RSA Denies Taking $10M From NSA

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The RSA put out a press release over the weekend refuting evidence in documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Recent press coverage has asserted that RSA entered into a “secret contract” with the NSA to incorporate a known flawed random number generator into its BSAFE encryption libraries. We categorically deny this allegation. RSA, as a security company, never divulges details of customer engagements, but we also categorically state that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA’s products, or introducing potential ‘backdoors’ into our products for anyone’s use.
 
james_clapper2.jpg


This arsehole had no problems lying about the NSA spying. Why should anybody believe the RSA?
 
from the Reuters article linked to last week:

"Most of the dozen current and former RSA employees interviewed said that the company erred in agreeing to such a contract, and many cited RSA's corporate evolution away from pure cryptography products as one of the reasons it occurred.

But several said that RSA also was misled by government officials, who portrayed the formula as a secure technological advance.

"They did not show their true hand," one person briefed on the deal said of the NSA, asserting that government officials did not let on that they knew how to break the encryption."

So Snowden says sellout, the employees who still work there say sellout and the PR mouthpiece says standard damage control speech... hmmm who to believe?
 
Gays staying in the closet, who to thought?

NSA "How does that feel RSA?"
RSA "Mmm, feels great, keep it up!" "What will we tell the public?"
NSA "Just deny everything"
 
from the Reuters article linked to last week:

"Most of the dozen current and former RSA employees interviewed said that the company erred in agreeing to such a contract, and many cited RSA's corporate evolution away from pure cryptography products as one of the reasons it occurred.

But several said that RSA also was misled by government officials, who portrayed the formula as a secure technological advance.

"They did not show their true hand," one person briefed on the deal said of the NSA, asserting that government officials did not let on that they knew how to break the encryption."

So Snowden says sellout, the employees who still work there say sellout and the PR mouthpiece says standard damage control speech... hmmm who to believe?

Pretty simple: Snowden and the guy who wrote the Reuters' article say "sellout," and nobody else does, including the company. The phrases you quote above lack any credibility whatsoever because the sources are not attributed by name--if someone writes a news article in which "unnamed sources" are cited as his source of everything in the article--you can safely ignore such an article as it is almost certainly untrue. Why? Because it breaks a cardinal rule of journalism; if no sources are named and attributed it becomes impossible to cross-check the story for validity. If the story cannot be independently verified by other people not connected to the author then the author might as well have made up the whole thing. If you choose to believe it because it fits your preconceived notions about these things, fine, but remember that you don't believe it because of any proof the article puts forward because it doesn't do anything except make allegations as to what some people said without telling you (or anyone else) *who* the people are who have supposedly said these things.

The rule I follow is this: author doesn't properly attribute his story sources, I don't believe author/article...;)

Do journalists lie? All the time, unfortunately. Even famous ones like Dan Rather of 60-minutes fame who lied about Bush and forged Bush's *name* on official documents just to prove an imaginary point Rather wanted to make that he could not "prove" otherwise--without lying and cheating, that is. He should have gone to prison, but he just got retired, instead. Don't *ever* consider that "news stories" without attribution might be true, because most likely if they were true then the people making the supporting statements would be identified by name in the article. A news story should not be considered valid until it can be cross-verified by a number of 3rd-parties not connected to the author or to his employer, and that isn't possible with "unnamed sources"....;)

IE, a journalist somewhere making statements that : "This information came from Snowden's stash" should not be believed for one second until it is possible for anyone else investigating the story to prove it is valid, independently. Again, without naming names it is impossible to determine truth from fiction.
 
The fact that this is even considered to be feasible is troubling in its own right. I'd be less concerned if the masses rose up and said "nonsense, this could never happen in the US!" Alas, we've all become so accustomed to the NSA's snooping, that nothing surprises us anymore in that regard.
 
