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Gets orders from FBI to set up something at Facebook. Goes to FB and sets it up. Goes to NSA to train a team to handle/store/query the data stream he set up.

by bennyg 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago
One wonders where he found the time to conceal the aliens at Area 51.
- krapp 13y ago
  Don't be silly. They were buried years ago.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  Realizing that someone might have sympathies towards people they worked with in the past, and might look forward to future employment with them, and that this might affect their decisionmaking when they're asked to do something ethically borderline, is a far cry from "Area 51".
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Don't let me get in the way of you casting aspersions on people you've never met and know basically nothing about. I concede the high ground to you.
    - _delirium 13y ago
      Are you at all worried about a revolving door between the defense/security bureaucracy and industry, the way someone like Eisenhower was? Or is that a non-issue? That's the kind of discussion I'd rather have anyway. I don't have any particular reason to believe any specific person is compromised or dishonest. But I am skeptical of the stability and reliability of an employment structure that has regular back-and-forth personnel moves between the private sector and the state-security sector. If I had to pick specific places to start, I'll admit, ex-Facebook staff would be much lower on my list than a whole host of private-sector (tempted to say "nominally private-sector") defense contractors.
      - dfc 13y ago
        Whenever I read a discussion about "the revolving door problem" I never see any serious discussion of an alternative. Would you prefer an enormous monoculture inside of the government because they cannot hire people from the private sector? Any system that enforced a waiting period between government IT job to private sector IT job would essentially end someone's career.
        _delirium 13y ago
        I think it would be more honest and open to have the government working via people actually in the government, yes. That would be more amenable to developing some kind of oversight and some policies. When someone spends their whole career in the NSA, at least you can plan for that. When someone is moving back and forth between the NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton, I think you only complicate any accountability. Perhaps it does raise the likelihood of defections, as this case indicates, which is one possible safety valve. But those are not supposed to be part of the planned-for strategy. I have a similar viewpoint on using private military contractors like Blackwater, rather than regular career military staff. I think once you start outsourcing these kinds of security jobs, you are just weakening oversight, both formal oversight and any attempt to develop a culture of rule-following. Not to mention the ethical problems that come from having people who are literally mercenaries working for your armed forces.
        dfc 13y ago
        I am confused, I thought we were discussing "the revolving door problem." From the outset your comment seems to be concerned with the government's use of private contractors.
        mpyne 13y ago
        There is actually already a lot of law and regulation that deals with what types of functions contractors working for government are allowed to do. IMHO the government far overstepped those lines during Bush and have failed to come back under Obama, as that would mean taking on civil servant headcount to replace the contractors leaving, which is politically a hot potato. Unfortunately the people only rarely expect and demand less service from the government; instead they want the government to stop all the stuff that they don't personally use. So of course this means that the government rarely stops with a given function entirely. The military ended up with the same problem. The draft would not be politically feasible and you only get to go to war with "the Army you've got, not the Army you'd wished you had". What the Army did have was money, and so they farmed out everything they could make even a half-hearted case as being a "generic business function" (e.g. building security) off on private contractors. And that's even with the Navy drawing down on its already-undermanned force to send sailors to Iraq and Afghanistan to free up even more soldiers to do Army-type things.
- teeja 13y ago
  FYO: Ridicule does not constitute a counter-argument. It's now useless to suppose that Fed spooks and SV corps have not had a long and cozy relationship. (Which it is not necessary to suppose for anyone who's followed the news for a few years.)
  - fixxer 13y ago
    Of course they are in bed together. Heard of these guys? http://www.iqt.org/ http://www.iqt.org/ Clarification Edit: "They" = SV & government, not FB specifically.
- fixxer 13y ago
  One of the problems with all this crap is being able to draw clear lines between conspiracy and bureaucracy. I don't believe there is a secret group trying to build the IT infrastructure to subvert democracy and throw us into re-education camps a la Pol Pot version 2013. However, the bureaucracy is essentially building that very same system regardless of which administration is "in charge".
  - exodust 13y ago
    Very good point. Bureaucracy does tend to lead us down certain roads not originally intended by those who set up the bureaucratic systems. Conspiracy is a way to draw attention to those bureaucratic failings, otherwise ignored as too hard, or too boring to think about. Which might mean "conspiracy" itself is an important process deserving more respect if it's the only way to shine a light on imperfect bureaucracy.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- ryguytilidie 13y ago
  Just to be clear, you're mocking someone as a tin foil hat type conspiracy theorist for implying the government and facebook have employees who work together to share information... Sarcasm?
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  take the tin foil hat off your head.
tekacs 13y ago
Co-operation between multiple government agencies you mean? The FBI and NSA getting along? Ha! :P

Gets orders from FBI to set up something at Facebook. Goes to FB and sets it up. Goes to NSA to train a team to handle/store/query the data stream he set up.

