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Def Con Hackers On Whether They'd Work For the NSA
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Premier hacker conference Def Con, which just wrapped up its 21st year, played host to security professionals who all had very different opinions on what the NSA is up to. In fact, the only thing everyone could agree on is that the PRISM revelations came as no surprise. Even if it isn't news to this crowd, it is still a significant development in the general climate of government surveillance and national security. And at Def Con, where government recruitment was hampered this year by conference founder Jeff Moss's requesting that feds stay away, it seemed like a good idea to walk around asking people if they would still want to work for the NSA."
She's a pole-dancing acrobat!
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/17/edward-snowden-wants-everyone-to-stop-talking-about-his-girlfriend-photos/
They have "big projects" also.
Is continuing Edward Snowden's great work.
"Hey, you, geek. We've got cash, huge fucking computers, and it's totally legal* to hack whoever you want. You in?"
I'm inclined to guess that, between the people who love toys or have mortgages and the people who think that the NSA is A-OK(tm), they aren't too worried(plus, if your area of expertise or interest is something related to data mining, the NSA might count as honest work compared to, say, Facebook)...
If so, count me in.
to gather intelligence on the enemy.
Despite opinions on ethics for or against, the NSA is still widely considered to have interesting technologies to play with and viewed as leaders in computer system security development. I'm in IT because I love problem solving and the adrenaline rush of having to solve difficult problems under pressure. The responsibility of my job comes first. The only ethical dilemma for me is if someone with authority were to ask me to let a system fail to prove some kind of point.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw
I bet NSA/CIA had a lot of staff working the halls planting the 'it's old hat', 'nothing to see' and other talking points.
The PRISM revelation IS new, we suspected but we never had proof of how bad it had gotten. The 'Mastering the Internet' mass surveillance op, IS NEW, literaly 18 months old since they turned it on. The revelation that warrants are not needed to access the data is so new, even the people in Congress doing oversight kept saying the opposite and seemed 'surprised' that they'd been misled.
I always believed RIPA required warrants to spy on people and William Hague's job was to separate the good surveillance (terrorists etc) from the bad (journalists, police, politicians, doctors, campaigners, you, me, your kids, your family etc.), then we find out William Hague thinks you are terrorists and issue blanket "spy on them all" warrants. This is new.
So pretending its old hat is just a COINTELPRO technique, it IS NEW, they're not trying to go after Snowden for releasing old info here.
If they're paid well, you bet they would.
Work for the NSA, doing what? The NSA does more than one thing. I'd be more than happy to work on developing next-generation crypto algorithms, for example. There is probably some work at the NSA that's compatible with my view of the law and common decency -- and much that is not.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Working for government agencies is widely reported to be sucky for a variety of reasons: lower pay than the private sector, heavy bureaucracy, political infighting, mediocre employees. It's just unattractive all around.
DONGS!
Hackers no more or less ethical or principled than other people. Make violating other people's rights interesting or profitable and it will be done.
The NSA also does a lot of basic research, especially in mathematics related to code breaking. IIRC it employs more mathematicians as a job title than any other organization in the country. That environment would be ideal to the academically oriented types who just want to ponder number theory all day long.
...just long enough.
asked whether they'd want to work at a government agency without ethics.
Sure, why not.
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
the people who argue against this or even argue about it are most likely a part of the problems in this world, to those I say..... shut up and stop wasting air and any other planetary resources
Well Snowden did mention he saw many abuses of the data that his bosses just shrugged off. So I assume he took a copy.
But to leak that he needs a filestore on Tor, (recently attacked by the NSA) or similar. I doubt the press would have the guts to report.
Lots more to come out here.
None of the people there are actually "hackers" in any but the sensationalist "anything possibly vaguely bad involving computers somehow" sense. This is a deep and long-standing problem in the security industry. Actually, it is multiple problems, not least of which is that it impedes innovation and progress in actually securing anything.
As would-be strategists, executives need to understand this. That they don't, well, should've picked better executive summaries to read, eh?
Most people I know crow to the fact that they worked in a secure facility or held a clearance or worked on a weapon at the drop of a hat. Hence most people would jump at the opportunity to work for a governmental TLA.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
The NSA already knows all about you and whether you would make a good fit as another corrupt human being and valuable employee. This is just a trap. They want to catch, prosecute and turn the believers of free speech.
Beware of the BOSS (Bush-Obama Surveilance State).
If its a good salary, sure.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"At the end of the day, there is no freedom, anyway," he said. "I need to pay my mortgage, I need to feed my family. Guys living in the bushes might be better off, but is that even freedom? Who knows. Here, have a beer. I'm off."
And that sir,is the truth.
