15 ms·

I have an honest and serious question -- who are the developers and designers who put these systems into place for the NSA? Are they aware of what they're doing

• anthonycerra 13y ago
  I think it's similar to people in the military who are given a gun and told to shoot someone they've never met. There are many people who believe what they're doing is for the good of their country and trust the people giving the orders.
• wellboy 13y ago
  If you tell a graduate engineer about the great mathematical problems there are to solve and that solving them will protect the American people, it's quite easy to get a strong workforce behind you. And if they were just engineering small parts it was probably hard to see the whole picture, even more so to judge if it's right or wrong. However, this big PR outrage will probably have them come to their senses and crumble down the NSA workforce. Checks and balances.
  • sharkweek 13y ago
    Yeah I suppose I buy into the micro/macro argument -- "Oh, I'm just working on this awesome data crawling problem that our country will use to stop bad people from entering the country" x 1000s of employees, and then you get a few dedicated folks at the top who put it all together, it gets pretty easy to see how that could result in the types of programs we're seeing
    • wellboy 13y ago
      Yup
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  • mildtrepidation 13y ago
    However, this big PR outrage will probably have them come to their senses and crumble down the NSA workforce. Checks and balances. This seems extremely optimistic to me. If you're assuming these people joined up because of good marketing by the government, how can you possibly argue that a "big PR outrage" will be an easy and immediate knock on the head resulting in "oh hey, this is terrible?" I don't doubt that some of the people in these positions were lured in with the promise of helping America or Americans. But at this point they live in the machine. They are its cogs and wheels. That's a very different situation from those of us on the outside looking in, thinking how black and white it all is. The government and parts of the media are still managing to convince many people -- people who don't work for the government at all -- that this is actually not a bad thing. The idea that they're not concentrating time and resources to keeping the faithful in the fold is unfathomable to me. Some might see this and bail. But I think many more are somewhere along the spectrum from convinced to brainwashed.
  • Zigurd 13y ago
    Not before we lose a big chunk of the high tech industry and start to ask why. It takes a $100Billion pin to prick the bubble they live in, if not more.
  • fotbr 13y ago
    Crumble the workforce? HAH Here's the bitch of the situation, and the part that most who think like you do not understand -- the people that you're hoping will "come to their senses", if they take the oaths they signed seriously (and they signed oaths, the breaking of which are punishible by imprisonment) -- are not allowed to possess (ie, read, since that would involve having a copy of the document on the device being used to read it, even if only temporarily) the documents driving "this big PR outrage", because even though those documents are out in public, they are not automatically declassified.
  • vkou 13y ago
    Considering that neither the STASI, nor the KGB had any difficulties in recruitment, hoping for bad PR about their employer to change the mind of the choir is... Naive at best.
    • pg 13y ago
      I'm sure both had plenty of difficulties. There must have been lots of really good people who'd never have considered working for either of them.
      • vkou 13y ago
        All sorts of bad employers manage to hire capable talent in this industry. I don't think the NSA is any exception. And if they treat their people well, that already puts them in the upper 50% of desirable workplaces.
• mikeyouse 13y ago
  Everyone on HN acts like there's no possible reason for people to support these types of activities, but there could be very legitimate reasons these engineers choose to do what they do. It could just be a challenge for them. Where else can you not only get away with, but be rewarded with a good salary and a pension for hacking into the most secure systems on earth? It must be thrilling to be 'Competing' against the best security engineers, best practices, with a massive budget to support your activities. It could be that with their security clearances, they know things about threats that make their decision to work for the NSA a moral imperative. It's entirely possible that there are some really horrific classified things that were stopped via similar spying activities, so intercepting some Gmail messages seems like a much less evil alternative. They could just be 'blindly' patriotic, have faith that the faults of the government are outweighed by the need to keep the US on top of the world. There are many possible reasons.
  • duairc 13y ago
    > Everyone on HN acts like there's no possible reason for people to support these types of activities. And they're right. You don't need to play devil's advocate. The devil has enough advocates.
