DOCIDl -- 40111945 I P L 86-36 P 6 GJ UVlIlGJ lS lDlBVU Ul lSGJ lDWV fill5lDWfill5 fil II Wl5Ulfill5 f 00UlW l1aJlIJfil IBrn Urnl1rnrn December 1981 86-36 EXERCISE SUPPORT U oooo oooooooooo o o o l _ THE 1981 URSI xx GENERAL ASSEMBLY U o oo o J SLEEP WELL I YOUR SDO IS ON DUTY U oo ooooo E Leigh Sawyer o ooo o oo 8 tIDE A BRIEF HISTORY U oooooooooooooooooo oo 1 I o 10 NSA-CROSTIC NO 36 U oooooo oooooooo oo oooooo David H Williams ' ' ' ' o 14 IN PURSUIT OF FASTER HORSES YOUNGER WOMEN OLDER WHISKEY AND MORE MONEY U ooooooooo o TEXTA WHAT IS IT WHERE IS IT GOING U o PLATFORM HOW DID YOU SAY THAT WORKS U oooooo T- REVIEW IN THE NAME OF EFFICIENCY U o oooo ooo L ----I 'fHIS B6CtffltIHN'f C6N'f2 INS C6BHW6RB r 12 'fHRI2 Sb 88IFIBB REVIEW eN BJPY N8A S88M 123 2 18 Bee e811 Declassified and Approved for Release by NSA on '10-'1 2- 20'1 2 pursuant to E O '135 26 vl DR Case # 54778 DOCID Publishld by Pl Techniques and Standards for the Personnel of Operations VOL VIII No 12 DECEMBER 1981 PUBLISHER BOARD OF EDITORS Editor-in-chief 1 1 7119S ---- Production o oooooo o o 1 l3369S COllection I I B555s cryptanalysis oooo o ooooo 1 902S CryptolinguistiCS oooo 1 5981S Information Science I 03034s Language oo oo o oooo 1 1 161s Machine Support lt5084S I Mathematics o oo o 1 8 18s Puzzles o David H Williams 1103s Special Research oo Vera R Filby T 1' 19s Traffic Analysis o o oo Don Taurone $t3s For individual subscriptions send name and organizational designator tOr CRYPTOLOG or call r33 69S To submit 'articles or letters via PLATFORM address to cryptolg at bar1c05 note no '0' in 'log' EDITORIAL oJj It is sometimes puzzling wny some people turn out to be good at this analysis business while others who are evidently just as well educated never seem to get the knack of it I have of course some theories about this or I wouldn't have brought the subject up and 1 wonder what you the readers think about this One notion I keep coming back to is that very few discoveries are ever made by means of the so-called scientific method and that it is only when one comes to the point of having to describe the discovery to others that the scientific method is used as an orderly way of laying out facts and their connecting arguments Over the years it seems to me that the great bulk of the genuine analytic discoveries were made by a relatively few people Some of these people perhaps most were not really scientific method people If they had a method there was often a faint smell of magic about their description of it Sometimes they would describe their discovery as an accident as pure serendipity 1 no longer believe in the serendipity explanation It simply doesn't fit the circumstances The accidents should have happened to a larger number of people not just to a small number of serendipity-prone analysts I think it has to do with the way these people looked at the world the way they perceived events around them Based upon my contact with a few of them I believe that some of these serendipity-prones looked at the world around them in terms of o o o a before an after and the event connecting them Given a certain before and after that were Il2i the same something happened at the connecting event I think it may have been this way of looking at the events around them that drew the attention of these serendipityprones to the sites of their discoveries Something did What do you think P L 86-36 DO-e-ILl 4 O 1 1-E tH'41-1l 1t'o o----- --------- - L Exercise Support 86-36 LJ b r xx C8 J SA C5S in accordance with USSID 4 supports U S military exercises where CXl'UNT 1s required V42 Current AppIlcations Division --1'r C ' C 'CV Tj-levies perSQnnel to serve as SIGINT Reporter Analysts f r the exercises Since January 1981 A6 Technical Support has participated in the program ' he author would 1 j ke to eYD ess his appreciation to Michael F --- P1ief V42l for his ccmnents on the section concerning the recent exercise N Introduction to xercise SIGINT U U All large military exercises are conducted on the basis of a scenario depicting -sane imaginary war situation both to give the participants experience in coping with situations not encountered in peacetime and to evaluate the capabilities of coornanders staffs troops systems and equipnent to cope with such situations U MaXimUIII realism is sought but realism will always be sacrificed to accomplish exercise objectives For example enemy capabilities are adjusted as required to provide the desired amount of challenge to the players even to the point of wild implausibility if necessary The war cannot be allowed to be won or lost prematurely desperate battles must continue right up to the end of the exercise U Chaos and confusion are unavoidable features of real warfare ' hese qualities are also characteristic in the management of intricate exercise scenarios ' he planned breakdowns and disruptions designed to test the players are canpounded by unplanned breakdowns and disruptions inevitably suffered among the controllers and referees U In the course of the exercise participants are given preplanned information about imaginary events in the scenario - what the enemy is doing what casualties friendly forces have suffered et c - and are expected to respond to these events with orders plans and actions Exercise controllers then assess the results of the players' actions give the players appropriate feedback through simulated intelligence and operational reports and devise subseqUent problems for the players U Because players' actions are often unpredictable the course of events can deviate considerably from the original script Controllers are expected to be able to handle this free play and still keep to the key themes of the scenario Dec 81 CRYProIDG Page 1 EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 IWIBhl3 VIA SSHIIIIf 8IWlNElhS SflhY DOCID 4011945 CPr then returned to NSA CSS and began nating the SIGINT personnel and logistic support for the exercise Included in these support efforts were d termining airlift requirements for NSA CSS sUpPo t personnel and arranging for ac cOl1llOOdations aootransportation at the exercise site He also reqUested the necessary personnel support from A Gtoup and communications support fram oor II A Recent Exercise U U The purpose of this JRX was to provide training for participating commanders staffs and forces in joint air ground operatioQs involving air armor and mechanized forces The exercise scenario d ictedf i V 1 noon notification of the JRX captain