Pentagon contractor leaves social media spy archive wide open on AWS
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
"Inside the agency’s Maryland headquarters and its campuses around the country, N.S.A. employees have been subjected to polygraphs and suspended from their jobs in a hunt for turncoats allied with the Shadow Brokers. Much of the agency’s arsenal is still being replaced, curtailing operations. Morale has plunged, and experienced specialists are leaving the agency for better-paying jobs — including with firms defending computer networks from intrusions that use the N.S.A.’s leaked tools.
“It’s a disaster on multiple levels,” Mr. Williams said. “It’s embarrassing that the people responsible for this have not been brought to justice.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/us/nsa-shadow-brokers.htm...
Gee, wonder if eventually someone will come to conclusion that the whole thing was not needed in the first place.
Unless, you know - there is some proven intel that this agency actually stopped mass-terror attack on a US soil; something that supposed to be their main task.
But hey! So long as military industrial complex find just another good-enough-for-public reason to spend more of tax-payers money, then there is nothing to see here...
It is surprising that the Shadow Broker leaks are seemingly being so effective at the NSA questioning itself.
There is so much cognitive dissonance about the NSA's acumen. People view software engineers hired at Google and Facebook with so much regard, and the schools they come from with so much regard, while simultaneously putting the theoretical NSA engineers above even those guys without realizing the NSA hires from state schools in the Maryland, DC, VA area.
My main point here is that software engineering programs aren't better or worse at Ivy League vs Tier 3 universities, and isn't much of an indication of the prowess of the engineer.
The NSA's unlimited budget, loss leading tasks of finding exploits, and immunity to execute these exploits is the only thing that sets it apart.
It’s not an understatement to say that the big tech companies have a soul, with the same principles of survival perpetuated against its very users who give them life in the first place.
SV sees government as competition — another threat — particularly the NSA, data collection being the common basis of their value propositions. Culturally engrained rebellion, disconnect from nationalistic pride — our culture in America is quite the mashup.
Google/Facebook/etc suffer as people want them on their resume more than they want to work for them which hurts retention. The upside is this forces them to pay very well, but the downside is the average team is surprisingly poor.
*AKA a randomly selected Stanford/etc. grad is likely better than a randomly selected Virginia Tech/etc. grad, but the best at each institution is a toss up. If you want a large talented workforce you can't be selective in terms of schools as their simply are not enough of them.
This is just too funny :)
Isn't this the big item here. If this is evidence the govt is spying on US citizens this should create significant legal ground for civil rights/constitution protection groups.
I think that's an important distinction.
For a long time, there's been a push to not let the military develop capabilities in-house, despite repeated contractor fuckups and huge overspends.
Can we just admit privatization is a failure?
It's literally destroying national security.
That literally just makes person A cost more money.
The United States has the most advanced military in the world. Boeing and Lockheed are private.
I'm not an expert, maybe it's just a coincidence.
We're not talking about outsourcing tangential features, we're talking about the outsourcing of waging war and core abilities of the military, eg the hired hackers at the NSA or outfits like Blackwater.
Privatization isn't about purchasing supplies through corporations outside of the government, but having corporations perform key features of the government.
Your example isn't really about that, so you're right -- you're not an expert, you're talking about the wrong thing.
It's not just that Silicon Valley and other tech is in the USA. It's the result of a massive spending program.
https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison
The United States spends more on national defense than the next eight countries combined.
the United States has historically devoted a larger share of its economy to defense than many of its key allies.