This article is about the NSA government agency. For other uses, see NSA (disambiguation).

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a United States government agency responsible for both the collection and analysis of message communications, and for the security of government communications against similar agencies elsewhere. It is a part of the Department of Defense. Its eavesdropping brief includes radio broadcasting, both from organizations and individuals, the Internet, and other intercepted forms of communication, especially confidential communications. Its secure communications brief includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive, confidential or secret government communications. Despite being the world's largest single employer of Ph.D. mathematicians, the owner of the single largest group of supercomputers, and having a budget rather larger than that of the CIA, it has had a remarkably low profile until recent years. For a long time its existence was not even admitted by the US government. The acronym "NSA" has jokingly been morphed to mean No Such Agency and Never Say Anything.

Because of its listening brief, NSA has been heavily involved in cryptanalytic research, continuing the work of its predecessor agencies which had been responsible for breaking many World War II codes and cyphers (see, for instance, Purple code, Venona, and JN-25).

Headquarters for the National Security Agency is at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, approximately ten miles northeast of Washington, DC. NSA has its own exit off of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, labelled "NSA Employees Only". The scale of the operations at the NSA is hard to determine from unclassified data, but one clue is the electricity usage of NSA's headquarters. NSA's budget for electricity exceeds $21 million per year, making it the second largest electricity consumer in the entire state of Maryland. Photos have shown there are about 18000 parking spaces at the site, although most guesses have put the NSA's workforce at around double that number.

Its secure government communications brief has involved NSA in production of communications hardware and software, in the production of semiconductors (there is a chip fabrication plant at Ft Meade), in cryptography research, and contracting with private industry for items, equipment, and research it is not itself prepared to develop or supply. Again, this continues responsibilities inherited from its predecessors (see SIGABA).

Contents

1 Involvement with non-government cryptography 2 ECHELON 3 History 3.1 Directors 3.2 Deputy Directors 3.3 Cryptanalysts 4 NSA encryption systems 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 External links

Involvement with non-government cryptography

NSA has been involved in debates about public policy, both as a behind-the-scenes advisor to other departments, and directly during and after Vice Admiral Bobby Ray Inman's directorship.

NSA recommended changes to IBM's submission during the process which produced the DES encryption algorithm in 1976. Subsequently, there were suspicions that those changes were made so as to make it easier for NSA to break the cypher when it so desired; thus carrying out one of its briefs. However, the public reinvention of differential cryptanalysis showed that one of the changes (to the S-boxes) had actually likely been suggested to harden the algorithm against this -- then publicly unknown -- cryptanalytic technique. It remained publicly unknown until Eli Biham and Adi Shamir independently reinvented it and published some decades later. However, the shortening of the 128-bit key used by the IBM submission to a nominal 64, but actually an effective 56, bits has never been explainable as anything other than a weakening of the algorithm, making possible an exhaustive search for the key by those with sufficient computer power and funding. Possibly because of previous controversy, the involvement of NSA in the selection of a successor to DES, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) was limited to hardware performance testing (see AES competition).

NSA was a major player in the debates of the mid to late 1990s regarding US munitions export regulations. Cryptographic software and hardware had long been classed with fighter planes, tanks, cannons, and atomic bombs as controllable munitions.

The NSA has, at times, attempted to restrict the publication of academic research into cryptography; for example, the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers.

ECHELON

Main article: ECHELON

NSA, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government Communications Headquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), and otherwise known as the UKUSA group, is believed to be responsible for, among other things, the operation of the ECHELON system. Its capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic. The system has as one of its most important bases the nominally RAF-run station at Menwith Hill (54.0162 N; 1.6826 W) near Harrogate, Yorkshire.

Many people oppose NSA's operations, arguing that NSA infringes on Americans' right to privacy by spying on the United States' own citizens, and that this has occurred in violation of NSA's charter prohibiting just such acts. Others say that what NSA does is necessary. It has been suggested that in practice Echelon implements an end run around legal restrictions on internal surveillance by having partner agencies spy on the citizens of other partner's countries, thereby avoiding illegal spying on their own citizens.