lof V421 Exercise Support tlrancn was aeslgnated NSA CSS project officer He attended the initial planning conference at REOCGi Hq McDill AFB where all of the intelligence players were brought together and the strategic scenario was given IU I Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 2 Ik lI loE 'Ii ' 8BHHI'f 81h'rlUl'CbS BIlbY P L 86-36 EO 1 4 c 1 L 86 - 3 6 SSSRS'f C-CCO The Joint Exercise Control Group JECG was the Exercise Controller and as such interjected stimuli into the exercise to which the players responded The SIGINT Support Liaison Staff V421 was part of the JECG xxx xxx -rc-eee1-Upon conclusion of a JRX I0 ' t e 1 1 1 a brief I r is sfr n y tgel u o P ou nave participated but in ctuality only the NSA CSS personnel attended II Wh WOUld 't'G l CPT said that the After Action Report submitto the JCS would probably conclude that the JRX achieved its objectives primarily because logistics and air defense objectives were met cPTI Ihowever doubts the value of the exercise as a realistic simulation for the following reasons c-ceot The Cryptologic Support Group CSG and Intelligence Directorate J2 were colocated and were provided SIGINT inputs via the Hobile Cryptologic Support Facility HCSF which is a GH motor home that houses the most modern computer and communications equipment The HCSF belong to NSA CSS I P L 86-36 0 1 4 c U The CSG is a group provided by NSA CSS to facilitate SIGINT Support to a unified or specified command joint task force commander or other commanders C-CCO The Consolidated SIGINT Support 1_--1 e ee6 Grated the L 8 S The SIGINT Support Staff SSS genSIGINT support for the exercise U As to the success of SSS in support of the exercise one can only conclude that exercise support objectives were partially met i Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 3 SSSREl'i' IIAP BY VIA 88f11IN1' 8HAPIPIIIlS 8NM -_ - _-- _ - - - - - - IL --- I U Transcribers are left with a more complete view of current operations and a more complete understanding of the assorted and sanitized reports that xist in the intelligence community Transcriber Reactions to Program Participation U U Although the opinions varied among the transcribers participating in the various exercises there were many areas of general agreement Most of the transcribers thought the experience worthwhile in that they saw how the Agency fits into the SIGINT community i e into the big picture Most thought they had gained from the experience either professionally by a greater understanding of the SIGINT system and an increase in target knowledge or financially by the overtime c-eSQ There was gener l agreement among the participating transcribers on two points U At the time of A6's entry into the program transcribers suffered from poorly organized pre-exercise briefings little working aid familiarization instructions that were wrong or incomplete or too rapidly given and disorganized source materials One transcriber noted that the standard was to be The various staffs however are uninformed correcting these shortcomings on a continuing basis Exercise scenarios should De provided with sufficient time for perusal Personnel ishould be carefully selected to insure that the individual has the proper background Otherwise the individual maybe inundated with a mass of incomprehensible data and given no time to decipher it Some military knowledge lis requisite -4 r Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 4 IWIQ K 'll' SQUHR SIWmK S Q11 JPY eellf'IBBli'l'IAh I I 1 The 1981 DRSI xx General Assembly lJ recently attended the 1981 URSI LM e-e-t 1 n-g-- and his report offers some unsettling projections about the problems that SIGINT will face over the next one or two decades This is an extract from the Introduction and Conclusions of that report L 86-36 j I I There are some interesting parallels between SlGINT and radio science viz h 1981 URSI Int rnationaI Radio Science Union meeting was held in Washington D C 10-19 August 1981 The international meeting is held U every three years and this was the first time in several decades that it occurred in the U S U Because the meeting is prestigious the authors and national radio science organizations make an effort to publish significant work About 500 technical papers were given covering almost every aspect of radio theory including optical fiber computer design instrumentation remote sensing and biological effects of radio on humans as well as the more conventional areas of propagation noise radio astronomy microwave power satellites and telecommunications U The authorship as well as the attendance was very international The meeting organizers reported that 1056 people registered from 38 different countries About half of the audience was from the USA Japan France Germany and the UK also had large contingents of 50 to 70 attendees Six people came from the USSR including some authors 269 of the papers had foreign authors although in some technical areas nearly all the authors were from the USA I 1 Both activities deal with radio very broad way 2 Both are concerned with quasirepetitious phenomena which they cannot control as well as with unique or very random phenomena which give onetime capture opportunities 3 Both have to develop unique apparatus and unique processes to obtain data and to extract information from these data so they are both concerned with device engineering and measurement techniques 4 The volumes and bandwidths of data are often very large and the explanations tentative C-eeS In general t e radio in a sCienti ts J understanding the physica phenomena of rao1o communications and instrumentation Their discoveries and measurements have over many years opened up new areas of the spe trum for radio applications and improved instruments They have also shown basic physical limitations to uses of radio e g tile effects of vec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 5 SStlf'IQStITI A b EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 IhltllBMl IfIA 8SIIIU'l' 81h1tlllll LhS SUb DOCID 40119lf5 SEleREl'f water vapor on short radio waves air turbulence on laser beams and the effects of noise on receiving systems 8 ese The telecommunications planners and designers in many countries pay attention to the findings of radio science in the operation and particularly the develo ent of their s stems and e ui ent 8 eee One thread of technical information from the URSI meeting will illustrate this point Developments in optics have shown