> OH SNAP, NSA. This is so easy even YOU could figure it out.
For what it's worth, my impression of that text was not as much about whether they could figure it out, but that they pretty much must have at this point given how simple it was. I don't think they were dissing the capabilities of the NSA, but simply trying to provide insight on the likelihood that this was included in them, and they concluded it almost certainly was.
I'm sure you're right, but the premise I was (facetiously) working from is that the NSA would ordinarily be presumed to have figured something out regardless of the level of sophistication involved in the attack.
Ah. We academics are sticklers about novelty and we try and pin down what is and isn't. We also maintain the conceit that most of our published ideas are. As far as most of us are concerned, our ideas are probably novel unless published elsewhere. These types of things are notable exceptions.
Which reminds me of a conversation I was having the other day which noted that there's not much fear of the NSA scooping you as a researcher because they don't really like publishing things they find useful. :)
It's just our weird and somewhat arrogant perspective, I think. :)
For what it's worth, my impression of that text was not as much about whether they could figure it out, but that they pretty much must have at this point given how simple it was. I don't think they were dissing the capabilities of the NSA, but simply trying to provide insight on the likelihood that this was included in them, and they concluded it almost certainly was.