Slashdot Mirror
UK Recruiting Codebreakers Via Social Networks
Demerara writes in with a story about a unique codebreaking competition sponsored by the UK government. "UK intelligence agency GCHQ has launched a code-cracking competition to help attract new talent. The organization has invited potential applicants to solve a visual code posted at an unbranded standalone website. The challenge has also been 'seeded' to social media sites, blogs and forums. A spokesman said the campaign aimed to raise the profile of GCHQ to an audience that would otherwise be difficult to reach. 'The target audience for this particular campaign is one that may not typically be attracted to traditional advertising methods and may be unaware that GCHQ is recruiting for these kinds of roles,' the spokesman said."
Even better... crack it then publish the answer so that a bunch of kiddies can apply and screw up the recruitment process. That is a hack all on its own :)
> I simply went through Google ... bad news for GCHQ
You seem to think they are recruiting solely for codebreakers.
They may be recruiting for analysts - people who search for information. Let's say you have an agent in the field, whose cover story is being questioned by the enemy. You want an analyst to tell the agent how to correctly answer the enemy's questions so that the agent's cover is maintained.
It's quite possible that many of the "correct" answers published are actually incorrect misinformation. A good analyst would use his skills to weigh up which of the supposedly "correct" answers was the most reliable.
Sometimes the problem at the doughnut is not obtaining the data, but sifting through the massive amount of data to find the information you actually need.
Like any person living near Cheltenham, I have several friends who work there, and whilst it's entirely possible they're all secret maths geniuses, I doubt it. Codebreaking isn't the be-all and end-all of GCHQ's work, they have to sift and analyse the intel after they've got it.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Maybe, though figures tend to indicate these days that the UK public sector is paid roughly equally to the private sector, and still (even with proposed changes) gives access to far better pensions.
One of the reasons I have no sympathy with those going on strike.
I went on strike, and I certainly get paid less than in the private sector. I like contributing to the country (science research), but there's a limit.
With the current offer I'll essentially lose about £1000 pa (increased pension contributions), and that's after 24 months of flat pay.
The problem is private pensions are shit, and we shouldn't have a race to the bottom. We should improve private pensions.