems only
where an authorized server with admin rights is running. I'll have to read
more to be sure.

Edit: Upon more reading from
([https://www.google.com/patents/US7945947?dq=7,945,947&hl=en&...](https://www.google.com/patents/US7945947?dq=7,945,947&hl=en&sa=X&ei=u6olVL_ZM4-GyASdzYKgAQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA))

It appears to be non-specific, but an admin computer is needed.

[A] user-definable process is associated to the terminal services session. The
user-definable process is selected so that the process can interact with the
user connected to that terminal services session and can identify all the
desktops registered in the terminal services session that the user-definable
process is running in.

[...]

Again, by example, once a process has registered a low-level keyboard hook on
a desktop, it is notified of all keystrokes that occur when the input for the
keyboard would go to that desktop. Each Vista system prompt service process
examines the keystrokes and if the user-definable key sequence (such as
CTRL-F10) was pressed, the system performs the action of creating a command
shell running as the LocalSystem account.

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rrggrr
If your government isn't going to engage in commercial espionage on your
business or employers behalf (as does China) then it darn well better do
technology transfer. If you can't explain your mission value to the American
public - whom you happen to be spying on - you could at least articulate this
kind of value that can impact citizens in a positive way. IMHO they should
double down on this and allocate funds for start-ups ala inQtel.

~~~
Someone1234
I'm confused, either you are claiming France and China don't conduct
commercial espionage or that the US doesn't, in either case I disagree. All
three conduct commercial espionage for the "right" corporate clients.

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dang
Also [http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-technology-transfer-
pro...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-technology-transfer-program-
national-security-agency-ttp/), via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373728).

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dsl
These all have patents issued, so this is good idea of the state of the art at
NSA _4 to 6 years ago_.

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ape4
Reminds me of the Made In India site that was posted the other day. Except the
output of NSA is more.

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sbussard
ScribeZone is a rip off of Pied Piper!