    • tptacek 13y ago
      EXTERMINATE ALL RATIONAL THOUGHT. Questions are not allowed. Consideration is not allowed. Context is not allowed. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
      • duairc 13y ago
        There's a Deleuze quote about this that I really like: “It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality”. What I understand this to mean is that the nature of “rationality” is such that a rational person can rationalize anything. Nobody is saying “EXTERMINATE ALL RATIONAL THOUGHT”, obviously this is just you trolling, but to the extent that anything intelligent can be distilled from your reply, that's my response to it. We can always rationalise anything, especially misdeeds committed by those in positions of power over us. Sometimes it's important to halt that process and stop and just say "this is definitely fucked up", and yes, not to question it any further. It can actually be really hard not to question it sometimes, especially if you trust, or have been conditioned to trust, those in positions of power over you who are abusing you. You want to find reasons to defend their abuse of their power, you don't want it to be what it looks like. And you can find reasons for it, you always can. You will. But abuse is still abuse. So sometimes you have to stop and just say “this is fucked”.
• Cookingboy 13y ago
  What I'm about to say may be too unpopular on HackerNews. Have you considered the possibility that not everyone shares the same moral standard and ideology? People came from different backgrounds and have different experiences, and most things are not black and white, but different shades of gray in this world. I'm sure there are people who consider the Fourth Amendment to be obsolete just like there are people who consider the same for the Second Amendment. I'm not saying I agree with it, but for people who believe they are actually serving their country, and in this era's unique geopolitical landscape, all means are justified, they WOULD be proud of their work for the NSA. You came across as condescending due to the fact that you put yourself on a moral high ground from the phasing of the question.
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • sharkweek 13y ago
    No condescension intended, I am honestly just more curious -- I'd love to read some honest, uncensored interviews from people working on these things, mostly to just get their side of things. I totally agree that people have varying beliefs on this stuff and for some this might be just as noble as any other way of serving their country.
    • DanBC 13y ago
      > I'd love to read some honest, uncensored interviews from people working on these things, That's very unlikely to happen, because it's all classified and secret or top secret or whatever. There are a few interviews around. Here's an ex-director (He stopped being director in 1978) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039vhp0 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039vhp0 - this is the first time he speaks about his time at GCHQ Here's a radio documentary from 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007fqc4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007fqc4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rmssw http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rmssw
      • dingaling 13y ago
• ultimoo 13y ago
  I understand how you feel about this. I feel the same way. I wish the Software Engineering Code of Ethics[1] is taught in engineering schools and instilled into the minds of youth so that they can exercise their judgement in the future. Of course, I understand teaching something in school doesn't instill anything, but at least it will expose a few students to the points it makes. Take these points from it for instance -- 1.03. Approve software only if they have a well-founded belief that it is safe, meets specifications, passes appropriate tests, and does not diminish quality of life, diminish privacy or harm the environment. The ultimate effect of the work should be to the public good. 2.09. Promote no interest adverse to their employer or client, unless a higher ethical concern is being compromised; in that case, inform the employer or another appropriate authority of the ethical concern. 5.12. Not punish anyone for expressing ethical concerns about a project. If you've not read the SE Code of Ethics, I urge you to take a few minutes to glance over a few of the points. [1] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code
• sbisker 13y ago
  Four words: "Need to know basis". It's entirely possible many of the component parts needed for this were developed as "black box" (i.e., they were told not to ask questions as to why this was being developed, and the developers just assumed it would be used on a foreign network.) This is done commonly for graduate students working on weapons research in government labs who do not have the appropriate clearance, for instance. They need to know an explosive force is acting a certain way to model their calculations, but never is the student told exactly who or why that explosive force might ever occur. In fact, they may be told it's a completely theoretical exercise. A surprisingly small number of people are actually needed to "deploy" something like this in the wild, if you're willing to pay for enough testing to ensure your black boxes work exactly as promised...
• deleted 13y ago
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• tptacek 13y ago
  Most are members of the overwhelming majority of software developers who do not participate in online forums like HN, which is a reason they may seem alien to you.
  • Zigurd 13y ago
    You are claiming some "silent majority" is with you. And you are doing it in a forum that contains a lot of thought leaders. Color me unconvinced. This is utterly the same as the people who claimed reddit was irrelevant until reddit readership got to be some huge percentage (70M, about the same as Pinterest) of the population.
    • tptacek 13y ago
      That is an impressive amount of wrong to pack into a single 9-word sentence.
    • tedunangst 13y ago
      Huge percentage? Really?
      • eli_gottlieb 13y ago
        6% of USA adults are redditors. That's larger than some ethnic minorities.
        • tedunangst 13y ago
          If 6% is a huge percentage, I literally do not have the words to describe what kind of percentage 94% must be.
• droopybuns 13y ago
  Maybe the security community could have a discussion about whether it's time to start shaming people like TheGrugq. The people who are working for the NSA are people in the security community. You can see it in the phrasing on some of the material that's been release (WIN! stood out to me w/r/t one of the previously released docs regarding some MITM scenario). Obviously there are some very smart people in the community who are working as contractors for the government. Ostensibly this community has had a rich tradition of civil liberties, and the current generation is now selling them out for as much money as they can at the fastest rate possible. Two years ago, we had people like Charlie Miller saying "No more free bugs." Look where we are today and ask yourself if Charlie has ever had any ideals outside of looking out for number one. I am turning sour on the security community.
  • abraxasz 13y ago
    "ask yourself if Charlie has ever had any ideals outside of looking out for number one." Problem is, if he doesn't, who will? I think that one thing that might have changed in our generation, is that we have the distinct impression that nobody has our back. I'm not saying that politics are more messed up than they used to be, it's just more blatant. Nobody gives a fuck that people are dying in the streets, that we're invading countries to enrich defense contractors, and that we're bankrupting our own country just "because we won't be disrespected". So one guy decides that, fuck it, he has one life, and he'll have his fun. You may call this guy coward, selfish, anything. And maybe you're right. My guts agree with you. My head tells me he's on to something.
    • eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      And my head tells me that if you think defecting on a Prisoner's Dilemma at the national scale is "smart", our civilization is dying.
      • abraxasz 13y ago
        I like the analogy with the prisoner's dilemma, although I think the situation is slightly different. It'd be like playing the game against someone who's repeatedly shown that he'll betray you whenever possible. The optimal strategy in that case is not cooperation. As for the civilization is dying thing, I'm not prescient, so I can't give a clever answer. But even if it is so, that has no impact on what the optimal behavior is for someone purely selfish. Like good king Louis XV used to say, while bankrupting the kingdom of France: "After Me, the Flood".
• jumby 13y ago
  screw it, i'll repost my comment here too. I know i'll get the down-vote brigade but meh: Here's what bugs me about all the people chiming in about how messed up this all is. It's like you all think we live in some sort of utopia whereby we are the only ones doing this sort of surveillance. Every single sophisticated foreign intelligence is doing this back at us, their citizens and their enemies - probably with more resources and state sponsorship. China, Russia, Israel, Iran, etc. Why wouldn't we continue to push the boundaries and try and have a leg up on this? Should we bury our heads in the sand and hope that China doesn't pwn our entire national electric grid? (google it) Additionally, these actors are directly targeting and stealing intellectual property, reverse engineering and compromising state secrets in order to gain military & intelligence advantages directly from US based companies (see Boeing - google it). State actors are embedding backdoor trojans into US destined products (example: look at the wikipedia page on Huawei) Fundamental extremists do exist and want to destroy Americans at any cost (including their lives). Why wouldn't we surveil their cell phones, email and IM accounts? Before every gets up in arms about this, consider the world in which we live first.
  • OvidNaso 13y ago
    Not one of those reasons, except the last, has anything to do with a vast majority of the revelations about what the NSA is doing that has people up in arms. And the only legitimate argument about protecting against terrorism, people are starting to realize that the threat is miniscule and is amplified due to cognitive interpretations of data.
    • jumby 13y ago
      Every one of those reasons (and likely many more we don't know about) is why the NSA is doing what they do.
      • Zigurd 13y ago
        You did read that the NSA trains their people to shout "9/11!" when questioned about the need for what they do? Or did you not get the joke about the cow?
• deleted 13y ago
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• tn13 13y ago
  Even though I am very vocal about my opposition to NSA spying a fat paycheck can always make me change my mind.
