Report Critical of FBI Cybercrime-Fighting Ability 56
coondoggie writes "Despite a push to bulk up its security expertise, the FBI in some case lacks the skills to properly investigate national security intrusions. That was one of the major conclusions found in the US Department of Justice inspector general audit of the FBI's ability to address national security cyberthreats today. The DOJ looked at 10 of the 56 FBI field offices and interviewed 36 agents. Of those interviewed, 13 'lacked the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases.'"
How much are they paying? (Score:1)
And why would anyone take a job at the FBI if they can work in the private sector?
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And why would anyone take a job at the FBI if they can work in the private sector?
I'm unemployed you insensitive clod!
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The FBI actually pays pretty well. Most agents make $80k within 3 years if they do well and the upward limits can get over $130,000. The hours kind of suck (50 hours a week) but the retirement is insanely good.
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critical? (Score:4, Insightful)
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You are right, this is a higher percentage than I have witnessed in any department of IT jobs I have had and it is probably a higher percentage than it would be in any IT consulting company employees.
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The story doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone survey field offices to check their ability to deal with and analyse computer issues.
It is a specialised field and you would assume any national policing agency would create a specialist task force and office to deal with those issues.
No different to the other forensic investigators, using rough and tumble field agents (active physical and high threat activity) is a dual sided waste, it means you can not use the less than physically fit but definitely
Typical Slashdot editor incompetence (Score:5, Informative)
The Slashdot story misreports the data, as usual. The actual report says that 36% of the agents who were assigned to national security related cyber investigations self-reported that they did not have the necessary expertise for the job they were doing.
And those are the national-security related cases, which the FBI considers to be the most important category. It's probably worse at the regular computer-related crime level.
They're trying. The FBI actually runs agents through "A+" training, and "Linux for Law Enforcement". After 5 years as an FBI agent on the "cyber" side, agents should be able to configure a Linux kernel and have an in-depth knowledge of the Windows registry. Those agents also have to learn all the regular FBI agent skills.
The report points out that 41% of the FBI's "cyber" force is tied up investigating child pornography, while only 4% work on Internet fraud. That's why they're doing so badly on online crime.
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Just because they take the A+ cert course doesn't mean they passed.
These are usually existing agents that are pressed into cyber duties and no one is going to dump an agent with years of experience because they we we over their head in a area that takes years to master.
They need to by hiring IT people first and make them into agents. Not the other way around.
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I took A+ for easy credits and ended up having to correct the instructor on several points. That's not to say I didn't learn anything, but I didn't learn anything I couldn't look up rapidly and I forgot most of it because nobody is configuring serial ports with fucking jumpers any more. That shit is over unless you're working on embedded systems for machining or whatnot, and due to the amazing backwards compatibility of the PC, in many cases you can actually install something vastly newer and still have it
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And the other [takes shoes off] 55% are doing what?
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Sure, there's been 10 or 20 people in the last century who aren't motivated by money or power but I'm guessing geohat and Mother Theresa do
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You haven't been paying much attention.
Geohot discovered a technique which could, potentially, be used by others to "steal video games" -- but there has been no credible allegation (and remember, Sony had a big discovery phase
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"A technique to pirate games", or "a technique to enable OtherOS"? The technique, in and of itself, does neither of those things -- what you call it, then, is a matter of your chosen spin.
That said -- if the "technique to pirate games" spin were more accurate, Sony would have been able to dig evidence to that effect in discovery; I doubt that they would have chosen to settle if they'd found evidence that would let them drag their opponent's name through the mud (and thereby turn around all the persecuting-t
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Do they get sent to FLETC to do the cyber-training stuff or do they have their own training programs?
--Took the DEASTP class there 5 or 6 years ago, sooo easy.
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Good Job, FBI (Score:2)
Cognitive disonance (Score:2)
The FBI? (Score:2)
Funny, investigating external intrusions just feels like something I'd expect the CIA or NSA to be handling instead.
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Government IT secret service work is not just reactive countering. My friends have participated in USA-intrusion of other nations' defences: military, commercial,government & non-government. Either for future uses, or current immediate targets.
Hmm (Score:1)
Some Feds - Paedophile Ring - Helpfulness (Score:1)
Having worked with a few Special Agents to break an international paedophile ring a few years ago, I can say from experience, the F.B.I have very few agents well equipped and extremely clued up. I was lucky to get in touch with the right special agents, although I hit a complete brick wall beforehand with agents who's mission in life was "COFEE and donuts" excuse the cofee joke http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/solutions/cofee/default.aspx [microsoft.com]
The same is of Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police,
No surprise here (Score:4, Informative)
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Basically nothing changed since Clifford Stoll wrote his book The Cuckoo's Egg (book) [wikipedia.org] back in 1989.
It wasn't the Internet and VOIP scams, but East European spies and 1200 baud modems. The FBI didn't care then either.
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And yet, on other topics, Slashdotters are known for ranting about how government workers are overpaid, that government is evil, and libertarianism solves all problems. And here we see the result: when the FBI can't pay enough to hire good people, then it can't do its job well and everyone except the criminals suffers. It is all very well for people to bitch about their taxes, but there are real-world consequences.
And, to address another poster, who wrote "Most agents make $80k within 3 years if they do w
You can't read too far into this.... (Score:2)
FBI is government, government only gets money if there is a problem to fix. If they reported they were the best in the world, their funding would get cut and they wouldn't be able to sustain. The more critical findings are of the state of something in government, the more money is thrown it's way.