From: XXX
To: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 09:47:45 -0400 (EDT)
William Stein said:
> Thankyou for the clarification. Perhaps because I know so little
> about IDA/CCR/NSA etc they all seem the same to me. Incidently,
> yesterday I found out that I have been selected for the next DSSG
> (Defense Sciences Study Group), so maybe I will learn more.
NSA is a US government agency.
IDA is the Institute for Defence Analysis - a non-profit
company that acts as a think tank for the Defense
Department (similar to the old Rand Corporation).
Three of the IDA divisions (possibly more, but these are
the only ones I know about) are FFRDCs - Federally Funded
Research and Development Centers; this means that they are
fully funded by the US government to do research. The
three of which I am aware are CCR-Princeton, CCR-La Jolla,
and CCS-Bowie. ("CCR"-Center for Communications Research,
"CCS"= Center for Computing Sciences). Basically the
government gives them a pot of money and says "go off and
do good things". Of course, since they want the money to
continue to come, they tend to do work on projects of
interest from whomever is giving them money! I understand
part of the original motivation for setting up the FFRDCs
was to get around government salary restrictions. Of the
three, CCR-Princeton was set up in the 1950-60s, was
originally on the Princeton University campus (paid their
rent by giving faculty access to supercomputer time!) until
they got pushed off during the Vietnam war protests.
CCR-La Jolla was set up in the 1980s as a sister to
CCR-Princeton, but on the West Coast to attract those
academics who prefer the West rather than the East.
CCS-Bowie is the youngest with a more computer science
flavor.
I hope that helps!
|