Working on the Dark Side of the Moon

by Thomas Reed Willemain

To most Americans, the NSA is an organization shrouded in secrecy, where the most clandestine of operations are carried out in the name of national security. Dr. Thomas Willemain, successful software entrepreneur and statistics professor, spent the equivalent of three years alternating between his life “outside” and working “inside” at the NSA and an affiliated, shadowy think tank.

Once inside, Dr. Willemain would be challenged to adjust to life in an intense, complex and sometimes alien organization, while also encountering brilliant and quirky colleagues, the moral challenges of wielding math and statistics as weapons, a charming (if kitschy) gift shop, and ultimately, some of the most rewarding time of his career.

A deeply personal account of the years spent within the most secretive organization in the world, Working on the Dark Side of the Moon explores the range of emotions an outsider experiences while crossing over to the “inside.” It also shows the positive side of an Agency whose secrecy hides dedicated men and women devoted to protecting the country while honoring the Constitution.

Genres: Nonfiction

132 pages, Paperback

Published June 30, 2017

About the author

Thomas Reed Willemain, PhD is Professor Emeritus at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, having served previously on the faculties of MIT and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is also Co-Founder and Senior VP/Research of Smart Software, Inc. He received the BSE (summa cum laude) from Princeton and the PhD from MIT. He served as an Expert Statistical Consultant at the National Security Agency and as a member of the Associate Research Staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses Center for Computing Sciences.

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Shrouded in secrecy, the United States Department of Defense’s National Security Agency (NSA) is where the most clandestine of U.S. operations are carried out in the name of national security. The author, a software entrepreneur and statistics professor, spent a few years alternating working “outside” and working “inside” at the NSA and the Central Security Service (CSS). This affiliated, shadowy think tank has a cryptologic charter.

[...]

Indeed, Willemain appeared to have a much more difficult time with the thought of protocol peccadilloes: “I was visited by nightly nightmares about Security blunders during my first weeks…” Pulling back a tad the curtain on the inner workings of the NSA at the cubicle and cookie cart level is an engaging read for anyone drawn to the mundane details supporting national intelligence in a post-Snowden world, but expect nothing like an exposé in this officially cleared work."

[Look for my entire unredacted review at MAA Reviews]

[Anne Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is informative—at least in the areas where it isn't so heavily redacted as to make it unreadable. I suspect that the author simply didn't want to go through the process of getting the content past the censors. There are places where nearly an entire page is blacked out.

I would not expect an agent of the NSA to reveal anything of a classified nature, but do believe it would have been better to simply strike such areas from the book. Was he trying to show how draconian the NSA can be about secrets?

The portions of text that aren't redacted really didn't tell me much of what I didn't already know about "No Such Agency."

[Cindelu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book on Goodreads. It was the strangest book I've ever read. On several pages almost all of the page was blacked out. Just about every page had from one to two phrases blacked out if not whole paragraphs. Obviously I couldn't understand what was written if large portions were blacked out. It basically told of the types of people ( all with fake names in the book) who work at the NSA. The author also told of his work which was pretty much over my head. It had some interesting parts but overall it didn't seem like they got much accomplished there.

[Ninja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting account of what it was like working at the NSA, and at some of the related companies. Yes, there's a fair bit of redaction, which is left in the book, sometimes to a hilarious degree. Some of the highlights include the section on annual reviews, people and environment at the sister companies, and commentary on the high degree of importance placed on work-life balance.

[Ione DeOllos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has several grammatical errors that can slow the reading process. It is good but don't expect any particular details about the NSA. It is more about the life of a professor working at NSA.

[Mark Phinney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Recent Glimpse Inside a Schizophrenic Bureaucracy

A humane glimpse inside NSA focusing on a very small group of mathematical researchers. Well written, but a quite skewed view since it does not address any aspect of the operational side of the house. For anyone living in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, a significant portion of the redactions do not "protect" any sensitive information.