Magical Secret World...........

Dan Brown’s mystery thriller Digital Fortress – talks about a secret world, taking the reader to the heights of imagination…

What is this NSA about which the book talks throughout………Here is a small insight to this magical world………….a world which the mathematics lovers will love to work ………….

The National Security Agency (NSA) is an agency responsible for both the collection and analysis of message communications, and for both the security of government communications gainst similar agencies elsewhere. Its eavesdropping brief includes radio broadcasting, both from organizations and individuals, the Internet and other intercepted forms of communication, especially confidential communications. Its secure communications brief includes military, diplomatic and all other sensitive, confidential communications. Its one of the World’s largest single employer of Ph.D mathematicians, the owner of the single largest group of supercomputers. It has maintained a very low profile until the recent years. For a long time its existence is not even admitted by the governement. The acronym “NSA” has jokingly been morphed to mean No Such Agency and Never Say Anything

The National Security Agency is a cryptologic organization. It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect information systems and produce foreign intelligence information. A high technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and data processing. It is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the government.

NSA conducts one of the government's leading research and development (R&D) programs. Some of the Agency's R&D projects have significantly advanced the state of the art in the scientific and business worlds.

NSA's early interest in cryptanalytic research led to the first large-scale computer and the first solid-state computer, predecessors to the modern computer. NSA pioneered efforts in flexible storage capabilities, which led to the development of the tape cassette. NSA also made ground-breaking developments in semiconductor technology and remains a world leader in many technological fields.

NSA employs the country's premier cryptologists. It is said to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the world. Its mathematicians contribute directly to the two missions of the Agency: designing cipher systems that will protect the integrity of information systems and searching for weaknesses in adversaries' systems and codes.

Technology and the world change rapidly, and great emphasis is placed on staying ahead of these changes with employee training programs.

The National Cryptologic School is indicative of the Agency's commitment to professional development. The school not only provides unique training for the NSA workforce, but it also serves as a training resource for the entire Department of Defense. NSA sponsors employees for bachelor and graduate studies at the Nation's top universities and colleges.

Most NSA workforce represents an unusual combination of specialties: analysts, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, linguists, computer scientists, researchers, as well as customer relations specialists, security officers, data flow experts, managers, administrative officers and clerical assistants.

Mission Statement
"The ability to understand the secret communications of our foreign adversaries while protecting our own communications -- a capability in which the United States leads the world -- gives our nation a unique advantage."

This is just a small snap shot of one of the most hidden and prestigious place in the world……..a place for the mathematicians and the people who love to break codes……………………………….

This article was published in Project Galaxy's April 2005 Issue......... :)