
The Next Wave - jonnybgood
https://www.nsa.gov/research/tnw/index.shtml
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strictnein
Took me a minute to figure out how to even navigate through the online
magazine. The navigation is half way down the side on the left. Also, a PDF of
the entire thing:

[https://www.nsa.gov/research/tnw/tnw204/articles/pdfs/TNW_20...](https://www.nsa.gov/research/tnw/tnw204/articles/pdfs/TNW_20_4_Web.pdf)

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DickingAround
I greatly dislike the NSA and think they should be dismantled. So let me take
a moment to think outside of that box...

Page 9 of that report essentially says 'we read all your social media,
browsing, and email'. I've always been ok with corporations doing this because
they'll never kick down my door in the middle of then night, unlike
governments. But the NSA isn't kicking down doors either (not that I've heard
of). Even their most famous malware (Stuxnet and Flame) were carefully
designed only to screw over certain people. Sure, they're grey-hats; testing
systems and not reporting bugs. But they're not yet black hats. They haven't
been caught yet fucking over innocent people (I think we can agree the Iranian
nuclear program doesn't qualify as innocent people, though again an act of war
against it isn't exactly white-hat activity).

Maybe they're not guilty until they commit a more egregious crime?

Probably not. Probably they're still a negative influence in the world. But
it's interesting to consider other perspectives.

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aw3c2
It really does not matter. In a free democracy there should be no surveillance
of innocents. The sole feeling of being watched alone changes people (someone
help me with the citation here).

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0xdeadbeefbabe
Panopticon
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon)
There is also something named after Caesar where if you treat people like
criminals they will become criminals (someone help me with the citation here).

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morganvachon
I'm not sure if this is the citation you wanted, but it does deal with the
issue in the context of public schools:

[http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2013/07/19/if-
criminals-i...](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2013/07/19/if-criminals-is-
what-you-want-criminals-is-what-youll-get)

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sitkack
The NSA has had a NASA sized budget or larger since its inception. One looks
out at the universe, the other within.

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erikb
It would be nice if the title would say what the next wave actually is. The
next wave of spying, of IT attacks, of found documents that make us unhappy to
read?

"But you find out immediately after you click the link" is not an acceptable
argument. We have this website exactly to not click all the links on the
internet to find out what they contain.

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xnull2guest
"Welcome to The Next Wave, a quarterly publication of the National Security
Agency's Research Directorate to disseminate technical advancements and
research activities in telecommunications and information technologies.
Mentions of company names or commercial products do not imply endorsement by
the US government."

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agumonkey
Ha, sadly misread as nasa.gov, expecting some new ideas from SpaceX
collaboration ... My apologies.

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bluehawk
Every single time there is something on hacker news with NSA in the title, I
first read it as NASA. I either get very excited or very confused before
realizing that I'm an idiot :)

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agumonkey
I was probably still under the influence of the very nice article about
SpaceX's birth.

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dbpokorny
The NSA has lost the trust of the American public and now needs to work hard
to regain that trust. This is tone deaf in the extreme...the NSA must be in
full-blown denial mode. Job #1 is admitting you have a problem. We have a
problem. The NSA needs to figure out how it will achieve all of those positive
outcomes (example: healthcare) while mitigating the risk of abuse of Big Data.
Isn't this the story of the founding of America? Build bureaucratic and
political structures to mitigate the abuse of power? Isn't this our heritage?

I think the NSA has already hired most of the people qualified to understand
how best to build NSA 2.0 which I can only hope will lead to USA 2.0. A crack
team of political scientists, social scientists, computer scientists, some
historians, some mathematicians, and a couple of representatives from the
organization without a name should be able to come up with something.

The democratic processes need to be renewed from time to time...isn't the NSA
in the best vantage point to understand the future of democracy? If we could
all get together and just nudge it in the right direction...