that great improvements in cost performance and lifespan of semiconductor lasers are po sible with lifetimes of 100 000 hours confidently predicted and 'million hour lifetime thought possible The fibers themselves are getting better with bandwidths of several GH and for certain new fibers hundreds of GHz capacity are expected From this progress the CCITT International Consultative Committ e on Telephone and Telegraph is now develqping standards for worldwide compatibility between the parameters of all public carrier optical fibers so the optical fiber n ts can interface According to a French consultant the Europeans look upon satellites as a temporary measure for regional communications TELECOM 1 and will shift all main line transmission to optical fiber links across Europe as fast as they can lay in the trunks with the satellites reserved for mobile and other light services At the same time studies of the physical characteristics of optical components indicate to other Europeans researchers that the l2Qal networks cannot use optical fiber to carry 50 CATV signals in a bus so they expect to go to a switched optical fiber network to replace the eXisting copper wire local plant with an individual fiber from a switch to each subscriber This network would be expected to serve for 50 ears after installation Analysis U U Some of the major developments in communications have stemmed from advances in materials and the invention of devices The electric telegraph of 150 years ago resulted from the purification of copper so that circuit losses were reduced to low enough levels to make generators relay windings and telegraph lines feasible The semiconductor explosion came from improvements in the materials of semi-metals and the current work in improving glass and optical devices seems to be setting the stage for a major revolution in switched communications U A recent survey of telecommunications in the Economist 22 August 19b1 notes the progress in optical fiber systems which surprised even AT T and the BPO British Post Office Over the next decade the world will spend 640 billion dollars on telecommunications equipment according to an A D Little study and radio will be a significant part of that As optical'fiber trunks take over the main line transmission loads and even spread into the local networks the radio frequencies will be applied to mobile radio satellite service expected to exceed 700 000 Intelsat circuits by 2000 plus even greater domestic satellite capacity and many services where wires or l'ight guides are impossible or impractical U One of the notable features of the URSI is the close interaction between devices materials and radio technology Remote sensing depends on microcircuitry super computers models and devices to compensate for atmospheric distortion propagation theory antennas and so on Spread spectrum or radar signals to combat radio interference noise or propagation effects depend on 5uperspeed equalizing digital processors electroacoustic analog convolvers waveform comparers and high bit rate key generators etc Even efficient and accurate television transmission depends on sophicsticated signal processing technology e g o SAW PAL filters that are used in hundreds of thousands of TV receivers to overcome adjacent channel interference Conclusions U U Developments in radio science bring about a large number of gradual improvements in the big telecommunications systems as well as initiating some radical changes Both kinds of change accumulate to bring complete I Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 6 EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 S8SR8'l' IWIBhS VHf 8eUHR SIIMaIST S em v -D OC I D lfcn - t-g 4 5 1 f ' -------------- 1 4 c L 86-36 transformations in the way telecommunications operate and affect things U The main impact of radio and optic developments will be in transmission where a generation of technology lasts about 15 years The effect on switching where technology life cycles are about 30 years will be delayed until the 1990's after the current commitments to digital electronic switching are fulfilled Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 1 lWIBbB nit S811111 SnMI IIH s 9N1 JPY j DOCID 4011945 UNCLASSIFIED by E Leigh Sawyer 14 SLEEP WELL YOUR IDG IS ON DUTY seem to detect a growing trend for people to rummage around in their cryptologic attics to describe certain events or occasions taking U place in the olden days Doing a little rummaging on my own I recalled a long-abandoned function once carried out by company grade officers identified as they popped up periodically on the master roster as SECURITY DUTY OFFICERS SDO This system was in its heyday in the early 1950's At that time AFSA soon to be NSA was split between the Naval Security Station at Nebraska As a Avenue and Arlington Hall Station digression this split had its interesting features too -- like the time I drove my car from NSS to AHS during the day and took the shuttle bus back At quitting time I naturally couldn't find my car in the NSS parking lot and was at the point of reporting a stolen car case to SEC when I realized what I had done I managed to catch the last shuttle back to AHS by the skin of my teeth Ah those were the daysl Well anyhOW back to this SOO system It was used at NSS whether it was used at AHS escapes me In any case it was a so-called sleep watch For this # Dec 81 purpose a cot was located in SEC spaces so that the SOO could catch some sleep between his late evening and early morning rounds of all the AFSA spaces U A word or two about the cot might be in order The mattress was obviously not configured for sleeping purposes What it was stuffed with must remain somewhat problematical ' but I suspect it was a mixture of corn cobs and pine cones I wonder if somewhere in the archives there still exist the logs maintained by the SOO's References to that mattress were rife in these logs e g after the worst night of my life started my morning round with every bone in my body screaming agonized protests millions for a new building at Meade why can't SEC provide a decent mattress and even my teeth hurt U It should not require too much imagination to determine that periodic one night stands of this sort were mighty boring So CRYPTOLOG UNCLASSIFIED Page 8 DOCID I eoltPf ' ltUAL what do you do to lessen the boredom Drink coffee of course Unfortunately there was not a hint of either coffee or coffee-making paraphernalia discernible in the SEC spaces