• m0nastic 13y ago
  I live in DC, and work intel-community adjacent in the infosec industry. I'll stipulate up front that I've never worked as a government employee, and despite doing some assessment work (like being hired to break into the Department of the Interior without their knowledge, or breaking hardware/software that was being deployed in far away places) everywhere I've worked has tried very hard to steer clear of government work (not for any ethical reasons, it just pays much worse than equivalent commercial work, and is almost always boring). In fact, the last two places I worked had distinct government and commercial divisions (where I ran the commercial divisions). That said, I've built and run several security consulting practices in the DC area, and consequently have done hiring interviews for dozens of people who were NSA employees (1 of which we ended up hiring). Absolutely none of them have even the slightest apprehension about the nature of the work they were doing (so much as they were able to comment about it during interviews). In fact, prior to the Snowden leaks, the NSA was pretty much at the bottom of my list for government agencies doing shit I disliked. They have a pretty clear scope and charter (which we've come to learn has been muddied). But no one I've talked to, either who works there or works at a contractor in the DIB, thinks they've done anything wrong. Did you read those batshit NSA talking points that came out yesterday from Al Jazeera's FOIA request? They believe those things. They think they're doing important, valuable work to protect the country. I can only imagine that internally within NSA there has been dissent about some of the stuff that's come out. Maybe people have resigned over it, maybe they've sent strongly-worded emails to their bosses. I really hope there was a great deal of dissent about the "intentionally fuck up crypto standards that we push to other branches of the government", but I doubt we'll ever hear much about it. Your questions could just as easily refer to people who work on SEO spam, or targeted advertisements (I'm not saying those things are equivalent, but they're also jobs I've heard people on here posturing morally about).
• benched 13y ago
  This is going to be mostly speculation. There are a couple of members of my family who work in government. I've had long conversations with them in which my goal was to understand their distinctive point of view. A few things stand out to me. They speak as proud members of a larger ethos that very obviously has a separate existence. They see themselves first as part of this big something. As a loner, mercenary programmer, I can barely comprehend that kind of belonging to something. And it isn't at all that they can't think for themselves. These people are brilliant, highly educated, and can debate their views intelligently for hours. But still, they are part of this enormous establishment that has an identity, a way of thinking, a way of living, a way of being, and specific things it cares about. It's more like this: imagine that you had a really good, strong, close family. They make up a large part of your life. Together, you form a culture, with traditions, favorite things and places. You agree about most things. That's how it seems with these people in my family, except that 'family' is huge, and it's the government.
• deleted 13y ago
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• tlear 13y ago
  People will do almost anything for money, just right people and enough money
• jlgaddis 13y ago
  > Are they aware of what they're doing or is it all classified and contracted out? Much (most?) of it is compartmented. One engineer is only working on a small piece of the whole system and almost never is aware of the scope of the entire project.
• ape4 13y ago
  When I was in college, the spy agencies were around recruiting. I said no!
  • smacktoward 13y ago
    That's exactly what you would expect to hear from someone who had said yes :-D
• gcv 13y ago
  A blog post which writes about someone who interviewed with the NSA: http://mathbabe.org/2012/08/25/nsa-mathematicians/ http://mathbabe.org/2012/08/25/nsa-mathematicians/ Choice quote: ‘Out of the 6 or 7 people I met, everyone but one person responded along the lines, “I believe everything the United States Government does is good.”’
• jthrowaway11 13y ago
  I am a long-time HNer who created a throwaway account to answer your question. I have firsthand knowledge of engineers who work at the NSA, although I have no affiliation with any government agency. What I can tell you is that these engineers believe that the NSA does not intentionally spy on Americans. This is something that the NSA constantly tells itself. They have various controls and procedures to minimize the data of US persons. They go to meetings about how not to spy on US persons. I am not saying that these controls are effective. I am just saying that they exist, and they are very visible to NSA personnel. This creates the impression that the NSA takes the matter seriously. As for non-US persons--they tend to view the US in some kind of infowar with various other countries. What you do in wars is things that aren't very nice. Since they are all adversaries, they act adversarially. So it is A-OK to spy on Germany or whatever, since everybody spies on everybody. The US is just better at it than most. As for being "just a paycheck"--I think some of them feel very patriotic about it. In their mind, they are assisting their country in a warzone. They are under the impression that their actions save lives. I gather that the whole thing is very compartmentalized and there are many who found out about PRISM and all these other programs at the same time as the rest of us. However there is a tendency to give your coworkers the benefit of the doubt when potentially harmful allegations come to light.
