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Why is money not a solution? A life-changing amount of money is peanuts to a government, and should convince the vast majority of people to take the job.

vintermann 4y ago
If money was what Shannon was primarily interested in, he wouldn't be in academia. This is true of almost all types of narrow domain experts. There are more parties than government that can offer them money, too. For most academics (and more, the better they are), not being allowed to talk about what you're working on to the vast majority your peers, would be too high a price for money to make up for. NSA circumvented this for many years by employing an obscene number of math graduates, effectively creating their own parallel academia. We can only imagine how expensive that was. Still, they were surpassed by the "open" world even in the narrow fields they were interested in, such as cryptography, by the late 90s at the latest. It's not just sad being cut off from the free world, it stunts you.
- zaik 4y ago
  There is no contradiction in being in academia because you want to spend your time doing research and accepting a nice bonus from the government now and then.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    The contradiction is that you can't talk about what you worked on, and you need to be careful that what you write in public research doesn't reveal it. It's ten times worse than the corporate equivalent.
carom 4y ago
It is not for North Korea. Their APT groups switch between intelligence gathering and PayPal / crypto scams. They also have prominent ransomware groups. Crime pays for the hermit kingdom and they do need cash. Now, to OPs point, on getting someone competent. Say, they want to infiltrate a crypto trading firm. Maybe the guy who knows crypto doesn't know English. So you end up with a team of guys playing telephone and hoping for the best.
anonym29 4y ago
I have to work for a living. If I stop working, I'm homeless. Every agency in the entire US IC could ask me for help and offer me a billion dollars to do it, and I'd still tell those traitors, tyrants, and cowards to go rot in hell. Not that hell exists, but a person can dream, can't they?

vintermann 4y ago

If money was what Shannon was primarily interested in, he wouldn't be in academia. This is true of almost all types of narrow domain experts. There are more parties than government that can offer them money, too. For most academics (and more, the better they are), not being allowed to talk about what you're working on to the vast majority your peers, would be too high a price for money to make up for. NSA circumvented this for many years by employing an obscene number of math graduates, effectively creating their own parallel academia. We can only imagine how expensive that was. Still, they were surpassed by the "open" world even in the narrow fields they were interested in, such as cryptography, by the late 90s at the latest. It's not just sad being cut off from the free world, it stunts you.

zaik 4y ago
There is no contradiction in being in academia because you want to spend your time doing research and accepting a nice bonus from the government now and then.
- vintermann 4y ago
  The contradiction is that you can't talk about what you worked on, and you need to be careful that what you write in public research doesn't reveal it. It's ten times worse than the corporate equivalent.

carom 4y ago

It is not for North Korea. Their APT groups switch between intelligence gathering and PayPal / crypto scams. They also have prominent ransomware groups. Crime pays for the hermit kingdom and they do need cash. Now, to OPs point, on getting someone competent. Say, they want to infiltrate a crypto trading firm. Maybe the guy who knows crypto doesn't know English. So you end up with a team of guys playing telephone and hoping for the best.

anonym29 4y ago

I have to work for a living. If I stop working, I'm homeless. Every agency in the entire US IC could ask me for help and offer me a billion dollars to do it, and I'd still tell those traitors, tyrants, and cowards to go rot in hell. Not that hell exists, but a person can dream, can't they?