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NSA Firing 90% of Its Sysadmins
sl4shd0rk writes "NSA Director Keith Alexander has decided that the best way to prevent illegal data leaks is to reduce the number of ears and eyes involved. During a talk at a cybersecurity conference in New York this week, Alexander revealed his plans to cut 90% of the System Administration workforce at the NSA. 'What we're in the process of doing — not fast enough — is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent,' he said. Alluding to an issue of mistrust, Alexander further clarified: 'At the end of the day it's about people and trust ... if they misuse that trust they can cause huge damage.' Apparently, breaking the law and lying about it leaves one without a sense of irony when speaking in public."
So having a huge amount of very disgruntled people with at least previous access to large amounts of classified data isn't a security risk?
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
You fire all the people who are responsible for the security of your systems. Wait, what?
They could just pay them well, give them a fair amount of responsibility and respect, and, perhaps... not break the law or violate the constitution.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Am I reading this right? The NSA think that the issue of mistrust around PRISM is that we worry some whistleblower will leak our information, and not that it's being harvested in the first place? They're deep into cognitive dissonance land over there I see.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And announcing that you are going to fire 90% of them ahead of time. So they have lots of time to collect what they want to leak.
From TFA:
Using technology to automate much of the work now done by employees and contractors would make the NSA's networks "more defensible and more secure," as well as faster, he said at the conference.
Which sounds eerily like:
The strategy behind Skynet's creation was to remove the possibility of human error and slow reaction time to guarantee a fast, efficient response to enemy attack.
Skynet was originally activated by the military to control the national arsenal on August 4, 1997, at which time it began to learn at a geometric rate. On August 29, it gained self-awareness, and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, tried to deactivate it. Skynet perceived this as an attack and came to the conclusion that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He is going to increase the work of each sysadmin by 10x... ->
Making what is perpetually an overworked position 10x worse ->
Making it not worth the stress for the amount of pay ->
Making every sysadmin in the NSA a ripe target for various bribes...
BRILLIANT!
The people in leadership positions in the USA (government and corporate) are all idiots.
How about REDUCING 90% of the ILLEGAL data tapping instead?
Silence is a state of mime.
And create dummy accounts with remote access, hide old desktop machines in dusty closets with modems attached to the fax machine, and take home that secondary hard drive out of their desktop machine. I tell you, this guy is truly a manager's manager!
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
An organization that have no respect for other people having no respect for their workers too? Working for them is no magic shield, only gives them more tools to hit you harder when comes your turn.
During a talk at a cybersecurity conference in New York this week, Alexander revealed his plans to cut 90% of the System Administration workforce
DERP
holy shit, why not give them a warning that you're going to kick their ass to the curb before security comes to their desk with a brown cardboard box. Yeah, that's not gonna piss any of them off before you cut off access. At least the private sector has that one figured out.
Alexander needs to go, yesterday. He's more inept than Ballmer.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Can we fire 90% of the NSA?
. . . and hire more detectives, instead. The government doesn't need more SIGINT, they need HUMINT. Like, if Russia warns you that you have a potential terrorist living in Boston, go check him out . . . but thoroughly, please!
Start checking out places where these terrorist folks hang out . . . like radical Mosques.
Recording folks like me calling their mothers in the US from Europe is a waste of time and resources. Cut the NSA budget. Hire detectives.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So firing 90% of their admins and pissing them all off, giving them no job to lose, is going to somehow *prevent* further leaks?
I'm pretty sure the threat of life imprisonment for revealing "secrets" was and is a bit more of a deterrent than the loss of wages ever could hope to be. If someone kicks you while holding a gun to your face are you worried about their foot or the gun?
And if you pull a gun on someone with nothing to lose? They just might decide to take you with them.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
the NSA may end up being a huge liability to the security of the country
Wrong tense - they are a huge liability to America's security, because our real security is dependent on adhering to the Constitution and the faith of the people in their government.
Or, they just set up massive auditing everywhere and aren't really going to fire anybody. Now they just sit back and watch which admins start accessing stuff they aren't supposed to. A bunch of little snively Snowdens we'll grab before they can flee justice.
They are all temps working for subcontractors. And the NSA doesn't even know how many of them there are - or even how many subcontracting companies. Think about that for a minute.
Help stamp out iliturcy.