  • twoodfin 13y ago
    What I can tell you is that these engineers believe that the NSA does not intentionally spy on Americans. This is something that the NSA constantly tells itself. They have various controls and procedures to minimize the data of US persons. They go to meetings about how not to spy on US persons. Do any of the Snowden revelations contradict these beliefs? Having the capability to spy on millions of Americans' Gmail accounts is not the same as unchecked use of that capability. It's interesting that in all the leaks, we haven't (to my knowledge) been given a single example of true abuse of access to intercepts that wasn't caught and punished. Were they just really careful with that information while careless with everything else Snowden made off with?
    • jthrowaway11 13y ago
      > Do any of the Snowden revelations contradict these beliefs? No, they actually confirm them, or have up until this time. For example, take a look at this screenshot, part of the XKeyscore leaks: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9AyutDLLujY/UfnKBu83TfI/AAAAAAAAAe8/QzturQFHAks/s1600/UTT-screenshot.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9AyutDLLujY/UfnKBu83TfI/AAAAAAAAAe... Now to you or me, this is a combo box that anyone could fill out falsely to pull data for Americans, possibly without being caught. To an NSA employee, this is an important safeguard of American privacy that ensures anyone using this system is either doing it for a legitimate intelligence purpose, or, committing perjury and/or treason. Exact same set of facts, just a more favorable interpretation. Second example. According to Snowden's leak, XKeyScore led to the successful capture of 300 terrorists [1]. So that leak would confirm the prior belief that we are in an infowar and these programs contribute to American defense. It will be interesting to follow this new leak, as it seems quite clear to me that the NSA is deliberately and specifically spying on American companies even if they are retaining data only on non-American persons. But I expect this fact to be overlooked by NSA employees because they will only run queries about foreign persons. Finally, I have very much gotten a "take it up with the legislative/judicial branches" vibe from the NSA. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled [2] that a foreign alien outside the U.S. has no fourth amendment protection against search and seizure. Further, SCOTUS has ruled "That searches made at the border [e.g. of US persons], pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border, should, by now, require no extended demonstration." In other words, the US government has the legal right to search anything at the border, full-stop. The fact that the NSA has procedures that minimize searching the network traffic of US persons goes well above and beyond the constitutional requirement, which allows anyone's data data to be searched as it leaves the US, US person or not. So, if you don't like the law, take it up with SCOTUS, or start a constitution convention, or pass an act of congress, or something. But the NSA does not view themselves as the bad guy for doing much less than what the legislative and judicial branches have authorized them to do. It's like getting mad at a cop for making weed arrests; you don't go after the cop, you go after the state law, or the DEA, or federal drug law, or something. Border searches have been authorized by the very highest authorities in American government, the NSA is just the cop that executes the search according to the principles established by the higher authorities. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urquidez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Verdugo-Urquid... [3] http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6107136132398268257 http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6107136132398268...
• zenocon 13y ago
  If the govt. will spend $600M+ on the steaming pile of dog poo that is healthcare.gov, I am sure they are successful in finding able-bodied hackers worth their salt that can build data mining infrastructure and router firmware hacks that lead to this mess we are in.
• ateeqs 13y ago
  So, are you upset that they are so smart that they are gaming the system? Or are you upset that they are gaming the system? I am not sure if they are proud themselves-- but some people see their work and probably grin. Also, a caveat on making judgement about information being released piece-meal: You can pick a sentence out of an essay to make the author look to be at fault.
• hindsightbias 13y ago
  The reality is that these systems were made possible by scale-out hardware architectures and open-source software solutions. It's plug-n-play and developers don't have to know where content is coming from. Those parsers googlers wrote for the "white" FISA-based datasets probably also work on the "black" datasets from cable-taps. Contributed to open-source? Your software is probably running at Ft. Meade too. Are you proud of that?
