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Exactly. Everybody can obviously read these companies' very carefully worded denials for themselves and see that there's enough wiggle room to drive a bus throu

Exactly. Everybody can obviously read these companies' very carefully worded denials for themselves and see that there's enough wiggle room to drive a bus through.

Sven7 13y ago
Even if they are getting all this data(and they most likely have access), I find it highly improbable that the govt has access to the human resources (R&D/Engineering) required, to produce something useful. Just think about the teams they have to put together to build even reasonably useful tools.
- carbocation 13y ago
  The same government that invented the nuclear bomb and provided feedback that protected DES's S boxes from differential cryptanalysis before it was publicly known to exist? I think you give it too little credit. The government does a bad job with citizen-facing software engineering. It's not clear that the same is true for defense and intelligence applications.
  - Sven7 13y ago
    Sure but the big difference today is the internet. Good luck trying to hire an Oppenheimer today and setting up Los Alamos in secret. Take a look at successful teams that already work with "big data" like at Wolfram Alpha or IBM's Watson. It is not at all easy to build such teams today. There aren't enough PhD's around, unless you are outsourcing to China. And then to step it up a level to Google's requirements we enter personal chefs and segway territory. I cant find the quote but Eric Schmidt has said multiple time what is hampering progress is not the lack of cash or infrastructure but talent. More than the privacy issues I have to wonder about the waste. Cause getting the data and the infrastructure to handle it is the "easy" part. Extracting actionable intelligence I doubt highly they will succeed. Will turn into a big cash sink, that no one will talk about as the costs need to be justified...until they cant be.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    The difference was that there weren't better jobs for those people back then, and there was a real world war back then and we were kinda obviously the good guys. People with the skills to do the data mining needed at this scale already have better jobs at Google or on Wall Street. Are they really going to take a pay cut, worse benefits and "government job" bureaucracy for the privilege of spying on their friends and family? I have family in military intelligence and the situation they are in right now is their branch of the armed service thinks they are just going to send their officers of below average mathematical talent to big data boot camp and expect them to just pick this stuff up, as if it's the same thing as learning Russian or flying a drone. Although the I'm as disappointed as everyone in that so many in the government seem think domestic spying is the wave of the future, I'm skeptical that the real motivations are anything beyond business as usual defense sector pork.
    - Sven7 13y ago
      Agree.
- throwaway420 13y ago
  Most likely this is the case in the short term until they come up with the computing power/software to analyze 100% of data. But even if this is the case it's irrelevant to whether or not the government should even be engaged in this practice.
- brown9-2 13y ago
  This seems to ignore that the same government has put together and continues to manage the world's most advanced military.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    Most expensive military. If other countries were willing/able to throw that kind of money at military they'd have something at least that advanced.
- dsl 13y ago
  Think about the smartest people we have in the valley... whomever you want to arbitrarily put on that list. Every single person I have dealt with at a three letter agency is that caliber of smart. They have entire buildings full of them. Sure you have tons of other mid-grade government paper pushers, but the sheer scale of smart people was overwhelming. They have 10 Bram Cohen's to our one.
  - gaadd33 13y ago
    How do they convince all of them to stay and deal with the bureaucracy vs going to somewhere like google and having tons of benefits and likely double or triple the salary? Or starting their own company doing whatever they find interesting?
    - dsl 13y ago
      Most get recruited right out of college, many people take the job on strong recommendation from an advisor or professor. The perks aren't on Google scale, but the pay is better than you'd expect and the feeling of purpose and patriotism is something no valley company can really match. Once you are on the inside, you have daily interactions with technology that is 10 years ahead of anything on the outside, which is really hard to walk away from. Not to mention you probably married someone else with a clearance along the way. If you do want to leave... all your accomplishments, achievements, and awards are locked up in an ISR (internal staffing resume), and you end up sending potential employers a half page CV listing something stupid like "Senior Computer Operator, Defense Department, Ft. Meade" that no recruiter is smart enough to parse.
      - gaadd33 13y ago
        It appears most people, assuming its fresh out of college, would start out at GS-7 which at step 10 in the DC area would only be $54K. Assuming they were graduating with a Phd, they could be at GS-11 step 10 which would still only be 81K. I understand the feeling of purpose but starting at half the salary and having a cap of 155K (assuming you move into senior management (GS-15 step 10)) vs somewhere like Google where you start at ~100K and the limit for technical people seems like its the 400K+ range seems like a tough sell. Also maybe its just stereotypes, but it seems like antisocial behavior which seems somewhat prevalent in excellent technical types wouldn't really mesh with the command structure there.
Natsu 13y ago
One other possibility comes to mind: aren't these companies currently challenging some NSLs in court? Or is my memory bad on that one?

