Can you spell treason? How about racketeering? This would seem to call for the indictment, conviction, and loss of pensions for the top NSA deciders, and enough RICO lawsuits to put RSA out of business. Shame!
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a “back door” in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.
Because the Intelligence Community utilizes commercial products including those that may be manufactured abroad, it could be vulnerable to threat or compromise through its supply chain. Intelligence Community Directive 731 issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on December 7 establishes IC policy on “Supply Chain Risk Management.”
“Many IC mission-critical products, materials, and services come from supply chains that interface with or operate in a global marketplace. A greater understanding of the risks inherent in the IC's participation in the global market place is crucial to safeguarding our nation's intelligence sources, methods, and activities,” the Directive said.
“Supply chain risk management is the management of risk to the integrity, trustworthiness, and authenticity of products and services within the supply chain.”
If you want to fire up your neurons here at year-end, I recommend reading over the now annual release of “emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology” from the University of Notre Dame’s Reilly Center.
Mark P. Mills
(Full disclosure, I’m on the Center’s Advisory Board – and though I wish I could take credit for it, I had no input on the list.)
Even though the list from Notre Dame is more provocative than IBM’s, each and every technology has already been demonstrated or deployed. So while for the uninitiated some of the following may seem like science fiction, there is the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.” In fact, much of what’s on this list has inspired novels and movies. And the Reilly team has helpfully provided links to articles and resources to dig deeper into each domain’s state of affairs.
Following, the Reilly top 10 along with a sampling of their associated ethical questions posed.
A LOT of developments are emerging around the climate issue – a nonviolent insurgency, offensive and defensive fossil fuel divestment efforts, insurance industry responses, new forms of agriculture, dark humor, a cross country march, municipal preparedness, US administration actions, and more. I also encourage action on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, currently being negotiated in secret and very dangerous to democracy and climate action.
Dear friends,
There’s so much change happening around the climate issue, in the climate movement, and in various sectors affected by climate impacts that we could describe it all as an awakening, a radicalization, perhaps even a speeding up of evolution. The several articles I’ve included below are only a sampling of what’s going on – and here’s a quick summary of what they see and say:
Years ago I did a report for a sci-tech database publisher. I wrote up the results of a number of on site visits at research universities. I reported that there was no mechanism to preserve researchers’ data. The reason was pretty obvious: Research facilities at universities are less important than sports teams, business activities, and fund raising. When the researcher moved on, the data just sat somewhere until there was a housecleaning or a hard drive wiped. If financial support disappeared, none of the facilities I visited had an old school records management system in place. If a researcher took the data with him or her, those data may or may not have been managed in a thoughtful way. On to the next grant, tally ho.
This is one of the more egregious senior official screw-up cases. Most of them seem to be zipper issues or misusing airplanes or misusing travel or misusing staff or things like that. This one involves counterintelligence risk and potential international incident. Summarized: monumental dumb-ass.
I have occasional chance contact in the gym with a very senior Air Force JAG familiar with this case; he told me that when the Report of Investigation (attached) was released I'd see the level of basic stupidity involved. Read the report; it makes a pretty clear case.
Having read the report, my gut tells me that the Air Force leadership took some extraordinary measures to protect this guy. First, Air Force IG rather than DoDIG ran the investigation. Had DoDIG run it, I suspect they would have come to similar conclusions but would have processed the case in ways designed to pressure Secretary of the Air Force to hammer the SUBJECT. As it is, all that seems to have happened is that he was relieved of command and I think Strategic Command did that. He's still an Air Force General Officer, I've heard nothing about him processing for retirement, and, as a GO, I'm sure he still has a TOP SECRET clearance with all of the special accesses he would have had in Strategic Command: SCI and NC2/SIOP-ESI at a minimum. Everybody has their own opinion, but, IMHO, this turkey placed the U.S. at greater potential risk, by a wide margin, than did Army LTG-Ret (formerly GEN and Cdr, AFRICOM) Ward, who essentially embezzled a bunch of bucks through misuse of travel and airplanes, Ward was forced to retire at a reduced rank and to repay several thousand dollars for unauthorized travel. And I thought HE got off easy.
Phi Beta Iota: The “system” has improved but is still terribly unfair. Low ranking individuals who lose their rifles or get a security violation have their lives ruined — generals that lose wars and make public asses of themselves, perhaps committing treason in passing, get a slap on the wrist.
Media report below the line with yellow highlights.