History

NSA's immediate predecessor, the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), was established within the Department of Defense, under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on May 20, 1949. The AFSA was to be responsible for directing the communications and electronic intelligence activities of the military intelligence units - the Army Security Agency, Naval Security Group and the Air Force Security Service. However, the agency had little power and lacked a centralized coordination mechanism. After an extensive study authorized on December 13, 1951, NSA was created in June 1952 by Executive Order of President Truman. [1] http://www.nsa.gov/truman/truma00001.pdf That Executive Order was itself classified and remained unknown to the public for more than a generation.

Directors

• 1952–1956 LTG Ralph J. Canine, USA
• 1956–1960 Lt. Gen. John A. Samford, USAF
• 1960–1962 VADM Laurence H. Frost, USN
• 1962–1965 Lt. Gen. Gordon A. Blake, USAF
• 1965–1969 LTG Marshall S. Carter , USA
• 1969–1972 VADM Censored page, USN
• 1972–1973 Lt. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips , USAF
• 1973–1977 Lt. Gen. Lew Allen, Jr., USAF
• 1977–1981 VADM Bobby Ray Inman, USN
• 1981–1985 Lt. Gen. Lincoln D. Faurer , USAF
• 1985–1988 LTG William E. Odom, USA
• 1988–1992 VADM William O. Studeman, USN
• 1992–1996 VADM John M. McConnell, USN
• 1996–1999 Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. Minihan, USAF
• 1999–present Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, USAF

(USA, USAF, and USN are the United States Army, United States Air Force, and United States Navy, respectively.)

Deputy Directors

• Dec. 1952–Nov. 1953 RADM Joseph Wenger , USN
• Nov. 1953–June 1956 Brig. Gen. John Ackerman , USAF
• June 1956–Aug. 1956 Maj. Gen. John A. Samford, USAF
• Aug. 1956–Sep. 1957 Mr. Joseph H. Ream
• Oct. 1957–Jul 1958 Dr. H. T. Engstrom
• Aug. 1958–Apr. 1974 Dr. Louis W. Tordella, USN
• Apr. 1974–May 1978 Mr. Benson K. Buffham
• May 1978–Apr. 1980 Mr. Robert E. Drake
• Apr. 1980–July 1982 Ms. Ann Z. Caracristi
• July 1982–June 1985 Mr. Robert E. Rich
• June 1985–Mar. 1988 Mr. Charles R. Lord
• Mar. 1988–July 1990 Mr. Gerald R. Young
• July 1990–Feb. 1994 Mr. Robert L. Prestel
• Feb. 1994–Oct. 1997 Mr. William P. Crowell
• Oct. 1997–June 2000 Ms. Barbara A. McNamara
• June 2000–present Mr. William B. Black, Jr.

Cryptanalysts

• Agnes Meyer Driscoll
• William F. Friedman
• Solomon Kullback
• Frank Rowlett
• Abraham Sinkov
• Louis W. Tordella

NSA encryption systems

Main article: NSA encryption systems

NSA is responsible for the encryption-related components in these systems:

• EKMS Electronic Key Management System
• FNBDT secure narrow band voice standard
• Fortezza encryption based on portable crypto token in PC Card format
• KL-7 ADONIS off-line rotor encrypion machine (post-WW II to 1980s)
• KW-26 ROMULUS electronic in-line teletype encryptor (1960s–1980s)
• KW-37 JASON fleet broadcast encryptor (1960s–1990s)
• KY-57 VINSON tactical radio voice encryptor
• SINCGARS tactical radio with cryptographically controlled frequency hopping
• STE secure telephone
• STU-III older secure telephone

See also

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Central Security Service
• Defense Intelligence Agency
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• Department of Homeland Security
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Espionage
• British GCHQ
• Skipjack
• TEMPEST prevention of compromising emanations
• Type 1 encryption
• SELinux

Further reading

• Bamford, James (2001). Body of Secrets . Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-49907-8
• Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace .
• Levy, Stephen. Crypto. —discussion of the development of non-government cryptography, including many accounts of tussles with the NSA.

External links

• NSA official site http://www.nsa.gov/
• History of NSA http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/20th/nsa.html
• "The Origins of the National Security Agency, 1940-1952" http://www.thememoryhole.org/nsa/origins_of_nsa.htm —newly declassified book-length report provided by The Memory Hole .
• "Outsourcing Intelligence" http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/outsourcing-intelligence.html