Exactly. Everybody can obviously read these companies' very carefully worded denials for themselves and see that there's enough wiggle room to drive a bus through.

Sven7 13y ago

Even if they are getting all this data(and they most likely have access), I find it highly improbable that the govt has access to the human resources (R&D/Engineering) required, to produce something useful. Just think about the teams they have to put together to build even reasonably useful tools.

carbocation 13y ago
The same government that invented the nuclear bomb and provided feedback that protected DES's S boxes from differential cryptanalysis before it was publicly known to exist? I think you give it too little credit. The government does a bad job with citizen-facing software engineering. It's not clear that the same is true for defense and intelligence applications.
- Sven7 13y ago
  Sure but the big difference today is the internet. Good luck trying to hire an Oppenheimer today and setting up Los Alamos in secret. Take a look at successful teams that already work with "big data" like at Wolfram Alpha or IBM's Watson. It is not at all easy to build such teams today. There aren't enough PhD's around, unless you are outsourcing to China. And then to step it up a level to Google's requirements we enter personal chefs and segway territory. I cant find the quote but Eric Schmidt has said multiple time what is hampering progress is not the lack of cash or infrastructure but talent. More than the privacy issues I have to wonder about the waste. Cause getting the data and the infrastructure to handle it is the "easy" part. Extracting actionable intelligence I doubt highly they will succeed. Will turn into a big cash sink, that no one will talk about as the costs need to be justified...until they cant be.
- rdouble 13y ago
  The difference was that there weren't better jobs for those people back then, and there was a real world war back then and we were kinda obviously the good guys. People with the skills to do the data mining needed at this scale already have better jobs at Google or on Wall Street. Are they really going to take a pay cut, worse benefits and "government job" bureaucracy for the privilege of spying on their friends and family? I have family in military intelligence and the situation they are in right now is their branch of the armed service thinks they are just going to send their officers of below average mathematical talent to big data boot camp and expect them to just pick this stuff up, as if it's the same thing as learning Russian or flying a drone. Although the I'm as disappointed as everyone in that so many in the government seem think domestic spying is the wave of the future, I'm skeptical that the real motivations are anything beyond business as usual defense sector pork.
  - Sven7 13y ago
    Agree.
throwaway420 13y ago
Most likely this is the case in the short term until they come up with the computing power/software to analyze 100% of data. But even if this is the case it's irrelevant to whether or not the government should even be engaged in this practice.
brown9-2 13y ago
This seems to ignore that the same government has put together and continues to manage the world's most advanced military.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  Most expensive military. If other countries were willing/able to throw that kind of money at military they'd have something at least that advanced.
dsl 13y ago
Think about the smartest people we have in the valley... whomever you want to arbitrarily put on that list. Every single person I have dealt with at a three letter agency is that caliber of smart. They have entire buildings full of them. Sure you have tons of other mid-grade government paper pushers, but the sheer scale of smart people was overwhelming. They have 10 Bram Cohen's to our one.
- gaadd33 13y ago
  How do they convince all of them to stay and deal with the bureaucracy vs going to somewhere like google and having tons of benefits and likely double or triple the salary? Or starting their own company doing whatever they find interesting?
  - dsl 13y ago
    Most get recruited right out of college, many people take the job on strong recommendation from an advisor or professor. The perks aren't on Google scale, but the pay is better than you'd expect and the feeling of purpose and patriotism is something no valley company can really match. Once you are on the inside, you have daily interactions with technology that is 10 years ahead of anything on the outside, which is really hard to walk away from. Not to mention you probably married someone else with a clearance along the way. If you do want to leave... all your accomplishments, achievements, and awards are locked up in an ISR (internal staffing resume), and you end up sending potential employers a half page CV listing something stupid like "Senior Computer Operator, Defense Department, Ft. Meade" that no recruiter is smart enough to parse.
    - gaadd33 13y ago
      It appears most people, assuming its fresh out of college, would start out at GS-7 which at step 10 in the DC area would only be $54K. Assuming they were graduating with a Phd, they could be at GS-11 step 10 which would still only be 81K. I understand the feeling of purpose but starting at half the salary and having a cap of 155K (assuming you move into senior management (GS-15 step 10)) vs somewhere like Google where you start at ~100K and the limit for technical people seems like its the 400K+ range seems like a tough sell. Also maybe its just stereotypes, but it seems like antisocial behavior which seems somewhat prevalent in excellent technical types wouldn't really mesh with the command structure there.

Natsu 13y ago

One other possibility comes to mind: aren't these companies currently challenging some NSLs in court? Or is my memory bad on that one?