[Cryptography] NSA Crypto Breakthrough Bamford [was: WhatsApp keying...]

[Henry Baker]

At 02:14 PM 5/19/2016, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>NOBUS is a fiction, and none of these agencies are ever satisfied with
>any number of sources less than ALL OF THEM.

I don't know the emoticon for "irony", else I would have used it liberally.

NOBUS is a *conceit*, and a very expensive one.

I haven't gone through all the Snowden material, but surely there is a slide somewhere in there that talks about "stuff we can do that no one else can so".

NOBUS-like conceit is a common theme for American exceptionalists (& Fortune 500 B-school types) -- that "scale" and "big data" can overcome any obstacles.  These people conveniently forget that there are *disadvantages* to size & scale -- e.g., O(n^2) (or even O(n*logn)) communication effects.  And they conveniently ignore the fact that you can more easily *drown* in "big data" than just about any other outcome.  I was always warned that "PhD" was an acronym for "piled higher and deeper"; NSA prides itself on its excess.

NOBUS is used on Congress to increase budgets for Congresspersons who don't have the clearances to understand anything else.  NOBUS is also used to cement the military-industrial-intel complex with big $$$$$ contracts -- whether they achieve any net increase in security or not.