This led to a preliminary round of visits to adjacent spaces to locate a coffee mess relocate the pot and can of coffee to SEC spaces and return them carefully in the early morning hours After all nothing's too good for the boys in the Service This system was not without its pitfalls Like the Navy lieutenant whose name is no longer retrievable from my data base who had a memory lapse and couldn't remember the office from which he made the borrow He handled the situation neatly however with the following entry in the log Coffee pot and can of coffee found adrift in Building 18 U It was somewhat rankling that SEC which conceived this Security Duty Officer concept in the first place couldn't provide a little lousy coffee for us I recall roaming around the SEC spaces one evening surveying all the possible places where they might hide their coffee and equipment The survey narrowed down to one small cabinet locked with a brand new shiny Sargent and Greenleaf combination padlock The cabinet had undeniable coffee stains on top and was so deorepit that forced entry would have probably taken about 15 seconds I reasoned that a rickety cabinet of this sort oertainly wouldn't be used for anything classified So why the formidable padlock You don't suppose I mused to myself I then proceeded to dial 10-20-30 the factory-set combination EUREKA I It opened When I opened the door I beheld a complete coffee mess It was not exactly as though I was discovering the tomb of Tutankhamen but the sensation was somewhat the same I shared this revelation with a few of my friends who were also obliged to stand SDO duty But alas the SEC coffee mess vice president must have discerned that the coffee level was dropping far faster than it should Accordingly it was not too long after my initial discovery that 10-20-30 no longer worked U The real psychic bennies for the security watch types were in the form of finding classified materials adrift As a result there was no doubt in my mind that we were looked upon as pests by the various organizations making up our beat For that reason access doors to the various operational spaces were generally kept locked to keep us and incidentally others out This meant that the Security Duty Officer most often was limited to walking along murky corridors in the various buildings used by AFSA in the NSS compound However on one occasion circa 1952 I found one of the doors open to an RID area Oh man the fox was really in the hen house I After I had spent a good deal of time going through every nook and cranny where something classified might be lurking I finally was rewarded -- a classified manual CONFIDENTIAL I recall that I thumbed through it and in retrospect imagine if it had been tossed over the fence into the Russian Embassy compound they would probably have thrown it back out However it was marked CONFIDENTIAL and that made it fair game As best as I could determine the owner of the bookcase was identifiable by the name plate on the nearby desk So I wrote it up dutifully noting the name of the responsible person DR LOUIS W TORDELLA tet As luck would have it Dr Lou was soon after reassigned to the Plans and Policy Division where I worked to spearhead a highly innovative experiment called Third Party I confessed to him that I was the culprit who gigged him and expressed the hope that I had not set him back in his career in some fashion I U So much for the SDO system It went the same way as smudged carbon copies of TECHSUMs A and B buildings AFSA-062 and AFSA063 and red phones Ou sont les neiges d'antan Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG 8SNFiBElN'flAb Page 9 DOCID 4011945 SBSRS' ' P L EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 TIDE A Brief History by 11 -- 1 T343 Author's Note Too often in our business a project's history i8 written in a coLd hard bureaucratic styLe In this paper I attempt to describe in somewhat hUman terms the story of one of this agency 's more successfuL aLbeit ve r atious computer systems I ' _ c-- r Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 10 SBSRBi o 86-36 OC I D 4 Otjl lHl9 45 to - I 1_- -I EFO 1 4 - c 4 F L 86-36 S8eRS'f i I I Dec 81 o CR PTOLOG iiSRBT o Page 11 1I N9J 8 'fH SettlN'f SII NN8J S 8NJ DOCID 4011945 EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 3eeflEi'f Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 12 3eefle IIItMBbB nA SertiNi SHhNHSb8 QNbY -- - - - - ----- -nOCID 40119 5 I reconditioned and if lucky enter a retirement of loving care by high school or college students 1 U To sum up our experience this Agency's use of TIDE has not been an easy one Many of those associated with TIDE however believe that the processing crises and sleepless nights were worth the achievements this system has somehow performed It is believed that TIDE produced far beyond its expectations and many believe the feats it performed and the people who have made it possible to simply maintain for such a period of time should be commended U However no matter what its history TIDE was simply a little imaginative software two machines and an assortment of peripheral equipment When i t failed to respond to a crisis or an analyst was unable to retrieve important intelligence it simply became a use ess tangle of wires Relief at Last u CRYPTIC CROSSWORD SOLUTION November 1981 Thereafter in rapid succession over the summer of 1981 more TIDE processing systems were accepted by PREFACE tbereby providing additional TIDE relief and yes some well deserved rest U U Although some disruptions and minimizations still occur on TIDE they are infrequent in comparison to previous events and are primarily caused by hardware and or software failures - not solely loading demands TIDE is looking forward to retirement The Future U U Once TIDE is finally relieved of its remaining terminal responsibilities e g high speed printers CRTs etc a full decade since its creation it can be unplugged Because the soul of any computer system is its software what was once called TIDE will remain only two antiquated 1965-vintage UNIVAC 494s These machines will be returned to their Mid-West Minneapolis birthplace be EO 1 4 c 1 PARSNIPS par s dips 86-36 5 ARMPIT 9 COUPLETS double definition 10 SONORA son or a 12 EATS anag 13 STOAT order i tack 14 PUNT to Q lm t ied 17 DEMONSTRAToR demon's tractor - c 20 MELODRAMATIC anag 23 RARE double definition 24 SEALS less a anag 25 FUZZ double definition 28 LEGEND leg end 29 CLERICAL cleric la reversed 30 ANTHEM ant