[Info-vax] Bradley Manning and OpenVMS

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <52ba1b3a$0$61565$c3e8da3$f017e9df at news.astraweb.com>,
	JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
> Very good article from a 14 hour interview with Edward Snowden by
> Washington Post:
> 
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsa-revelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html
> 
> ##
> Snowden recounted another set of conversations that he said took place
> three years earlier, when he was sent by the NSA’s Technology
> Directorate to support operations at a listening post in Japan. As a
> system administrator, he had full access to security and auditing
> controls. He said he saw serious flaws with information security.
> 
> “I actually recommended they move to two-man control for administrative
> access back in 2009,” he said, first to his supervisor in Japan and then
> to the directorate’s chief of operations in the Pacific. “Sure, a
> whistleblower could use these things, but so could a spy.”
> 
> That precaution, which requires a second set of credentials to perform
> risky operations such as copying files onto a removable drive, has been
> among the principal security responses to the Snowden affair.
> 
> ##
> 
> 
> Now, imagine if HP had paid Snowden to promote VMS as a secure system
> that the NSA has a hard time breaking into :-)

1.  Why would the NSA be interesed in an OS that doesn't support any of
their applications?

2.  What makes you think the NSA has a hard time breaking into it?

3.  What makes you think that HP wasn't one of the companies that
happily put backdoors in thier products (including VMS)?

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>