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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."
that'll piss 'em right off!
It's "passw0rd"
-- Make America hate again!
There's a reason they're recruiting them. And it's perfectly innocent. Honestly. http://earth101.net/?wc
Oh the irony - if you're really serious about espionage work, and you've got a Facebook account, then just forget it. There's already too much information about you out there for you to be of any real value.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Slight spoilers:
Yes, it is x86 machine code. However, if you key in the hex values and look/step through the code in a debugger you'll see that it is missing an important part.
Hint: You are not supposed to figure out this part on your own (you can probably figure out 7 of the missing bytes, but you will not be able to guess the rest). You can however find the remaining part on the canyoucrackit website if you are clever...
Oh is that all it is?
I'd got as far as pulling apart the code into sections, and found the other bit....
Not exactly tricky then. 'File' will tell you what it is, and the other bit's not hard with another two simple unix commands.
You can however find the remaining part on the canyoucrackit website if you are clever...
additionally, if you are smart, you'll probably choose to find yourself a better job/salary in the industry instead of picking a govt position during time of austerity.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Why on earth would they post that code as an image...
Pr0t3ct!on#cyber_security@12*12.2011+
Bad news for GCHQ, I have no desire to work for the Government. I don't care what the renumeration package is.
Not even if they offer free full IPv6 renumbering for life?
20 odd years ago...I had been doing the usual round of physics graduate interviews, GCHQ's was a little different. After getting the security pass to get in and being escorted to the interview room, they told me that I wouldn't be able to ask any questions about the job (except pay). Or rather, that I could ask if I liked, but they weren't going to answer. Weird.
The point I guess, is that GCHQ don't recruit clandestinely like spooks, even if the interview process is odd. They're part of the civil service, they advertise in the paper, and recruit graduates in the milk round.
You are talking about the wrong department. This is G.C.H.Q. we are talking about, not Mi5 / Mi6. They are effectively nothing more than the poorly paid secretary to Mi5. Good programming graduates would go on to have interesting and fulfilling career in the software industry. Those that fail to do that, become teachers. Those that fail to do that, go to G.C.H.Q......
I had my first graduate job there, and I was pretty much exactly what they're looking for. Started programming at a young age, maths degree from a top university, CS masters from the same place. I interned there, got a great appraisal and was offered a job. I started working there and I became disenchanted fairly swiftly. Cheltenham is an incredibly boring place to be 23 - the average age at GCHQ is probably mid thirties and most people had families and were settled. We went for after work drinks twice in my year there. Having said that, my job was fascinating. Extremely difficult, but fascinating. However, everything else was awful. Pay was ok - 25k for a grad starter isn't bad (although my university peers were generally on more), but it became clear very quickly that my pay rises were non existent. If I wanted to stay technical, then I might get to around 40k when I was 40. And that's might with a capital M. It's not really enough to comfortably raise a family and own a home.
When I told my boss I was resigning, he told me that he was resigning too because otherwise he was going to have to sell his house to cover his debts. He wasn't living an extravagant life - granted he had three young children though. His wife was working 3 jobs, and they were stressed. The only people happy at GCHQ are those who have chosen not to have kids, and often have their spouse working there too.
I left for a tech startup in London, and after 4 months here I'll be on 50% more than I was at GCHQ, and they'll continue paying me what I'm worth.
2 other guys left my team (around 10 people who were doing some of the most hard-core deep technical work in computing there) in the neighbouring months when I left. GCHQ cannot recruit and retain good people whilst the pay is so low - which is exactly what was said in the ISC report: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/14/gchq_microsoft_google/
Of course, once you take the job and sign the Official Secrets Act, it's forty years of standing in freezing bus shelters waiting to make contact with a pissed-off FSB clerk in her 50s in the hope of finding out where Putin's going on holiday next month. Unless you went to Eton and Oxford, in which case it's back to the management suite for the rest of your career.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
> 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.