The NSA, one of the most secretive federal agencies in the U.S., recently shared several different pieces of source code with the public.
The spying bureau wants its source code, which are essentially instructions for a computer program or system, to be available for others to use. So far there are 32 different projects listed on GitHub, an open source platform.
“The NSA Technology Transfer Program (TTP) works with agency innovators who wish to use this collaborative model for transferring their technology to the commercial marketplace,” the NSA Office of Research & Technology Applications wrote on the program’s official page. “OSS invites cooperative development of technology, encouraging broad use and adoption. The public benefits by adopting, enhancing, adapting, or commercializing the software. The government benefits from the open source community’s enhancements to the technology.”
Some, though, aren’t entirely new, and are dated accordingly.
While the agency operates covertly and out of the spotlight, the disclosure of the technology isn’t extremely surprising. Around the same time that Edward Snowden released damning information about the NSA, the organization launched its own Twitter account in December of 2013 in an apparent attempt to increase outreach and transparency.
Furthermore, the U.S. government is trying to bolster its cybersecurity capabilities by coming up with novel, collaborative ideas, like training the up-and-coming generation with a summer camp for teen girls. Collaboration often requires an involved party to open the figurative curtains. (RELATED: NSA Halts Same Surveillance Practice That Resulted In Flynn’s Outing)
Some in Congress don’t even want to wait for the NSA to voluntarily give up some of their secrets. Congress introduced a bipartisan bill in May called the PATCH Act (Protecting Our Ability To Counter Hacking) that would force the NSA to share any security vulnerabilities with other government agencies.
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