Ask HN: Does PRISM make you more or less interested in working for the NSA? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does PRISM make you more or less interested in working for the NSA?

10 pointsrelaunched11 comments

After 9/11, I thought if 2 planes could hit the towers, the government obviously doesn't have the sort of super-secret technology I thought they did. Then, we learn about PRISM; so maybe we do. And more importantly, given the nature of big data and technology, maybe I could help...but should I. Since I couldn't answer the question for myself, I thought I'd put it out to you all.

What do you think?

View on HN

I have zero interest in assisting the government spy on people. Some spying, e.g. during wartime such as the work done at Bletchley Park, may be legitimate, but given our current ongoing state of emergency and war against a non-state enemy, it is far more prone to abuse—as we've been seeing lately.

Unfortunately, the nature of classication is one where you need training data from both groups, those who are and are not people of interest. However, if you could use your skills to make sure we have less false positives, would you?

Spying is contentious and that's part of the reason I asked this question. The other part is, whether we choose to believe it or not, we might be able to keep the country better than randomly safe if someone statistically attempts to classify those who intend to do us harm vs. those who don't. And, like it or not, the amount of info that's required to attempt to do this well is large, personal and intrusive.

I don't disagree that someone could potentially SELECT * FROM DB WHERE NAME='CANDIDATE JOHN SMITH' AND MESSAGE_TO=(FEMALE != WIFE) AND COUNT >= 5

But, on the other hand, it could also find sleeper cells.

What say you?

The ends do not justify the means. One price of living in a free society that does not spy on its citizens is the greater risk of attack, and I find that an acceptable tradeoff. Total security is an impossible goal, even if you destroy the right to privacy in its pursuit.

I tend to agree.

I think a government organisation with strict oversight who gathers enormous database of content is less worrying than various other groups of people who collect similar data. I'm more worried about employees at my cell phone company, for example. Facebook have a lot of information, but employees tell us that it's just too boring to go looking through people's profiles. (Also, they have audit trails and people do get sacked for unauthorised access.)

While they shouldn't have content data, and they mustn't look at that content data without a warrant, I just don't care.

I care even less about traffic 'meta' data.

As a student of both mathematics and computer science, I was seriously considering starting my career at the NSA. (I actually interviewed at a conference once and applied to their summer program. My academic advisor even connected me with an old student of his who worked at the agency.) Now, I am really glad that I decided against pursuing that track; heading to SF next week to work in industry. (In the past year, my primary interests fell away from academia, and I was mostly interested in the federal loan-forgiveness program, since I have a lot of those.)

Do you mean, working for the NSA with the intention of getting access to secrets and then leaking them?

I didn't mean in that sense. And, though I sense your question is somewhat sarcastic, I'll pose this to you. In the same way that a person joins the military to do a job, protect our interests both domestically and abroad, to the best of their ability, without the luxury of being able to question the mission; does anyone in the hacker news community feel the same way?

For example, do any data scientists feel like they could make a meaningful contribution toward increasing the performance of PRISM's algorithms, thereby reducing the number of false positives and helping keep the country safer.

The hacker ethos is one of distrust of big corp / government and a greater responsibility to the people and their rights. But, despite what we might like to think, people will die and maybe, just maybe, some of us might be able to help.

Granted, our values are only meaningful if we adhere to them during trying times. And, poorly paraphrased, those who seek to tradeoff their freedoms for security, get neither.

And thus, hopefully, you can see why I asked this question.

What is not published, and never will be, is how many real terrorist threats or sleeper cells have been taken out because of PRISM intelligence gathering? All the public are wanting to see is "USA IS SPYING ON ME" however I will say I think the public would be outraged if there was no PRISM and if terrorists kept attacking the country.

You either spy on your own country (because sleeper cells live in your country) and defend it better or you don't and you get attacked... people want the best of both worlds, life doesn't work that way!

I don't really care how many real terrorist plots have been foiled by my PRISM, because the main reason they exist in the first place is America's hyper-aggressive foreign policy.

Thanks a lot NSA/CIA for saving me from the threat you created! Real great work!

It makes me want to develop applications that spread the use of encryption.

Certainly if you're good at math, or languages, or computers, or analysis, or some bits of electronic engineering, then working at GCHQ / CESG is interesting work with skilled people. And Cheltenham is a nice enough place to live.

They do have a lot of computer stuff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com