Hi and welcome to Sabey reasons malicious life B-sides I'm Ren Levy. Over the years, we've dedicated quite a few episodes of malicious life to the NSA, because, you've got to admit love it or hate it it's a very interesting

organization whose influence on cyber security is huge. Eternal Blue, PRISM, Tao, these are probably well-known names for any security professional.

We've covered the NSA's early history in an episode titled Super Spies, the NSA's Cold War shenanigans in the world's first

key logger, and a few other episodes, and in this B-side interview we'll be covering an extremely important period in the NSA's history,

yet one that I think is rarely talked about.

The period in the late 80s to the early 2000s when the National Security Agency transitioned

from being hardware-based, that is creating and operating physical spying devices to being mainly software-based,

excelling in hacking networks, tracking people online, etc.

As you'll shortly here, that transition was by no means easy. The NSA by that point was a big organization, and big organizations are notorious for being very resistant to change.

Jeff Mann, our guest today, was one of the first people at the NSA to make the transition

from hardware to software.

In fact, he designed the NSA's very first encryption software.

Jeff spoke with Nate Nelson, our senior producer,

about his days in the secretive organization about how the

NSA's public image changed over the years and the frustrations of

dealing with the never-ending government bureaucracy.

Enjoy the episode. I am here with Jeff Mann. Jeff if you could start off by introducing yourself.

Sure, my name is Jeff Mann. I am a what's considered a curmudgeon in this industry. I've been doing information security since the early 80s and

been working in the Infasek field in the commercial world for over 20 years now.

I spent the first part of my career working for the government

which is why I think you want to talk to me today. Correct. So to start off you

first arrived at the NSA back in the mid- 80s. Take us back to that time. How did it feel back then inside

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