In one of the more unique public proactive transparency record releases for the National Security Agency (NSA) to date, NSA has released a digital copy of a lecture that then-Capt. Grace Hopper gave agency employees on August 19, 1982.
The lecture, “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People,” features Capt. Hopper discussing some of the potential future challenges of protecting information. She also provided valuable insight on leadership and her experiences breaking barriers in the fields of computer science and mathematics.
↫ NSA press release
Digital preservation is about more than just code – it’s also about invaluable content like this. It seems rather uncouth to spend only a few lines on who Grace Hopper really is, since it’s your duty to know already, and she deserves a hell of a lot more than a few lines. If you don’t yet know who she is, her Wikipedia page is a good place to start.
The speech in question has an interesting history, in that the only medium on which it was stored were 1-inch AMPEX tapes. The speech was originally given to NSA employees, but not even the damn NSA had the ability to access the recordings of the speech, and had to call in the National Archives and Records Administration’s help. The NARA managed to retrieve the footage from the tapes, and now here we are.
This will make for some great weekend viewing.
I’m glad they got to digitising these. I’m certain there was a whole stink kicked up not long ago over these tapes, which the NSA were hesitant to declassify purely because they had no means of reading them. I guess that they must have mananged to find a player for these tapes in the end
Your article on the NSA’s release of Capt. Grace Hopper’s lecture is truly fascinating! It’s incredible how such historical content can provide insights into early computing and leadership. If you’re interested in how to document and reflect on similar significant events or personal experiences, you might find this reflective essay guide https://essayservice.com/blog/how-to-write-a-reflective-essay useful. It offers valuable tips on how to write a reflective essay that can help capture and analyze important moments and their impact, much like the historical context provided by Capt. Hopper’s speech.