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This isn't a technical issue, but I think that it's important: working for the government comes with less pay, but there was always the idea that you were putti

This isn't a technical issue, but I think that it's important: working for the government comes with less pay, but there was always the idea that you were putting in effort for the benefit of the country. In my opinion the NSA has squandered that and they have somehow ended up in the same category as Palantir and Facebook. I'm not sure how they can fix this, but I do think it will need to be addressed if they want to hire and retain top talent. They have interesting problems but no one will work on them if they feel they are, in the end, hurting their fellow country-people.

jkestner 7y ago
They could start fixing it by not turning their spying tools inward, and enacting strong whistleblower protection laws. The other half is admitting that the government did something wrong in the first place, which they can do by prosecuting officials who broke the law, retire those that quasi-legally facilitated domestic dragnets, and pardoning Snowden, Winner, etc. That’s going to take politicians who aren’t jingoistic.
NortySpock 7y ago
Perhaps if the NSA spun off a white-hat cyber defense organization? If I knew a 3-letter federal organization was dedicated to defensive tools, white-hat pen testing, and US infrastructure cyber security, I might consider joining. But the NSA has managed to tarnish its name with domestic cyber spying on US citizens, and that should have been the realm of the FBI, which is supposed to follow laws and can be audited.