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Not surprising. They’ve gone from having the perception of being the most elite organization for hackers to more of what is described in Good Will Hunting [1].

by atonse 9y ago

Not surprising. They’ve gone from having the perception of being the most elite organization for hackers to more of what is described in Good Will Hunting [1]. Perception is everything. I say this as someone who dreamt of working at the NSA for most of my high school years, but would now never even consider it. Edit: although I bet a lot of it is the 4x-5x salary jump you can get in cyber security jobs by having the NSA on your resume. :-) [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHvSp9AKYg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHvSp9AKYg

B-Con 9y ago
> Perception is everything. I say this as someone who dreamt of working at the NSA for most of my high school years, but would now never even consider it. One of the first three technical books I read was Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography". I loved crypto and wanted to work in it. Fast forward to my 4-year degree when looked around and assessed my potential career paths. NSA salaries weren't competitive to what I could make as a generic software engineer and the NSA was starting to get a bad reputation, and that was well before Snowden. Fast forward to today and it's hard to see myself working as an FTE for the NSA under almost any circumstances, both practical and ideological.
auntienomen 9y ago
I think it's become pretty clear recently -- looking at what Snowden leaked and at the trouble the Iranians had with their centrifuges or at the way Comey knew that Sessions was going to recuse himself -- that the NSA _is_ the most elite organization for hackers/crackers. It's hard to be certain from the outside, of course, but when I look at what Henninger et al have written about what they're doing... well, it's a breath-taking technical achievement As for perception: These technologies exist, and it's up to us to make sure that they're used wisely. Right now, the institutions of the US and allied governments are the caretakers and safeguards. They're not perfect, but I'll take them over the competition every day of the week.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  The NSA leaks we're at once impressive in their technical scope, but largely just things we knew we're possible if you threw engineers at the problem. It's likely we didn't get the really juicy bits, but the vast majority of the stuff we learnt about was just operationalizing things we already knew.to be possible.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  They may be highly sophisticated for individual operations, but it's hard for individual citizens to assess how well the NSA is doing in terms of systematically protecting the nation or even their own assets. Looking at the scope leak of data from multiple sources such as Snowden, as well as the inability of the agency to protect the government from hacks such as OPM leaks leaves a lot to be desired in terms of comprehensiveness. And maybe it's not in their charter, but failures to promote security among private industry leading to hacks like equifax, or home depot, or many many others, looks to me like leadership is off chasing political objectives while at home we get pecked to death and damaged by a million small cuts of fixable security problems.

by atonse 9y ago

B-Con 9y ago

> Perception is everything. I say this as someone who dreamt of working at the NSA for most of my high school years, but would now never even consider it. One of the first three technical books I read was Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography". I loved crypto and wanted to work in it. Fast forward to my 4-year degree when looked around and assessed my potential career paths. NSA salaries weren't competitive to what I could make as a generic software engineer and the NSA was starting to get a bad reputation, and that was well before Snowden. Fast forward to today and it's hard to see myself working as an FTE for the NSA under almost any circumstances, both practical and ideological.

auntienomen 9y ago

I think it's become pretty clear recently -- looking at what Snowden leaked and at the trouble the Iranians had with their centrifuges or at the way Comey knew that Sessions was going to recuse himself -- that the NSA _is_ the most elite organization for hackers/crackers. It's hard to be certain from the outside, of course, but when I look at what Henninger et al have written about what they're doing... well, it's a breath-taking technical achievement As for perception: These technologies exist, and it's up to us to make sure that they're used wisely. Right now, the institutions of the US and allied governments are the caretakers and safeguards. They're not perfect, but I'll take them over the competition every day of the week.

Eridrus 9y ago
The NSA leaks we're at once impressive in their technical scope, but largely just things we knew we're possible if you threw engineers at the problem. It's likely we didn't get the really juicy bits, but the vast majority of the stuff we learnt about was just operationalizing things we already knew.to be possible.
dv_dt 9y ago
They may be highly sophisticated for individual operations, but it's hard for individual citizens to assess how well the NSA is doing in terms of systematically protecting the nation or even their own assets. Looking at the scope leak of data from multiple sources such as Snowden, as well as the inability of the agency to protect the government from hacks such as OPM leaks leaves a lot to be desired in terms of comprehensiveness. And maybe it's not in their charter, but failures to promote security among private industry leading to hacks like equifax, or home depot, or many many others, looks to me like leadership is off chasing political objectives while at home we get pecked to death and damaged by a million small cuts of fixable security problems.