hem 3Y ANACONDA Dana anag a con 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 11 15 16 18 19 21 22 26 27 PICKET double definition ROUSTS r ousts NILE anag PETITION ANEW anag MOOR reverse spelling PRODUCTS pro ducts TRAITORS anag MARSHALL PLAN marshal I scheme READS pun for reeds DRAIN D rain UMBRELLA anag ALL RIGHT everyone not left VULCANIZE Vulcan ize AZALEA as a lea ONCE inducti nter ERIC Japanes kshaw Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 13 11M BY IN 89 11 ' '1' 811 'IHllhS 9HIiY SI SM'f DOCID 4011945 UNCLASSIFIED NSA-Crostic No 36 Two ILec e nt -tltag ic a c cA den-tt __ _ add up to an evr iec o-incidenc e li Dec 81 CRYPTOLOS Page 14 UNCLASSIFIED 86-36 L I --------L - - 7 __--L ------------------P- -L P L f6 36 I DOCID 4011945 UNCLASSIFIED Dec 81 CRYPTOL G Page 15 UNCLASSIFIED DOCID 4011945 Fe 8FFleIlt l i ass 8t1l iJPY In pursuit 01 P L by 1 or the past two years I have been involved with a project that has given me more in terms of psychic income and pure excitement than U perhaps any work-related activity that I remember When you feel this good about something it seems natural to want to tell everyone else and share the excitement Sort of a look what I found feeling Of course when you feel excited about something it is difficult to know whether or not you have something worth saying and can remain objective about it Nothing makes you feel quite as foolish as discovering the wheel only to find out that you were the only one who didn't have one all along fjJ U I've followed -- from a distance -- the articles letters and symposiums decrying the diminishing number of analysts the dilution of the career field and the increasing work load I really have nothing to add to the body of literature that has grown around those themes I would like to note that some reasonably intelligent people have advanced them Conversely some reasonably intelligent people made the decisions that led to the described conditions _ U Having resisted the urge to vent my excitement on paper for this long I thought I had it under control Actually I have been writing this piece all along Part of my control mechanism was simply typing my thoughts on the screen and then hitting the delete button That may happen to this version and you will be spared once again I'll tell you what set me off this time a bit later First let me tell you what I've been so enamored with U I'm a Traffic Analyst Several years ago I began to work for the person I respect most in that field and share in the development of what has come to be called a Traffic Analysis Workbench System What ever comes of that eff9rt I'll always be grateful for being included FSYS The idea is a relatively simple one In terms of technology the TA field is and has always been behind the power curve Regardless of what high powered machines exist and in spite of the fact that some extremely sophisticated machine applications have been designed for analytic purposes the analyst is still behind There are several reasons this situation exists However it is primarily because analysts are directly Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 16 F8 8FPleltb ee 8NbJPY 86-36 I I DOCID 4011945 S8NFIBSH'fUb dependent upon their machine support personnel A few have managed mostly out of frustration to learn one computer system or another and support themselves The problem with this ia if they were any good at it they were usually lost from the field eT It's time the analyst was given some help Not to catch up to technology just to keep from getting further behind Given the costing cycle the procurement cycle and the installation cycle I'm convinced that 'catching up is not possible 121 possible I The concept of a TA workbench involves installing a terminal on the analyst's desk Read that againl analyst' Not down the hall in a machine room not in a corner of the basement and not around the corner where it won't bother anyone ' 1l lLiWliWc 1i ll U execution time that is not measured in nanoseconds Most of our work has taken place on a PDP-11 70 host using UNIX as the operating system UNIX is a high level language that was developed by Bell Laboratories It meets the above criteria plus it is very forgiVing to a klutz at the wheel We have found that most of the processes that a Traffic Analyst needs to be able to do can be accommodated with the UNIX package Where it was found lacking or inefficient the solution has' been provided by a unique working relationship with a small group of hiJl hlv talented DrOllrammers in T1 1 The _ _-' This put s the analyst in a posi ti on to access the major data bases where the daily traffic as well as the technical working aids reside hide is a better word With the ter minals 2n they will have constant access to their material and perhaps approach the paperless environment Feee Under the umbrella called PINSETTER we have been proceeding along a development path that will hopefully lead to the kind of help the analyst needs Because the most precious computer resource is the programmer the analyst must be released from depending on him for every minor need This is true for several reasons First the analyst needs to be able to access his data pr0gess that data and change those processes Without having to write memos generate specifications write justifications wait for software and then participate in debugging Second the programmer as a resource is too valuable to be tied up with changing sort specifications every time an analyst needs a different output Lastly the plain facts are that we have a terrible time retaining good programmers No sooner do we develop a good working relationship with a top notch programmer and he' begins to understand something about an analyst's job than along comes a better offer and he's gone U From lil machine standpoint meeting these goals requires a system that is easy to learn fleXible and provides a reasonable response time By reasonable I don't mean instantaneous Most analysts can live with an EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 U To digress for a moment the realization that certain processes are simply too big for TSS applications is important to maintaining a proper perspective This determination must' be made and large number crunching must be performed where they are most efficiently handled However the process can often be executed where most efficient and the results passed to where they can be best used on the T55 I might add in two years of handling TA