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Former NSA Chief Warned Against Selling NSA Secrets
An anonymous reader writes Former NSA Chief General Keith Alexander has apparently started his own cybersecurity consulting firm, IronNet Cybersecurity, and approached the banking industry pitching his company's suite of services. Word from Wired indicates that his services cost $1 million per month with a special discount asking price of $600,000 per month. Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) expressed concern about General Alexander's activities to the banking industry, stating, "I question how Mr. Alexander can provide any of the services he is offering unless he discloses or misuses classified information, including extremely sensitive sources and methods....Without the classified information he acquired in his former position, he literally would have nothing to offer to you." (PDF) The congressman from the House of Representatives reminds the bankers (and General Alexander, should he be listening) that selling top secret information is a federal offense.
I don't know if I'd brag about my tenure there in the context of selling security consulting.
.. 600k? .. I'll take two, because that's how we roll with government spending.
The whole Snowden affair demonstrated that they still managed some epic fails.
But sure
THe banking industry is probably wanting a step up in security, while the NSA under Alexander had horrible internal security. Alexander's forte seems to be using brute force to break the security of others, not actually keeping an organization secure.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
So the poor general can't participate in the usual dance of former Washington insiders who use cronyism and connections to enrich themselves after 'serving' in government?
There should be a name for that... like 401(c)... where c stands for crony capitalism.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Snowden didn't reveal NSA secrets for his personal profit.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It is? Odd that someone as insignificant as me has it in his contract that any kind of "internal knowledge" he gains (and, bluntly, if an exploit isn't considered internal knowledge in a TLA, what is?) must not be used outside of very well defined areas of work for at the very least 2 years, while someone as the NSA head honcho gets a free pass to use such knowledge as he pleases.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, it merely means that for selling it you get to go on a trial where in the end you get to make some kind of deal with the state where you can keep half the profit and the other half disappears in some war purses for deals that you don't want to explain why you need funding for them.
If you hand it out for free you get to Gitmo. There's no profit in making a deal with you, you have no money you could offer.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. When you've worked at a very high level the NSA;
2. When you are selling security information/services; and
3. When your asking price is far higher than competitive services by people who've worked at it far longer than you outside of the NSA,
What do you imagine lies in between publicly known and classified that justifies the price premium? Was he developing security procedures on his own time or at his second job?
Am I confused, or is this the same amoral sack of shit who lied to Congress with a straight face about NSA activities???
Yep. Circumventing the law, lying to Congress, sounds like a perfect match for the banking industry.
Yes, I think it's the same sack of shit that was involved in directing funds to the IRA in the 80's.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It seems to me that the entire purpose of any secret government agency is to benefit the secret government agency.
Michael Moore is a self-taught movie maker. His movie about U.S. government corruption in secret agencies, Fahrenheit 9/11, made $222,446,882. It's not like extreme U.S. government corruption is unknown.
There is a HUGE conflict of interest, and the U.S. government seems to have no influential methods of dealing with conflicts of interest. If there is security, people who work for the NSA are less likely to be promoted, and may lose their jobs. That is a powerful reason for NSA employees and management, and other secret U.S. government agencies, to create more insecurity. Since they work entirely in secret, no one can stop them.
U.S. government policies allow many secret agencies. I find it odd that news stories assume that, other than doing things that almost no citizens want, the secret agencies are otherwise well-managed. Numerous examples show that they aren't. For example, Edward Snowden, an employee of an NSA sub-contractor, was able to walk away with all the data.
To me, it is also odd that news stories assume that the NSA works to improve security of the U.S. and U.S. citizens. For example, the book House of Bush, House of Saud explains that the Bush and Cheney families worked for the Saudis, who paid them billions for their help. The U.S. taxpayer paid for the arms, military presence, and violence that supposedly was free security for the Saudi government, but actually was, as Saudi acquaintances I met in a gym said long before the 9/11 attack, Saudi government oppression of the Saudi people.
Why does the NSA record phone calls? Is it because learning about some of those calls makes money for someone in control? Investment information, perhaps?
The U.S. government's war in Iraq is now being called a "mistake". For example, Hans Blix: Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter. It wasn't a "mistake", other articles say, it was deliberate deception. For example, Stop Calling the Iraq War a 'Mistake'.
NSA = No Sales for America. The NSA is a powerful advertisement that anything complicated made by a U.S. manufacturer may have intentional defects or surveillance methods.