@WaltC - there are very good reasons for not publishing the names. Our current presidential administration has no qualms about harassing and/or prosecuting their political enemies, and that list includes anyone who releases information that is damaging to their cause. The people who provided information about this would be placing themselves at risk of not only losing their jobs, but also being thrown in jail.

You do make a good point about taking the whole story with a grain of salt. At this point, given the history of media bias *in favor* of the current administration, and the administration's history of outright lying to the press, to Congress, and to the general population, I'm inclined to believe the article. Certainly the NSA has zero credibility.
 
We didn't do it. I can state with absolute certainty that we never received a request from the NSA to put in a backdoor and a court order not to disclose this fact to anyone. No sir. Nothing like that happened at all...

(Note: the above is rhetorical. I am not, nor have I ever been, an employee for RSA.)
 
who would be so stupid and admit "yea i got 10 millions and agreed to fuck over everyone else". money talks.
 
And the PR guy who put out the statement has cover when this is proven to be false.
"I had no knowledge whatsoever... this was all done at the highest levels... almost nobody in the company knew."
 
RSA is so full of shit. I will never recommend their products ever again and I know I'm not the only one.
 
Pretty simple: Snowden and the guy who wrote the Reuters' article say "sellout," and nobody else does, including the company. The phrases you quote above lack any credibility whatsoever because the sources are not attributed by name--if someone writes a news article in which "unnamed sources" are cited as his source of everything in the article--you can safely ignore such an article as it is almost certainly untrue. Why? Because it breaks a cardinal rule of journalism; if no sources are named and attributed it becomes impossible to cross-check the story for validity. If the story cannot be independently verified by other people not connected to the author then the author might as well have made up the whole thing. If you choose to believe it because it fits your preconceived notions about these things, fine, but remember that you don't believe it because of any proof the article puts forward because it doesn't do anything except make allegations as to what some people said without telling you (or anyone else) *who* the people are who have supposedly said these things.

The rule I follow is this: author doesn't properly attribute his story sources, I don't believe author/article...;)

Do journalists lie? All the time, unfortunately. Even famous ones like Dan Rather of 60-minutes fame who lied about Bush and forged Bush's *name* on official documents just to prove an imaginary point Rather wanted to make that he could not "prove" otherwise--without lying and cheating, that is. He should have gone to prison, but he just got retired, instead. Don't *ever* consider that "news stories" without attribution might be true, because most likely if they were true then the people making the supporting statements would be identified by name in the article. A news story should not be considered valid until it can be cross-verified by a number of 3rd-parties not connected to the author or to his employer, and that isn't possible with "unnamed sources"....;)

IE, a journalist somewhere making statements that : "This information came from Snowden's stash" should not be believed for one second until it is possible for anyone else investigating the story to prove it is valid, independently. Again, without naming names it is impossible to determine truth from fiction.

Rather didn't lie. A source lied. It's a rather significant difference (and one that's easily verified via your favorite search engine).


With that out of the way, I'm not sure why we would trust RSA over a reporter. RSA has far more to lose the reporter can gain. If the reporter is lying, eventually, it will come out, because more than one reporter has access to the documents. OTOH, RSA has nothing to lose.
RSA PR said:
RSA, as a security company, never divulges details of customer engagements, but we also categorically state that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA’s products, or introducing potential ‘backdoors’ into our products for anyone’s use.

In other words, they'd never do it, but they also wouldn't admit to it if they did. Sure, the document will turn up, but they'll deny the veracity of them. If that becomes untenable, they'll say, "Whoops. Our mad." Fire someone (or blame someone that's no longer there) and move on.

There's no doubt that there are bad reporters (even if your Rather example was example), but until we start getting documents that are proven to be false, I'm going give reporters the benefit of the doubt, because so far, they haven't lied, while virtually everyone else has.
 
How did that saying go again?

"Denial is the admittance of guilt."

Or, "Thou doth protest too much."

At this point, I don't think anyone is going to believe the RSA. It sounds like they are saying what the NSA told them to say.
 
Because it breaks a cardinal rule of journalism; if no sources are named and attributed it becomes impossible to cross-check the story for validity. If the story cannot be independently verified by other people not connected to the author then the author might as well have made up the whole thing. If you choose to believe it because it fits your preconceived notions about these things, fine, but remember that you don't believe it because of any proof the article puts forward because it doesn't do anything except make allegations as to what some people said without telling you (or anyone else) *who* the people are who have supposedly said these things.

You have never dealt with a "preponderance of evidence" in civil court have you?

Would you never believe such advice or warning as this example: "If you go down that (any given bad location of a high crime city) alley at night, you are going to get killed, because they kill people there all the time"

I guess you would not believe such unverifiable testimony...you might even have no problem at all with the thought of setting up camp in that said alley, just to show that guy wrong for not identifying whoever 'they' were by name.

The rule I follow is this: author doesn't properly attribute his story sources, I don't believe author/article...;)


Just to be clear, this was a response in reference to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, and multiple anonymous employee statements back it up.

I don't see much that is not believable in the story.

Do journalists lie? All the time, unfortunately.

Agreed, and it is so bad that Obama is in office right now as a result.
 
Every time that I read a story like this I think back to the movie, "Goodfellas". The scene where Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, and Ray Liotta, are crouched over a shoebox of raw cash and Pesci says, "Niceeeeeee!".

Our government is a syndicate organized to squeeze even more proceeds out of tax payers who each week give nearly 40% of their income to run their federal, state, and local governments.
 
Does anyone believe this PR statement? Nope. Didn't think so. There is a reason western governments want this guy so bad. And it isn't because Snowden is telling lies. It is because he is telling the truth.
 
Does anyone believe this PR statement? Nope. Didn't think so. There is a reason western governments want this guy so bad. And it isn't because Snowden is telling lies. It is because he is telling the truth.

He is systematically exposing the surveillance state that the world has become. It boils my blood when people call him a traitor. He deserved person of the year. Not a religious figure who is still protecting child molesters.
 
If its true there would be a money trail up until the point that is "legally laundered" that is.
 
He is systematically exposing the surveillance state that the world has become. It boils my blood when people call him a traitor. He deserved person of the year. Not a religious figure who is still protecting child molesters.

Oh come on. I'm an atheist leaning Agnostic, and even I can tell that Francis is a revolutionary figure within that church.

The person of the year has nothing to do with you doing good or bad. As I recall, Hitler was Person of the Year. Bin Laden was up for person of the year in 2001 and Hitler and Stalin both won.

I honestly think they picked the 2 most interesting people from last year and I wouldn't be surprised if it was almost a coin flip as to which one won.

I think they've both done good things. If Francis is really still covering up molestations, then that's really bad, but let's not pretend that Snowden's been a saint. There was no good reason to leak that we spied on Germany or Brazil (other than to possibly get a asylum in a country that sucks a lot less than Russia.
 
Oh come on. I'm an atheist leaning Agnostic, and even I can tell that Francis is a revolutionary figure within that church.

The person of the year has nothing to do with you doing good or bad. As I recall, Hitler was Person of the Year. Bin Laden was up for person of the year in 2001 and Hitler and Stalin both won.

I honestly think they picked the 2 most interesting people from last year and I wouldn't be surprised if it was almost a coin flip as to which one won.

I think they've both done good things. If Francis is really still covering up molestations, then that's really bad, but let's not pretend that Snowden's been a saint. There was no good reason to leak that we spied on Germany or Brazil (other than to possibly get a asylum in a country that sucks a lot less than Russia.

I'd ignore him. He's acting like the Pope would know what every one under him is doing all the time, every time. And it's obvious, he's quite bias against the pope and for Snowden. In any case it's a choice of the magazine, anyone who doesn't like it can make their own.

And you know what... I think I'll believe that the RSA in that it didn't accept 10 million. It's probably more. 10 million seems poultry, small fries for something so heinous.
 
Oh come on. I'm an atheist leaning Agnostic, and even I can tell that Francis is a revolutionary figure within that church.

The person of the year has nothing to do with you doing good or bad. As I recall, Hitler was Person of the Year. Bin Laden was up for person of the year in 2001 and Hitler and Stalin both won.

I honestly think they picked the 2 most interesting people from last year and I wouldn't be surprised if it was almost a coin flip as to which one won.

I think they've both done good things. If Francis is really still covering up molestations, then that's really bad, but let's not pretend that Snowden's been a saint. There was no good reason to leak that we spied on Germany or Brazil (other than to possibly get a asylum in a country that sucks a lot less than Russia.

When a murderous fucker that runs the worlds largest military industrial police state gets a Nobel Peace Prize......................................yeah....
 
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after 12 days in office, I neglected to mention........

The world is a stage.
 
I think I'll believe that the RSA in that it didn't accept 10 million. It's probably more. 10 million seems poultry, small fries for something so heinous.
This was my thought. 10M is nothing to a company like RSA.

Of course, if I were the NSA, and were given 10M to introduce a backdoor, I wouldn't go straight to the company and say, "Hey, here's 10M. Backdoor me." No, I'd find a disgruntled developer, and offer him 10M to successfully install one for me. The company could deny it until they're blue in the face, but the hole would be in their system nonetheless.
 
I'd ignore him. He's acting like the Pope would know what every one under him is doing all the time, every time. And it's obvious, he's quite bias against the pope and for Snowden. In any case it's a choice of the magazine, anyone who doesn't like it can make their own.

And you know what... I think I'll believe that the RSA in that it didn't accept 10 million. It's probably more. 10 million seems poultry, small fries for something so heinous.

It's not a lot, but it's a small change and they probably assumed nobody would ever find out about it. But honestly, I don't care if it was for free or a billion bucks, they betrayed their customers.
 
When a murderous fucker that runs the worlds largest military industrial police state gets a Nobel Peace Prize......................................yeah....

Huh? Can you say incomprehensible non-sequitur?

Nice try.
 
Still has nothing to do with this article or Time Magazine.

You posted,

Oh come on. I'm an atheist leaning Agnostic, and even I can tell that Francis is a revolutionary figure within that church.

The person of the year has nothing to do with you doing good or bad. As I recall, Hitler was Person of the Year. Bin Laden was up for person of the year in 2001 and Hitler and Stalin both won.

I honestly think they picked the 2 most interesting people from last year and I wouldn't be surprised if it was almost a coin flip as to which one won.

I think they've both done good things. If Francis is really still covering up molestations, then that's really bad, but let's not pretend that Snowden's been a saint. There was no good reason to leak that we spied on Germany or Brazil (other than to possibly get a asylum in a country that sucks a lot less than Russia.

Which is what I was responding to. Obama got the nobel peace prize, which is a "person of the year award". It was awarded to him after 12 days in office, which ties in with your statement of, "The person of the year has nothing to do with you doing good or bad.".

Understand?
 
You posted,



Which is what I was responding to. Obama got the nobel peace prize, which is a "person of the year award". It was awarded to him after 12 days in office, which ties in with your statement of, "The person of the year has nothing to do with you doing good or bad.".

Understand?

Oh you mean like how Argo won the Grammy for best rock song. Oh wait, no I don't get it. You're comparing apples and oranges.

I don't think he deserved the Peace Prize. That's not a political statement. It's jsut a statement of fact. He'd just taken office, so if he turned out to be Jesus himself, it still wouldn't mean he deserved it at that point.

He also won Times person of the Year award in 2008 (and 2012), just like bush did when he was elected)

Person of the year is about the years most INTERESTING person(s). There's no argument that both Francis and Snowden were 2 of the most interesting people of 2013.

The award was deserved by both, but with very few exceptions (nixon/Kissenger), it's not shared. And I don't it's ever shared unless the people were working on the same thing (e.g. the China deal).
 
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