Note there's a good portion of employees from the agency that goto DEFCON (heck I used to go every other year), cause it is one of the places where the creative ideas of intelligence usage occurs and to gauge what makes sense in doing ethical intel work.
Yeah, it's one thing to be righteously fighting for principles against the Man, but it's a whole different ball game when you got mouths to feed. Or an fresh, empty resume to build. Or a mountain of loans to pay. Then you can't be so picky when trying to secure a decent source of income.
and you sell out your kids freedom/future for the next paycheck then yes, you are right. Thank god my mom wasn't a pussy like you and fought for freedom in Poland where she ended up in Goldap http://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/2008/women-in-internment.-goldap-1982-bialystok,-december-10,
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I'm sure it's the same everywhere there's a nuclear reactor, it needs to be maintained on a yearly cycle.
In this area a person used to make very good money being used for their exposure. You go .03 Sv). At which time your let go as it's
in do a job until you reach your weekly radiation limit (300 mrem / 3 mSv), then do nothing until
you are usable again; for a yearly limit of (3 rad /
temporary work which your not able to perform any more.
These temporary jobs were during the summer outages and lasted a few months.
with the chance it could become a permanent position, which many did.
Would you work for NSA if the money was very good, as opposed to being used for your exposure at a nuclear
plant that produced Plutonium for intent of blowing people up? If you needed work be it temporary or a job with a substantial
increase in your income, I'm sure a lot would.
Too bad that calling "fallacy" without explaining why this is so is guilty of the very accusation you're making.
The problem to which GP only alluded but which you'll find explained elsewhere in detail, is that "hacking", due to popular over-use, has become so vague as to become meaningless. And these people are very clearly guilty of that. "Hacking" used to mean "being creative with technology", more specifically having people go "I didn't know it could do that!" that is something these people haven't managed in a long time. It's all been ever more minor variations of well-established themes. The first buffer overflow, remote exploit, sql injection, what-have-you, might well have been hacks in above sense. The 9000th, not so much. Worse, this myopic focus on non-structural solutions impedes finding structural solutions to or even structural improvements on the overall problem, that of IT security.
And so, since the problem is real and the moniker is being used to hide that fact, GP is not a denial a la Scotsman, instead the reverse: It is a call to stop calling these tools something they're clearly not, call them what they really are.
Crackers, s'kiddies, criminals, techno-hipsters, charlatans, but not "hackers", since whatever they do, they aren't "hacking". Unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion that "anything potentially vaguely bad involving something computer-y somehow" is what "hacking" should mean. It's what the popular press and the variously hatted bunch claim. It's even what the law says, after all. I for me say vague law is bad law.
Back to you. Show how this assertion is in fact a denial. Please do.
Well, I would think if they really want you to work for them, they will be pretty convincing that you will want to work for them
I was contacted by a company that does work for the NSA, did some interviews, and got a written offer for more money than I've ever made in my life (and I'm 50). After a lot of soul searching, I said no and then started regretting it. That was a couple months before all hell broke loose, and now that I see just how unbelievably screwed up all this stuff is, I'm not regretting it in the slightest. Every new revelation - what'd we have.. yesterday's was the unlawful intercepts being handed to the DEA - is just one big facepalm after another.
In the cafeteria.
More 'secret sauce' on that burger, sir?
Have gnu, will travel.
"At the end of the day, there is no freedom, anyway," he said. "I need to pay my mortgage, I need to feed my family. Guys living in the bushes might be better off, but is that even freedom? Who knows. Here, have a beer. I'm off."
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
I've never worked for the NSA, so I don't **know**, but I have worked at the NASA-JSC government installation and lived on many military bases.
I've also interviewed for a number of private-sector, DoD-like positions.
Some of these jobs were extremely flexible. We worked our own hours, but had to be available 24/7. The bosses knew we'd cover important events, meetings, and gave us the flexibility.
At other jobs, desktop types doing programming, we had to clock in by 8am and take no more than 60 minute lunches. The boss was a tirant - because he didn't know how to do it any other way.
BTW, I've worked at Loral, Lockheed-Martin, IBM, and 6 other companies on government contracts.
6 yrs later, I interviewed at a different Lockheed-Martin facility. The boss was clueless about technology, so he concentrated on telling me all the ways I'd be fired - "escorted out of the building" - was the term he used over and over. "Shift starts at 7:30a. Being late is not allowed." It started there and continued for 5 minutes on all the rules. Two weeks later, the same man called back wanting to know when I could start. I said, "Never. Hostile work environments aren't cool." It would have been a cool job - F22 flight testing stuff, but the boss would have driven me crazy. ... in my 40s.
I've never regretted NOT taking that position. The job I did take, telecom, changed my life and I'm retired now
Different government jobs are very different. The NSA might be good OR terrible. Hard to say. I wouldn't risk it.