17 June 2009

TOP SECRET

Today we woke up early and went to the National Security Agency. We met at the museum they have, which is open to the public. We arrived a little early and waited for our host to arrive. This is Joe (ME from Minnesota), Cheyenne (ME from Alaska), and Jennifer (ChemE from Texas A&M) waiting outside beneath the NSA logo. And some of the other boys (from the left: Joe again, Dan Kreis Nuclear Engineer from University of Missouri, Dan H. Aeronautical Engineer from Florida Tech will be going to GWU for aerospace policy in the fall, Steven EE from UPenn, and John Nuclear Engineer from Ohio State). Not pictured, just to complete the list, is: Caitlin (my roommate and Industrial Engineer from University of Miami), Stephen Timothy (ChemE from Cornell), Charlie Haack (Architectural Engineering, ASHRAE, from Penn State), Iam Hoffbeck (EE from Calvin College), and Milad Alemohammad (EE from Drexel University). We were first led on a tour of the museum, which was basically a history of cryptology from the Rosetta Stone to the Enigma used in WWI and Information Intelligence. It was really interesting and we learned alot about the role of cryptology in war as well as how the NSA has changed to what it is today, which is much more computer based. Then we met with a guy who works there, but was also a recruitment officer who just talked about what it was like to work at NSA and somethings about NSA, although obviously he could not say alot. These are pictures of one of the first uses of signaling in the civil war, when "flaggers" would move this falg in special ways to spell out encoded messages that were just signal alphabet codes, like cryptoquip in the newspaper. Each flagger would get one of these flags as a reward for having such a dangerous position (standing up waving a flag during battle) and the words on the points of the star are battles the soldier fought in. The picture below is symbols Hobos used during the Great Depression to help each other. I just thought they were kind of funny. We got done at the NSA and back to our dorm around 2:30. Then I went and picked up my bike, which arrived today, and did some errands. I also met a woman at the gym who rides on Saturday with the DC Tri Club, which she said is a good ride, so I think I will try to go this weekend, if I can get myself a helmet which I just realized I left in Seattle. Kurt is going to send it to me, but we'll see when it gets here. Didn't get alot of work done today, but hopefully I will tomorrow.








1 comment:

cheryl said...

I love the title. IF YOU READ FURTHER, it may be dangerous!