by bennyg 13y ago

Gets orders from FBI to set up something at Facebook. Goes to FB and sets it up. Goes to NSA to train a team to handle/store/query the data stream he set up.

tptacek 13y ago

One wonders where he found the time to conceal the aliens at Area 51.

krapp 13y ago
Don't be silly. They were buried years ago.
fiatmoney 13y ago
Realizing that someone might have sympathies towards people they worked with in the past, and might look forward to future employment with them, and that this might affect their decisionmaking when they're asked to do something ethically borderline, is a far cry from "Area 51".
- tptacek 13y ago
  Don't let me get in the way of you casting aspersions on people you've never met and know basically nothing about. I concede the high ground to you.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    Are you at all worried about a revolving door between the defense/security bureaucracy and industry, the way someone like Eisenhower was? Or is that a non-issue? That's the kind of discussion I'd rather have anyway. I don't have any particular reason to believe any specific person is compromised or dishonest. But I am skeptical of the stability and reliability of an employment structure that has regular back-and-forth personnel moves between the private sector and the state-security sector. If I had to pick specific places to start, I'll admit, ex-Facebook staff would be much lower on my list than a whole host of private-sector (tempted to say "nominally private-sector") defense contractors.
    - dfc 13y ago
      Whenever I read a discussion about "the revolving door problem" I never see any serious discussion of an alternative. Would you prefer an enormous monoculture inside of the government because they cannot hire people from the private sector? Any system that enforced a waiting period between government IT job to private sector IT job would essentially end someone's career.
      - _delirium 13y ago
        I think it would be more honest and open to have the government working via people actually in the government, yes. That would be more amenable to developing some kind of oversight and some policies. When someone spends their whole career in the NSA, at least you can plan for that. When someone is moving back and forth between the NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton, I think you only complicate any accountability. Perhaps it does raise the likelihood of defections, as this case indicates, which is one possible safety valve. But those are not supposed to be part of the planned-for strategy. I have a similar viewpoint on using private military contractors like Blackwater, rather than regular career military staff. I think once you start outsourcing these kinds of security jobs, you are just weakening oversight, both formal oversight and any attempt to develop a culture of rule-following. Not to mention the ethical problems that come from having people who are literally mercenaries working for your armed forces.
        dfc 13y ago
        I am confused, I thought we were discussing "the revolving door problem." From the outset your comment seems to be concerned with the government's use of private contractors.
        mpyne 13y ago
        There is actually already a lot of law and regulation that deals with what types of functions contractors working for government are allowed to do. IMHO the government far overstepped those lines during Bush and have failed to come back under Obama, as that would mean taking on civil servant headcount to replace the contractors leaving, which is politically a hot potato. Unfortunately the people only rarely expect and demand less service from the government; instead they want the government to stop all the stuff that they don't personally use. So of course this means that the government rarely stops with a given function entirely. The military ended up with the same problem. The draft would not be politically feasible and you only get to go to war with "the Army you've got, not the Army you'd wished you had". What the Army did have was money, and so they farmed out everything they could make even a half-hearted case as being a "generic business function" (e.g. building security) off on private contractors. And that's even with the Navy drawing down on its already-undermanned force to send sailors to Iraq and Afghanistan to free up even more soldiers to do Army-type things.
teeja 13y ago
FYO: Ridicule does not constitute a counter-argument. It's now useless to suppose that Fed spooks and SV corps have not had a long and cozy relationship. (Which it is not necessary to suppose for anyone who's followed the news for a few years.)
- fixxer 13y ago
  Of course they are in bed together. Heard of these guys? http://www.iqt.org/ http://www.iqt.org/ Clarification Edit: "They" = SV & government, not FB specifically.
fixxer 13y ago
One of the problems with all this crap is being able to draw clear lines between conspiracy and bureaucracy. I don't believe there is a secret group trying to build the IT infrastructure to subvert democracy and throw us into re-education camps a la Pol Pot version 2013. However, the bureaucracy is essentially building that very same system regardless of which administration is "in charge".
- exodust 13y ago
  Very good point. Bureaucracy does tend to lead us down certain roads not originally intended by those who set up the bureaucratic systems. Conspiracy is a way to draw attention to those bureaucratic failings, otherwise ignored as too hard, or too boring to think about. Which might mean "conspiracy" itself is an important process deserving more respect if it's the only way to shine a light on imperfect bureaucracy.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
ryguytilidie 13y ago
Just to be clear, you're mocking someone as a tin foil hat type conspiracy theorist for implying the government and facebook have employees who work together to share information... Sarcasm?
VladRussian2 13y ago
take the tin foil hat off your head.

tekacs 13y ago

Co-operation between multiple government agencies you mean? The FBI and NSA getting along? Ha! :P