processing it has been necessary to send out only one job for actual execution on a big machine Of course many of our extracts from major data bases are preprocessed prior to transfer to make them more TSS friendly But I discount this since it is largely invisible to the requestor If the solution were apt to prOVide a useful UNIX-extension we woul d request T333 help The results have been the most rewarding part of this experience generalized UNIX-like utilities that solve analytic processing problems The big plus who i Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 17 l i iii SeNFI 8NTHI 1 1 o J'I II P L 86-36 EO 1 4 c DOCID 4011945 knows a little UNIX can use them On the other hand if the solution appeared to be problem specific we would attack the problem with our own resources The results of these efforts have proven equally rewarding Based on our own experience and some operational testing in analytic elements of A3 B2 B5 G6 and G9i I'm not sure if a more effective analytic tool than UNIX could have been designed if that had been Bell's intent This leads to a philosophical difference in user support design There 1s a mask-and-menu school of thought that holds to the belief that the user should be led through the processing cyale by the software A menu is presented with a few options to select from and a mask provided through which to make alterations These H H's believe it is best to protect the user from the complexities of the system and protect the system from the klutz at the wheel It has a place I would look to this area for the type of handling necessary for perhaps TEXTA updates U Another approach is to provide the user with the modules necessary to manipulate the data a high level language to package the modules and the ability to communicate with other users and peripherals such as high quality printers Basically a sort of Procedural Applications Language that is not unique to Traffic Analysis Perhaps a Universal Procedural Applications Language approach The user is free to design personal processes and more importantly those processes at will Users are not dependent upon the programmer for every minor modification routines do not have to be recompiled after each change and the results of the changes are immediate I believe UNIX meets this challenge might be able to come up with better analysts and better programmers As a by-product we might be able to handle the workload with the number of analysts we have and do a bett r job of it U So what was it that set me off this time A few days ago while demonstrat ng a few system capabilities to a potential us r I was walking through the steps of a UNIX shell file merely a collection of UNIX commands that eKecute sequentially and perform some proceaa and he asked me if I wrote this program The words startled me Wrote a program Me I'm a Traffic Analyst I can't program My rather bumbling answer was something to the effect that this is really not a program just a collection of instruction$to perform a certain process on this computer After he left I put the shell on the screen and read it a few times By gosh a few years ago I would have called that mess a program myself It looks like a program I t act-$ like a program And my extemporaneous answer wasn't too bad a definition of a program 6 6ee I had to pause and reflect a bit I put that shell tOllether in about five minutes what does it do 1 o Based on past experience in trying get a process to do a select of this nature and going through the channels to get it this quickie shell seems fairly powerful U The H H approach keeps the analyst or user dependent upon the programmer for modifications Thus preserving the problem of too much demand being placed on a resource that is already over taxed The solution to the demand for software packages has all too often been the letting of contracts at considerable expense to develop processes that a few analysts skilled in a handler like UNIX might be able to get along without U If our own resources were concentrated in a manner conducive to the development of generalized handlers a Universal Procedural Applications Language and perhaps a bit of that contract money concentrated into rewarding the good programmers we have left we U I think I've found a faster horse I probably couldn't keep up with younger women anyway and I'd rather have a cold beer than older whiskey so if anyone knows someone looking for a programmer I'll settle for two of four Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 18 II dfBbB 'lIA eSUill'f SIIANIIBbB SlIbl OCIO 4011945 I TEXTA Whatisit Where is it going Ipl byl f r- ---- P L means Technical Extracts fran Traffic Analysis and represents an agreement between four national centers concerning - - I - o the exchange of basic informat ion1 traffic analytic o the sharing of a cooroon uniform recording and labeling system of traffic analysis information about CCJoIINT targets worldwide1 o a catlllOn book of rules the 'lEXTA manual which the four centers accept as the authoritative description of how the TExrA system operates1 o the highest mst accurate level knowledge on a target carrnunication ' Dec 81 EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 of CRYPTOLOG Page 19 II NBIdl 'tiL B8A1RW' BIIAI'II'IIWl 8NU 86-36 DOCID 4011945 How Current Should TEX'l'A Be U L 86-36 1 4 c Using TEXTA for Collection Steerage U Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 20 ttttKI't '11 eetlHl'f eth'dftfEI iS elfl i'l 1 L __ DOCID 4011945 EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 21 HMiBhB ' l A eaU l tl'f e iBhS a ihJPY DOC I D 0 _ 4lJl --g 5-P L 86-36 EO 1 4 c Where is TEXTA Going U U such low validity data eyen though current should not cause the 9lder but more authoritative analytic resl llts to be erased fran TEXTA - they should coexist side by side in the record ' heeaae with which data can be lost through erasing and or spillage is a major problem in coop1ter based data systems and il $ One that will need special attention for 'I 'EXTA in the future ' he future system should be set 1 1p to insure that no data is erased unless a back1 1p record suGh as microfiche is first generated Data no longer wanted in the current file because it is either out of date or superseded should be shifted either to near storage or far storage depeooing upon the likelihood of having to retrieve it at sane later dC e Near storage is defined as sane machineretrievable form such as tape where the data can be retrieved