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It may affect their ability to recruit.

Honestly, I doubt it. They had a legit enigma machine last year. It was cool. Their booth was busy because of it.

That said, I doubt anyone interested in working for the NSA would be put off by this/the recent leaks, or that anyone who didn't want to work for the NSA was going to change their mind at DEF CON.

People care about what their peers think of them. Even if a recruit don't have a problem with what the NSA does, the job is significantly less "cool" today than it was not that long ago.

Not everyone cares what their peers think of them... particularly if they in turn think their peers are being dicks. And not everyone has the same opinion (or level of outrage) over what the NSA has done.

What kind of fool would do all the work to get a security clearance to get a "cool" job at the NSA that they wouldn't be able to tell anyone at all about?

It's folklore wisdom that many of those people have to tell their friends and family that they work for the "GSA" doing PC networking or something like that.

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