Snowden was a sysadmin. He took documents. The NSA solution is to fire 90% of sysadmins and replace them with software. Gosh, that means crackers only need to breach one piece of software to get access to everything. And who will write that software, test it, and then monitor it? NSA doesn’t say. Nor do they say who will run their networks when 90% of sysadmins are gone.
NSA has said nothing about how many other data breaches they’ve had. That’s because they don’t know. They still haven’t determined how Snowden did it or how many other leaks they have. I’m guessing hundreds, if not thousands. Such cluelessness does not inspire confidence in me.
Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden recently said, and I quote, “Gmail is the preferred Internet service provider of terrorists worldwide,” a statement so patently ignorant it makes one wonder if Hayden even uses email. First off, GMail is not an ISP. Second, it’s one of the most popular email programs on the planet. He might as well have said 100% of terrorists started with mother’s milk. Shhh, don’t tell him that. He’d probably want to put all mothers with infants under 24/7 surveillance.
The terrifying truth is those at the top of NSA have little understanding of technological issues and security.