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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."
and pissing them all off, giving them no job to lose, is going to somehow *prevent* further leaks? Brilliant!!!!
Can we fire 90% of the NSA?
I assume that sysadmins score particularly badly on the 'amount of access vs. degree of trust' metric.
Barring really elegant, or unbearably onerous, system design, (which the NSA apparently didn't bother with, since one comparatively junior sysadmin at a contracting company, not even in house, apparently had massive access to the juicy details) sysadmins tend to have enormous power over your systems, access (because somebody has to run backups) to your files and email, etc, etc.
How do you know Snowden got everything worth spilling? He was only one low level guy.
Dear de facto Dictator for Life Putin,
May I suggest you hang out a big "Welcome former NSA sysadmins" sign on your country. Tell 'em the weather is cold but the girls are hot (and something for the women sysadmins too - we Yanks frown on sexism). Your country may be a sewer due to its government, but as an American I'd be very grateful for anything you can do to help expose the use of our Constitution as toilet paper.
I'm surprised that Keith's head didn't explode when he said "people who have access to data as part of their missions, if they misuse that trust they can cause huge damage.”
He is sort of Public Enemy #1 on that score right about now, with any lackeys who have nontrivial authority right behind him.
You forget Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you don't have a job, you could lose your food and the roof you sleep under, both things which are provided in prison. Besides, what are the chances of getting caught, some time in the future, compared to getting even, today?
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
The thing is, see, that Skyne.., er, Colossus.., er, the NSA's system has already reached that point, and it's the one telling Alexander to fire most of the people who might be able to turn it off...
It's already too late.
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you..."
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Perhaps that's the point. They aren't actually going to fire 90%, just wanting to fish out the ones who are willing to steal classified documents at the first sign of trouble. Seems like a solid honeypot to me, just mention layoffs and then crank up the logging, sit back and find the "enemies of the state".
The last that I knew, the oldest still-classified records were from the Spanish-American War. Don't know it that's still true as I encountered that during the Clinton years, but it really made me wonder what the heck needed to still be hidden after over a century.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin