Schneier on Security

Davi Ottenheimer • January 7, 2009 5:40 PM

Yeah, what’s this post about?

I read the link and found this:

“During the Korean War the quality of strategic intelligence derived from COMINT fell below that which had been provided in World War II. Consumers were disappointed and increasingly critical.”

Fair point, but the Korean War started in 1950 with shockingly poor intelligence as the AFSA was underfunded, misinterpreted/unclear and probably compromised by a foreign agent. Here’s a more succinct explanation:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB260/index.htm

“The Agency provided no warning that North Korea intended to invade South Korea in June 1950 because it was paying no attention to Korea.”

The NSA link you provided skips right over 1950. Sure, the AFSA was stumped by Chinese military cipher systems, as well as North Korean one-time pad cipher systems, which led to the consumer dissatisfaction in the mid 50s and later improvements, but I believe the circumstances at the start of the Korean war are an even more compelling bullet-point in the origin of the NSA.