• dangero 13y ago
  I once met a young man who just graduated from college and started working for the NSA. During a Microsoft Kernel Drivers conference I grabbed a few minutes at my hotel gym and we struck up a conversation; or should I say he forced a conversation out of me. I generally mind my own business when working out. It honestly didn't seem too far off the "Good Will Hunting" recruiting scene. From the start of the conversation all he wanted to talk about was what he did, but at the same time was incredibly vague. When I asked him for a little clarifying information just to keep my coherence of the conversation, he couldn't contain the gloating huge smile on his face. He responded, "I'm not allowed to say. It's classified." At that moment I understood why he had abruptly started a conversation with me. It was as if the whole conversation up until that point had been a setup for him to tell me how cool he was. Of course, I didn't see it that way, but the reality distortion field that he lived in left him with no question that he had the coolest job ever. There didn't appear to be any awareness in his reality that perhaps I intentionally didn't apply to the NSA, nor would I accept an offer from the NSA if one was given. People like this exist. I know living in a progressive city it seems hard to believe, but not everywhere is like that, and there are people who have positive feelings, even today, towards the US war machine. People who believe we aren't at a juncture where we should take a step back and reflect on what we are doing in the world. One other hypothesis I have on NSA workers is that working for the NSA is working for the most powerful government in the world. Some people crave power more than even wealth, and some of those people see the US government as the ultimate power on earth. I can't necessarily argue with that logic. That may also be a motive to work for the NSA.
  • antocv 13y ago
    > I didn't see it that way, but the reality distortion field that he lived in left him with no question that he had the coolest job ever. There didn't appear to be any awareness in his reality that perhaps I intentionally didn't apply to the NSA, nor would I accept an offer from the NSA if one was given. I have seen some g-men and they perfectly fit this. The g-men that tried to recruit me also went for the same route, trying to sell the mission as something super mysteriously cool only a few select even know about. Thats the lure. Like a cult.
• theboss 13y ago
  I'll probably get buried here but that's okay. The graduate school and university I go to churns out employees to three letter agencies probably at the highest rate that I know of. I also have grad classes with many current employees amd contractors. They are regular nerds. They like building things. They like breaking things. Most of all, they are really smart and talented and pretty straight edge. Usually from a small town.... I have nothing bad to say about any of them. Honestly great people. They a lot of times end up in the government because of really huge scholarships they give you like hot cakes where I'm at. 20k a year stipend plus free school room board books conferences. After that they are required to work for a few years in the government.
  • deleted 13y ago
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• mortale 13y ago
  Knowing these people... they're not dumb, they know. But it pays the bills and then some. Ethically, I will have nothing to do with them, and leave it at that, otherwise profanities will fly.
• grey-area 13y ago
  William Binney is one example of a mathematician working at the NSA (building Stellar Wind) who has spoken at length about this: http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000001733041/the-program.html http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000001733041/the-pro... http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_sec... Apparently he was happy producing these tools for use on foreigners, but then they were turned against the domestic population and he had a change of heart. The first interview is an interesting overview from him of how the surveillance works - pulling together all the threads of someone's life from the internet and compiling them into one record giving an overview of their entire life. I imagine people doing this are both proud and feel they are doing some good, because they've bought into the lie that this is primarily used to combat terrorism or other terrible crimes.
• Qom 13y ago
  Patriotism has many definitions. Some people are more than happy to serve the US as it currently stands. Why is that so hard to understand for you? Not everyone shares the usual Hacker News anti-government stance.
• gnilson 13y ago
  I study CS at the University of Maryland at College Park, a school that has a strong research presence in security and is conveniently located for many of the private and govt defense firms. 2 Months ago I posed the following question on the University's subreddit: "With recent revelations about the roles played by Palantir, SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the NSA, in alarmingly unconstitutional acts, what are people's feelings about these entities recruiting so heavily from our CS program?" http://www.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/1jrm56/cs_open_housecareer_fairs/ http://www.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/1jrm56/cs_open_housecar... I think the replies are a good representation of what I hear in person from many of my peers, and I don't think the NSA et al. are hurting to find recruits.
• Thrymr 13y ago
  I wouldn't underestimate the power of "just a paycheck". It does warp your world view when your livelihood depends on it, and you may not even realize by how much. Also, you are surrounded by others who believe what they are doing is right (whether a priory or similarly warped). "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair
• deleted 13y ago
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• piratebroadcast 13y ago
  They hire Mormons who are all about God and Country and don't ask questions. No Im not trolling.