relatively easily whereas far storage is defined as sane form that is essentially not machine-retrievable such as microfiche where the data can be retrieved only with great cost and difficulty The cost of repoking or otherwise retrieving data fran microfiche may make such efforts rare but it would be unwise to rule them out entirely sanetimes the thing MUST be done even if it has to be done entirely by hand Data might typically move fran current on-line storage to near storage and then after a specified period of time to far storage U Future 'I'EXTA will need an integrated of audit trails to accOlllIlOdate the variety of levels of data that will be in the system At the minimum the system will need stem o the date of the action which changes adds or deletes the infocnation o the source of the action at a minimum the organization submitting the action although at some locations the initials of the analyst might be needed o the validity of the information involved in the action Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 22 - DOCID o 4011945 L __ I EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 23 lWIBE E 'lIA eStHtI'f elhldltlEbB Stlb' DOCID 4011945 the recipient I P L 86-36 EO 1 4 at S'pre chen sie ' $ fA c Should the Future TEXTA System Look Like U c C @ 0 'O c' - - 0 Hab1a TEXTA7 fo''O @J'Q 0 JiI 'il 7' 7'41 Dec 81 CRYFrOLOG Page 24 UMIBbB HA eetfftl'l' ell AtlUBbS BilbY c DOCID 4011945 class citizenshipiIlt QesystembeCause he 'P L 86-36 EO 1 4 c r-L_ _ _ _ _ _u_ e_f_f_' _ _d_ _ ne_I1_0_spe_so_ _ _ _a_r _ lC_'up o_e_O_ _t_eo_q u_pnen_'_'h_i_ _ ooooo U The system shoUld provide for some kind of audit trailing so that a selected class of user i e sane but' not all can determine who put a particular piece of data into the system when what validity was ascribed to it o low validity entries cannot erase replace high validity items already entered o several variants different sources different validities may have to coexist in the system for extended periods of time items erased replaced are not typically thrown away o are retained in the dark end of the record or in near storage for an extended period then are stored in microform or far storage and Wlth a canputer canplex No user need be kept out of the system or reduced to a secondDec 81 CRYPTOLOG o remain available for audit trail poses Page 25 pur- -DOCI---D 4011945 Oft O leIAL 3 P L onLY 86-36 PLATFORM How Did You Say That Works A m 7 h d b iV g h f users to sit at their favorite terminals and travel allover the U world to accomplish their assigned task All that is required of them is a few simple standard commands Oh wouldn't that be great I F6ij6 Wait aren't you talking about the PLATFORM network Isn't that the way it works Almost We are close but we aren't there yet Simple things little things that appear trivial when looked at individually work together to cause most of the current PLATFORM user frustrations The general idea of PLATFORM is a good one but it seems that for those who actually have to use PLATFORM something has been lost somewhere o o o o o o o Terminal characteristics that differ from one terminal to another as well as from one host to another Terminal functions that can be 'Used some network hosts but not on others on Response times on network-connected terminals that exceed normal expected overhead Multiple logins between hosts and again for processes or applications once logged into the hosts Limitations on the number of connections that hosts will accept from the network Call-ups of network slightly different another protocols that are from one host to Network capabilities that are supported on some hosts and unavailable on others Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 26 DOCID 4011945 FeR eFFlel b 68 6NbI P L 86-36 EO 1 4 U Let's make it a tool that serves those charged with carrying out the mission of this agency Dec 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 27 c DOCID 4011945 POft OPPIeIAL In The Name of Efficiency S ONLY u review by d i P L 1 lpI3 U BOOK REVIEW Joan M Greenbaum In tbl li iI rm 2 Efficiengy Philadelphia Temple University Press 1979 NSA Main Library QA78 G82 U The subtitle of this very interesting and provocative book is Management Theory Data-Processing and Shopfloor Practice in Work It presents a frank and to my eye refreshingly critical and challenging review of the history and social context of computer programming and operating In the view of the author this history has been marked by a tug-of-war between management and the data processing workers On the one hand management has been uncomfortable with the freedom which programmers had in the early days of computers and has found ways to limit that freedom with increasing success Programmers on the other hand have fought back to preserve the work satisfaction and status of their occupation U Here are a few brief quoted passages from the book to illustrate the approach Ms Greenbaum begins her Introduction with the follOWing personal scene-setting Back in the 1960s I was a computer programmer Like most of the 200 000 or so other programmers I enjoyed the work - particularly its opportunities for diversity and challenge Comparatively high-paying computer programming offered high status because its skills were little understood and in great demand By the early 1970s some of the craftlike characteristics of this work had begun to change The changes like most day-to-day happenings appeared quite slowly But as they began to increase in tempo it gradually became apparent that work activities once controlled by data-processing workers were no longer in their control po 3 She continues In what a personal stUdy I set out to began as explore wbat was taking place in dataprocessing workshops and why it was happening Many have said that the changes in the work process were just the results of 'normal' changes that occupations go through as they mature o What was most noticeable about the changes in each occupation so affected was that they were anything but 'natural' workers fought against these fonas of change and managers had a hard time implementing them The reasons for changes in the workplace are not always the reasons that appear on the surface p 5 She states that her purpose is not merely to bemoan the lost days of craftlike activity but to reveal the underlying reasons behind the changes and enable workers to understand influence and regain control over the workplace peye I was particularly interested