The NSA's Cyber-King Goes Corporate(foreignpolicy.com)
foreignpolicy.com
The NSA's Cyber-King Goes Corporate
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/29/the_crypto_king_of_the_NSA_goes_corporate_keith_alexander_patents
76 comments
I think it's a little more than an endorsement deal. He knows deep inside information into what surveillance programs the NSA operates. I read it as follows: "we guarantee your company's IT infrastructure will no longer be seen as a low hanging fruit to the NSA"
He's not a clueless career bureaucrat. He's been in the cybersecurity business for a very long time (from his Wiki page):
> Alexander worked on signals intelligence at a number of secret National Security Agency bases in the United States and Germany. He earned an MS in business administration in 1978 from Boston University, an MS in systems technology (electronic warfare) and an MS in physics in 1983 from the Naval Postgraduate School, and an MS in national security strategy from the National Defense University.
While the government is often woefully behind the private sector, it's also sometimes several steps ahead.[1] You might not like his views about the right balance between security and privacy, but I wouldn't underestimate the kind of insight Alexander can bring to the table, for reasons that have nothing to do with his political pull with the NSA.
[1] Anecdote: I worked on a DARPA project about a decade ago. Commercial implementation of similar technology is probably another decade out. And that was pretty run of the mill stuff, nothing classified. I can only imagine the type of shit you run into at the NSA. The military often just hits a particular pressure point before the private sector does, and they have the money to throw experts at the problem.
> Alexander worked on signals intelligence at a number of secret National Security Agency bases in the United States and Germany. He earned an MS in business administration in 1978 from Boston University, an MS in systems technology (electronic warfare) and an MS in physics in 1983 from the Naval Postgraduate School, and an MS in national security strategy from the National Defense University.
While the government is often woefully behind the private sector, it's also sometimes several steps ahead.[1] You might not like his views about the right balance between security and privacy, but I wouldn't underestimate the kind of insight Alexander can bring to the table, for reasons that have nothing to do with his political pull with the NSA.
[1] Anecdote: I worked on a DARPA project about a decade ago. Commercial implementation of similar technology is probably another decade out. And that was pretty run of the mill stuff, nothing classified. I can only imagine the type of shit you run into at the NSA. The military often just hits a particular pressure point before the private sector does, and they have the money to throw experts at the problem.
I remember watching as a kid a History Channel documentary on the NSA, or maybe encryption in general, with the name or theme at least "The Code Breakers and the Code Makers." Essentially, it ended with the observation that the NSA was in trouble: as advantage by the end of the 20th centry shifted from code breaker to code marker, and non-commerical and free encryption tools of higher quality than ever made government-sponsored code breaking many orders of magnitude harder than before.
As a budding nerd, I was thankful for this. HC painted the NSA as being painted into a corner, and even then I wondered for a moment what this would mean for them. Little did I know a decade later how angry the result would make me, and perhaps the exposure of the Clipper Chip was just some ironic leak so they could laugh at later successes.
As a budding nerd, I was thankful for this. HC painted the NSA as being painted into a corner, and even then I wondered for a moment what this would mean for them. Little did I know a decade later how angry the result would make me, and perhaps the exposure of the Clipper Chip was just some ironic leak so they could laugh at later successes.
I'm a contracter at an internet company in Palo Alto. If i pulled this, there is a lot of paperwork that says.. profits go to parent company..... 100% of my time is to be on said project. I just assume Director of NSA would have the same line.
I have no doubt he's smart, but taking from your comment that in this arena, govn't software is often years ahead of private sector software, I don't for a single minute believe his patents are for technology he magically invented "on his own time."
I know the article tries to address this, but his "unique insight" can never (especially this soon) be separated from his knowledge of classified information and software techniques.
This is, IMHO, incredibly perverse.
Edit: clarification.
I know the article tries to address this, but his "unique insight" can never (especially this soon) be separated from his knowledge of classified information and software techniques.
This is, IMHO, incredibly perverse.
Edit: clarification.
>'I think it's a little more than an endorsement deal.
Sure.
He's quite educated, decorated, extremely experienced and I don't doubt there's legitimate product/services ready to be sold.
That's not really the question though.
It's how much distance there is between whatever the highly educated, experienced, pre-eminent security consultants not named Keith Alexander are paid and $1M per month. It's also a matter of who is willing to pay that much and why.
Sure.
He's quite educated, decorated, extremely experienced and I don't doubt there's legitimate product/services ready to be sold.
That's not really the question though.
It's how much distance there is between whatever the highly educated, experienced, pre-eminent security consultants not named Keith Alexander are paid and $1M per month. It's also a matter of who is willing to pay that much and why.
> He knows deep inside information into what surveillance programs the NSA operates.
I assume any application of that information would have him arrested too.
I assume any application of that information would have him arrested too.
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Who's the last high-ranking military officer who left the US military to join the industrial part of the military-industrial complex to get arrested for using classified information in their new job?
Or was your comment sarcastic irony?
Or was your comment sarcastic irony?
Also, a protection racket. See also Dropbox having Condi Rice on their board.
Pretty amazing that the former director of the NSA can start a company in his former employer's space without being sued and yet as programmers we can't get a job anywhere without signing huge stacks of papers that make doing the same nearly impossible, or scary enough to where we don't even bother.
The NSA's job isn't private cyber security. Also, non-competes are evil.
The point is there seems to be different rules governing people who come from different positions or social classes in our society.
That doesn't sound right at all. CEOs are more likely to be bound by noncompetes than line employees. Equally importantly, the noncompete of a CEO is much more likely to be enforceable. Contractual restrictions on competition probably become more onerous as economic status increases.
The best known example for this are bankers. As a rule of thumb, bankers don't go to jail.
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I demand a review of all his equipment to see if he was using Govt equipment and/or time to work on these ideas. If so, no patent awarded. VS commercial sector where patents go to court and end up in the hands of the parent company that provided the equipment.
Suing General Alexander would probably do more harm than good -- this stint in the private industry is likely just another carrot on a stick that he's offering to the world's greatest hackers.
"Work for the NSA and you get will leave with a very powerful patent portfolio, and (most importantly) minimal risk of getting sued!"
"Work for the NSA and you get will leave with a very powerful patent portfolio, and (most importantly) minimal risk of getting sued!"
> Alexander is believed to be the first ex-director of the NSA to file patents on technology that's directly related to the job he had in government.
I wish purely out of spite this schmuck could be the source of a whole class of new lawsuit by which certain government employees, like projects they work on, are legally required to do public domain work only. Like, their employment at a company becomes caustic so people who works at orgs like the NSA who have access to state secrets dedicate themselves to the cause for life and there is no chance for profit.
In short, this is disgusting and I dislike him more than even before.
I wish purely out of spite this schmuck could be the source of a whole class of new lawsuit by which certain government employees, like projects they work on, are legally required to do public domain work only. Like, their employment at a company becomes caustic so people who works at orgs like the NSA who have access to state secrets dedicate themselves to the cause for life and there is no chance for profit.
In short, this is disgusting and I dislike him more than even before.
Government agencies about to be inundated with sales pitches from General Alexander's company in 3...2...1...
Same thing happened when Admiral Fallon retired and suddenly discovered his long hidden cyber security talent at NeuralIQ.
This is a way for these guys to use influence to sell things to agencies they used to run.
Same thing happened when Admiral Fallon retired and suddenly discovered his long hidden cyber security talent at NeuralIQ.
This is a way for these guys to use influence to sell things to agencies they used to run.
How can we forget Chertoff, and his lobbying/fear mongering on behalf of body scanner manufacturers. He very transparently used his credentials as former Secretary of Homeland Security to get his client's devices installed in every airport in the country.
And Tom Ridge, who joined the board of Savi Technologies/Lockheed Martin to push the use of RFID tracking on military shipments and port security.
I wouldn't hire a security company run by the former head of the NSA. Is there any question in anyone's mind that if he was approached by the government to put a backdoor in your company's product or infrastructure, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to say yes?
The government never paid him a million dollars.
How would you know? The US intelligence budget clocks in around $52 billion. You don't think a few million could be allocated if it was the most-expedient way of making something happen?
If you mean that the government could offer him a million now to expose a client's network, sure, but they could offer that to anyone.
