In August a group of people going to the Usenix security conference in Washington are planning to drive out to the NSA museum the day after the conference, and I thought that since most of the group are foreigners and have travelled a long way to be there, we might as well try for a tour of Ft.Meade as well: Public Affairs Office National Security Agency/Central Security Service 9800 Savage Road Ft. Meade, MD 20755-6248 Dear Sir/Madam, On the week of 23rd August, security researchers from various backgrounds will be attending the 8th Usenix Security Symposium in Washington DC, after which a small group of us are going to visit the National Cryptologic Museum on Friday 27th. Although the museum contains a considerable amount of interesting material, several of the researchers would be very interested in viewing the NSA's computer and research facilities. Would it be possible for you to arrange a tour of your facilities for us along with a demonstration of some of the work you do? Areas of particular interest would be your computing facilities and anything related to cryptographic research and development. Sincerely, Peter Gutmann I'd provided an email address with the letter, and yesterday I got a message from someone from the NSA Public and Media Affairs office asking me to give her a call to discuss the visit. There were various humourous suggestions about what to ask for (eg "As a long-standing customer(?) of Echelon I'd be interested in seeing how it's actually run", with a proposed response of "We're Fedexing you a GPS box. When it arrives, switch it on and wait"). Anyway, I gave them a call and asked whether it'd be possible to get a tour of things like their supercomputer facilities, research sections, or whatnot. Unfortunately it turns out that this isn't possible: "We're an intelligence agency, we don't do tours" (I got this on the phone, getting it on NSA letterhead would have been more fun :-). Two down (GCSB, NSA), three to go (DSD, GCHQ, CSE). Peter.