by her review of changes in the field I myself remember many of them as they happened here at MS What was once a single profession programming where a programmer carried out all phases of the task from problem definition to operational running of his program was fragmented into disciplines performed by very different sets of people operators programmers systems analysts and keypunchers The separate disciplines were often divided from each other by distrust and hostility as well as by the physical and organizational walls of the closed shop philosophy which was popular with management for a while The advent of operating systems removed much of their new power from the hands of one of these new groups the computer operators All these changes Ms Greenbaum convincingly maintains were results of deliberate efforts by management to divide and conquer the recalcitrant data-processing workforce and rationalize their work in order to bring them under management control Interestingly she makes a clear case for the origin of the professionalization of programmers in a management initiative and claims that this too far from being a desire of programmers themselves was a step toward control of data processing workers by management Structured programming is another obvious landmark in management's strenuous and all-toosuccessful efforts to remove inconvenient degrees of freedom from the programmer Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 28 peR epPieitb as 6NLY 86-36 DOCID 4011945 FQR 9FFiSihh BaS 8NhY F8e8 Most of all the IBM 360 systems made a dramatic break with the past Ms Greenbaum says the following Those 'of us in the field at the time of the introduction of the System 360 tend to remember it well for almost overnight a firm division of labor occurred not by chance as it seemed to us then but by clear design Although computer work had been divided by task in the 1950s many activities had overlapped a good deal In particular computer programmers and operators would meet in the computer room which like a social hall offered the opportunity to exchange techniques and ideas The installation of the System 360 provided management with reasons to change this One of the first rulings to be enforced was a prohibition against programmers entering the computer room thus isolating the two categories of labor and cutting off exchange of functions and rigidifying job olassifications Ms Greenbaum analyzes the theory whose application by management brought about these changes in Chapter 3 of her book She provides provocative treatments of Shopfloor Practice Labor Process and Worker Behavior - the interplay of workers' responses and resistances against management's initiatives in the daily operation of computer shops She covers a great deal of very illuminating material concerning the workers' perception of their jobs and the ohanges enforced from above by management I found many vivid echoes in my own memory of these perceptions as I experienced them in our own NSA computer installations since I began in the craft-like times of ATLAS I and lived through the changes accompanying the 704 7094 and Systems 360 370 U The author leaves us with an unexpectedly hopeful conclusion at the close of her book She gives much weight to the efforts of data processing personnel in creatively remaking their work situation and in partiCUlar finding new ways to cooperate and communicate with their co-workers and thus reclaim control over their work activity and restore challenge and satisfaction to their jobs She concludes that data processing workers have developed workplace activities and cooperative work practices that stand in sharp contrast to the rationalized bureaucratic hierarchy imposed by management We are told that human nature is competitive and indiVidualistic but data-processing shopfloor actions contradict this Effective dataprocessing work is usually accomplished by workers who help one anothep by sharing knowledge skills and tasks By sharing knowledge data-processing workers have created in effect their own shopfloor culture that gives workers at least the ability to tolerate the contradictions they face every day on the job o When I first began this study I exam 1 ned management justifications for efficiency and tried to compare these to what was actually taking place in the work environment The more I looked the greater I found the differences between management and worker strategies for workplace activity o Work does n21 have to be organized to control human behavior Efficient work activities can take place without the management ideology of social control Examining workplace activities begins to point us in the direction of understanding other forms' of work organization The author's high op n on of cooperativeness and creativeness among programmers agrees well with my own experience when I was a 'full-time applications programmer We shared ideas helped each other to debug programs shared labor piaking up runs etc and found ways to forgather in areas near counters key-punches etc to exchange news techniques tips and aid We often had to do these things in spite of management's frowning upon our apparently unstructured activities and our uses of spaces and facilities intended by management for other purposes seems that these con- ever It will very soon be possible for mUCh if not all programming and computer-aided problem solving to be done via remote terminals Soon it will no longer be in any sense a practical or physical necessity for data processing workers or computer users to be located all together in one building The only thing that might continue to force vast numbers of computer workers to be herded together in offices from nine to five five days a week would be the fear of management that any other arrangement might result in their loss of social and behavioral control over employees I recommend Ms Greenbaum's challenging book as a starting point for thinking about some of these issues Originally published in the October 1979 Newsletter of the Special Interest Group on Human Factors Computer and Information Sciences Institute Dec 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 29 Pi-Jan 82-S3-12558 evident l n vwill soon become more crucial than FeR eFFiSihb yas 8MbJPY - DOCIDcct4iii 945 ---- - ----- -- - 11 - - - CJ'----_'---_ - 'I'IIIS BOSf JMBN'I' SON'I'AINS SOBB TORB - -------_ _- - ----_ -------- --- Mll'l'BRM ---- This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu