NSA and the National Cryptologic Museum

Schneier writes "Most people might not be aware of it, but there's a National Cryptologic Museum at Ft. Meade, at NSA Headquarters. It's hard to know its exact relationship with the NSA. Is it part of the NSA, or is it a separate organization? Can the NSA reclassify things in its archives?" There's some interesting stuff in the comments about the building's reason for existence (window views a nearby NSA building?) and some stuff they have (an Enigma machine!).

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Re:There's a reason...

[bleh-of-the-huns]

To get to the museum, you have to take the Route 32 exit towards Fort Meade, which actually ends at the employee entrance, if you accidentally miss the turn (to either the museum or the visitor entrance), you end up at the scary gates to the base, who then make you pull into a special area, where you are then surrounded by scary looking Chevy suburbans (atleast that was the case for me, I missed the exit...) who then search you vehicle, get all your information and run a background check, and if all goes well, escort you to the correct exit and send you on your way...

Moral of the story.. don't miss the exit...

It's the Twilight Zone

[kurt555gs]

I have been there twice. Really interesting to any geek that likes computer history. One time I got into the museum and remembered I forgot to lock the doors on my truck. I mentioned it to an employee there and he said, "Oh, I wouldn't worry. It's being watched".

I broke the museum once

[goltz20707]

No, I didn't break *in* -- I broke the museum. I was standing near an exhibit of a tape library robot, busily moving tapes around, and the control panel was right out there where anyone could fiddle with it. I pushed a button -- I don't remember which one -- and the robot arm reset to its rest position and stopped. I moved away from the exhibit before anyone saw me. A week later the museum closed and didn't reopen for almost a year. So that must have been one important tape library. Sorry.

Re:I know it...

[xerio]

Not to be an ass. But you only have yourself to fault for that. Seriously. What were you thinking?