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The NSA Is Looking For a Few Good Geeks
itwbennett writes "Dan Tynan noticed something curious when he was reading a TechCrunch story (about Google's mystery barges, as it happens). There was a banner ad promoting careers at the NSA — and this was no ad-serving network fluke. Tynan visited the TechCrunch site on three different machines, and saw an NSA ad every time. In one version of the ad, a male voice says, 'There are activities that I've worked on that make, you know, front page headlines. And I can say, I know all about that, I had a hand in that. The things that happen here at NSA really have national and world ramifications.'"
"The things that happen here at NSA really have national and world ramifications."
Like making the rest of the world distrust and hate the USA.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Enough advertising overcomes any negative consequences of your actions.
why the NSA would need to seek out new team members, you would think they already know who the brightest and best are from the data collected!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
At this point, no "good" geek would work for the NSA.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Given that the NSA is recording everything, and probably has broken all your encryption keys, you would think the NSA would already know who to target for employment. Thus the obvious conclusion is that these ads are fakes or honeypots.
I looked into the NSA and the CIA. neither pay anywhere near what the private sector pays. Both want to pump you up on "Doing your national duty", "Serving your country", and/or "Protecting your fellow Americans"
If they want IT talent, they need to pony up the cash.
Sometimes we will flesh these immoral or illegal business plans out a little bit, realize just what is involved in the process, and then sigh, "I could be rich if I didn't have any ethics."
Many people make the news every day. Most often these include major scams and crimes or immoral behavior.
Yes, there is work to be had and money to be found in those activities, and you can make global news from them. If you don't have any ethics.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Have gnu, will travel.
I know this former SysAdmin in Russia who had to resort to tech support FFS. Already has clearance. He'd be just what you deserve.
If you want to apply for a job at the NSA, just pick up the phone. Any phone.
Seriously? Improving it as in finding holes that they can exploit and tell no one else about? Or spending millions on research into how to create holes they can hope to get included as encryption standards?
From the link above:
The N.S.A.'s Sigint Enabling Project is a $250 million-a-year program that works with Internet companies to weaken privacy by inserting back doors into encryption products. This excerpt from a 2013 budget proposal outlines some methods the agency uses to undermine encryption used by the public.
That's a very myopic view of the situation.
People with expertise in data systems have a wide range of opinions and come from a variety of backgrounds. There is no monolithic community that is implied with possession of this knowledge.
Even if you are in the subset that supports Snowden you don't have to have the opinion that what the NSA does is fundamentally wrong. It may be that all it really needs is more enlightened political leadership and restructured laws. After all even the most ideal free societies have opponents and will have a need to protect themselves to ensure their continuation.
Right. They've been open about it for years. NSA has a long history in computing.
At one time, going to NSA HQ was very mysterious, and travel expenses were paid with a check from a furniture company. But they gave up on that years ago. Now, like the CIA, they have signs outside.
Until the USSR went down, all NSA really cared about was what the USSR was doing. Anything else had lower priority. After the USSR went down, there were lots of retirements and layoffs. After 9/11, everything changed. Suddenly the threat was from little groups, not a superpower. Huge internal realignment. Much more pressure for timely info (the USSR was a slow-moving opponent) and for data sharing with law enforcement. That's when NSA became more intrusive.
'There are activities that I've worked on that make, you know, front page headlines. And I can say, I know all about that, I had a hand in that.
That's silly/ There are not many headlines in the last few years that the NSA is proud of. And if you work at the NSA and had a hand in something that made front page headlines, you probably aren't allowed to talk about it anyway.
My friends who work at the NSA hate when the NSA comes up as a topic, because it is never good news. They just have to hide their heads and walk out of the room. Sometimes that is because they are not allowed to talk about it. Other times it is because they are sick of hearing the flak.
We all know that so called ad targeting works by building up profiles on people intended to categorize their interests -- very much like the NSA's own automated profiling and analysis systems. But the profiling system can't tell the difference between a favorable interest and a disgusted interest (much like they can't tell if you've already bought those shoes you were searching for two weeks ago and so keep showing you ads for shoes).
That they've decided to show the guy recruiting ads because he's been reading articles about how the NSA is a bunch of nationalistic spying assholes is the cherry on top, a perfect demonstration how pervasive surveillance can't actually understand the intent of people and thus will have an overwhelming percentage of false positives.
If real people at the FBI can't even tell the different between someone reporting a threat against themselves and a threat against the FBI profiling systems can only automate keystone cop level of surveillance effectiveness.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
One of the theories out there is that the downsizing of US SIGINT capability during the 1990's was the reason al-Qa'ida was successful in carrying out 9/11. This has some credibility because even though the FBI was tracking some of the perpetrators of 9/11, the NSA had no information on their intent.
Then there is the fact that SIGINT played a large role in finding the location of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.
No, the idea the NSA is not needed is hopelessly naive. What IS needed is getting rid of the Patriot Act and instituting real oversight.