Can't the government use everything they know he has done with them to ban him entirely from the sector? Some kind of conflict or interest or just hang him with something and put out a black mark.
You mean, "You're coming too close to trading classified information, if you're not actually doing so already. Stop it."?
You mean they could threaten this to get cooperation, or that they should do this?
Anyway. Yes, I think.
You mean they could threaten this to get cooperation, or that they should do this?
Anyway. Yes, I think.
"Alexander said that if he determines that he needs to use technology or methods that the NSA has patented, he will pay for a license".
Why can the NSA patent anything at all, preventing the public from using the technology it generated with taxpayers' money?
Why can the NSA patent anything at all, preventing the public from using the technology it generated with taxpayers' money?
Why not? It is just like many other companies that invent technologies that might happen to also be funded by the public. See DARPA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
Can I call up the NSA and obtain a license for say... XKeyScore? Probably not... so this is egregious.
Not everything developed by the government is automatically supposed to be available to the public so I guess I don't understand your point.
The point is how is it acceptable that a previously-public-servant can have insider knowledge about "secret" government patents and he can obtain a license to use the technology but I cannot? That's absurd and an abuse of power and privilege.
Did it say he was going to use secret patents?
Or just that he was going to use NSA patents?
Because the NSA maintains a list of patented technologies that they offer to the public on various terms: http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_techno...
Or just that he was going to use NSA patents?
Because the NSA maintains a list of patented technologies that they offer to the public on various terms: http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_techno...
Even if he uses knowledge, methods, practices, routines, guidelines, etc from his time serving at the NSA -- I would expect a NDA to prevent him from using any of that knowledge -- my company made me sign one, and so do most.
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It allows the government to prove that they invented it before someone else. It protects them from patent trolls.
"Why can the NSA patent anything at all"
I wouldn't bother with anything they patented.
If they did that it means it's not worthy of secrecy. It's that simple.
Patents are public
I wouldn't bother with anything they patented.
If they did that it means it's not worthy of secrecy. It's that simple.
Patents are public
Not all patents are public, for at least some the government can file a private patent on secret tech and only have to reveal it when someone else tries to patent the same thing.
Yes, but the fact that Alexander has insider-info where he knows about certain "secret" patents and then will "buddy-buddy" pay the government for "licenses" for said secret patents is absurd.
How would this work if it were say, Krebs doing the consulting? He would not have access to secret government patents... nor should he (if the patents are supposed to be secret for "national security" purposes). Neither should Alexander.
How would this work if it were say, Krebs doing the consulting? He would not have access to secret government patents... nor should he (if the patents are supposed to be secret for "national security" purposes). Neither should Alexander.
Why can't anyone license the public sector work of the NSA?
Wiper is a cousin of the notorious Stuxnet virus, which was built by the NSA -- while Alexander was in charge -- in cooperation with Israeli intelligence.
Have the Stuxnet creators actually been proven to be the US and Israel? I thought it was still speculation (but almost certainly true).
There was a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to this fact already, and Snowden finally confirmed this last year in an interview with Der Spiegel [1].
[1]: http://cryptome.org/2013/07/snowden-spiegel-13-0707-en.htm
[1]: http://cryptome.org/2013/07/snowden-spiegel-13-0707-en.htm
Ah thanks. I had read about a lot of evidence pointing in the USA's direction, but didn't realize Snowden also confirmed it. Arguably still hearsay, but certainly adds more weight to it.
In addition to the Snowden confirmation, there were some press leaks in 2012 that appear to have confirmed it earlier [1]. Apparently there's still some investigations going on within the U.S. government about who leaked it.
I'd say it's a pretty clear-cut case who was behind Stuxnet.
[1] http://www.wired.com/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwa...
I'd say it's a pretty clear-cut case who was behind Stuxnet.
[1] http://www.wired.com/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwa...
Asked why he didn't share this new approach with the federal government when he was in charge of protecting its most important computer systems, Alexander said the key insight about using behavior models came from one of his business partners, whom he also declined to name, and that it takes an approach that the government hadn't considered. It's these methods that Alexander said he will seek to patent.
Quite the patriot--and one wonders why Millenials have no faith in the senior .gov folks.
