The NSA has a long history in advising to non-government security standards. Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" notes that several of the fundamental constants of the DES algorithm were contributed by the NSA; they were viewed with some suspicion until many years later, when it was discovered that they made the algorithm suspiciously resilient in the face of a cryptanalytic attack that was not publicly known at the time of the standard's creation.
apart from the privacy aspects - and I have no doubt the collaboration did not enhance privacy - why does the government cooperate with some companies and not others? Why does the NSA get to choose which ventures to provide its expertise to? This is just the powerful helping the powerful, on our dime and at our expense.
Based on the 'takes one to know one' principle, I reckon the NSA should have had some important insight on maintaining privacy. Maybe they also collaborated with Microsoft in planting a few 'backdoors' for national security purposes...
She can say anything she wants. I credit her and Tina Fey with helping the American public avoid four more years of Republican tyranny by helping to torpedo that idiot Sarah Palin.
@son of spam: I know this is all in good humor... but straight women don't always have to look like Betty Draper and they (we) can actually do things too. Not sure where you were trying to go with this one - especially because, and you should know this by now, I usually enjoy your remarks. #katiecouric
The continuing saga of vaccinations on hufpo is so ridiculous that it astounds me. Not only that, but comments made refuting their retarded claims are DELETED. #conspiracies
11/20/09
More recently, there was this: [en.wikipedia.org]
The purpose of this collaboration is unknown, but it is not new news.
11/20/09
Corps and end users really don't care where their data will end up -- at least our wonderful government *does*.
This evolutionary move just warms my blackened heart.
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Seriously. I do. #katiecouric
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@misha trotsky: She's morphing into Suze Orman, which maybe isn't the best person to morph into.
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