Quite the patriot--and one wonders why Millenials have no faith in the senior .gov folks.
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He's most likely using inside information from the NSA. This warrants an investigation and constant monitoring by DOJ (not that they'd actually do anything about it if they saw Alexander selling secret NSA information to companies).
As someone else was saying on Twitter - at least Snowden gave back the information to tax-payers for free. Keith Alexander is just trying to profit from it, and only giving it to a few elites.
As someone else was saying on Twitter - at least Snowden gave back the information to tax-payers for free. Keith Alexander is just trying to profit from it, and only giving it to a few elites.
I'm tempted to make an analogy with 'protection' money paid by some small businesses to the mafia in order to be able to operate without being 'hassled' ... Of course, it's just subjective image that popped into mind as I read this.
>"It was those kinds of hackers who Alexander, when he was running the NSA, said were responsible for "the greatest transfer of wealth in American history" because they were routinely stealing trade secrets and competitive information from U.S. companies and giving it to their competitors, often in China."
Oh, and here I thought the greatest transfer of wealth in American history was the massive rise in disparity over the last thirty years between the nation's top 0.1% and everyone else.
Oh, and here I thought the greatest transfer of wealth in American history was the massive rise in disparity over the last thirty years between the nation's top 0.1% and everyone else.
That's consolidation of wealth -- transfer (in this context) implies it leaves sphere of American influence.
No, the analogy holds. One is across national borders, the other across economic strata. Here is an article from Forbes describing welfare as wealth transfer:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/07/15/mak...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/07/15/mak...
> Oh, and here I thought the greatest transfer of wealth in American history was the massive rise in disparity over the last thirty years between the nation's top 0.1% and everyone else.
Not all changes in economic status are transfers of wealth. Consider two cases:
1) I physically steal a CD from the record store and sell it. That's a transfer because the store can't sell what they no longer posses. Instead I have sold it. Nothing new is created.
2) I create an album and sell CDs of it. That's not a transfer. I created something new of value and introduced it to the world. I may get wealthy, but the people who buy my CD don't lose value. They exchange one thing of value (money) for another of equivalent value to them (my CD).
Not all changes in economic status are transfers of wealth. Consider two cases:
1) I physically steal a CD from the record store and sell it. That's a transfer because the store can't sell what they no longer posses. Instead I have sold it. Nothing new is created.
2) I create an album and sell CDs of it. That's not a transfer. I created something new of value and introduced it to the world. I may get wealthy, but the people who buy my CD don't lose value. They exchange one thing of value (money) for another of equivalent value to them (my CD).
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Ok, I didn't read it. But I am of the strong opinion that what is for sale is political expertise and connections, not any particular technical expertise.
Perhaps toss in some particular narrow-band legal and program (as a human endeavor, not a technical skill) knowledge.
Most "revolving door" activity in DC centers around these areas of expertise and influence (politics, connections, legalese), as far as I have observed from my distant perch.
Perhaps toss in some particular narrow-band legal and program (as a human endeavor, not a technical skill) knowledge.
Most "revolving door" activity in DC centers around these areas of expertise and influence (politics, connections, legalese), as far as I have observed from my distant perch.
Whenever a company starts off by talking about patents, I suspect they are going to claim some trivial shit and troll everyone.
i just read several paragraphs of absolutely nothing.
really. how this person considers himself a journalist? or even a blogger?
the central argument appears to be patents, yet not even the titles are mentioned.
really. how this person considers himself a journalist? or even a blogger?
the central argument appears to be patents, yet not even the titles are mentioned.
I can't wait for the patent paperwork to come out. I see it just showing up in open-source security distros.
$600k-$1m a month apparently gets you a cyber security company with no website.
xipiter was homepage less for 4 years, they managed fine.
I bet they have a killer PowerPoint deck!
I'm sure he'd charge them even more if it weren't for Snowden devaluing some of the information he knows.
Nonsense, Snowden's revelations give credence to the NSA's capability. One could even say that Keith Alexander owes Snowden a great deal of his notoriety to him.
The same sort of insights and expertise that athletes put into stuff sold by Nike, Adidas or Gatorade.
It's an endorsement deal.