Def Con Hackers On Whether They'd Work For the NSA 126
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Premier hacker conference Def Con, which just wrapped up its 21st year, played host to security professionals who all had very different opinions on what the NSA is up to. In fact, the only thing everyone could agree on is that the PRISM revelations came as no surprise. Even if it isn't news to this crowd, it is still a significant development in the general climate of government surveillance and national security. And at Def Con, where government recruitment was hampered this year by conference founder Jeff Moss's requesting that feds stay away, it seemed like a good idea to walk around asking people if they would still want to work for the NSA."
Terrified, I'm sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Hey, you, geek. We've got cash, huge fucking computers, and it's totally legal* to hack whoever you want. You in?"
I'm inclined to guess that, between the people who love toys or have mortgages and the people who think that the NSA is A-OK(tm), they aren't too worried(plus, if your area of expertise or interest is something related to data mining, the NSA might count as honest work compared to, say, Facebook)...
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite opinions on ethics for or against, the NSA is still widely considered to have interesting technologies to play with and viewed as leaders in computer system security development. I'm in IT because I love problem solving and the adrenaline rush of having to solve difficult problems under pressure. The responsibility of my job comes first. The only ethical dilemma for me is if someone with authority were to ask me to let a system fail to prove some kind of point.
Depends (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'd do it... (Score:5, Interesting)
The NSA does introspection?
If the recent reports that they can search a substantial percentage of the planet's internet activity; but not their own mailserver [propublica.org] are accurate, I'd be inclined to go with "Apparently not".
Re:Depends (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess that depends on your world view and personal philosophy. I don't think I'd be able to live with myself working for any organization that commits such atrocities, regardless of what department employed me. You're still in the same organization and you are still contributing to the problem indirectly (maybe that new encryption system you're developing will be used as part of a program injected into systems to spy on citizens)
I realize no organization is sparkling clean, but I know I'd sleep a lot better at night working for an organization whose overarching purpose aims for the betterment of society or at least *doesn't* cause detriment.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite opinions on ethics for or against, the NSA is still widely considered to have interesting technologies to play with and viewed as leaders in computer system security development. I'm in IT because I love problem solving and the adrenaline rush of having to solve difficult problems under pressure. The responsibility of my job comes first. The only ethical dilemma for me is if someone with authority were to ask me to let a system fail to prove some kind of point.
With all due respect to Godwin, this ethical debate started during the cold war when everybody was thinking about the Nazis in WWII.
I aim at the stars, says Werner von Braun.
The rockets go up, and where they come down,
that's not my department, says Werner von Braun.
Sometimes I miss, I hit England.
But I aim at the stars, says Werner von Braun.
After they thought about WWII, a lot of scientists decided that it was wrong to just be a scientist and work on an interesting technical problem that can kill people at the end.
In particular, the top people who worked on nuclear weapons did some calculations and realized that they had constructed a machine that could destroy humanity. The people who worked on the intercontinental ballistics missiles developed some of the most advanced, cost-is-no-object integrated circuit chips, and every other technology.
Most good engineers will think out the end purpose of the work they're doing. They worked during WWII to save their country. During the cold war, they were working to destroy their country. I appreciate the adrenalin rush of problem-solving too, but you have to resist it if it's leading towards turning New York and Moscow into Hiroshima.
During the 1960s, a lot of people thought that the Vietnam war was horribly wrong (and after 3 million Vietnamese were killed in a country that now makes our sneakers, you can see their point). If you're an engineer, then on some level you want to contribute to society. Killing 3 million people in a stupid war is going in the opposite direction.
You wouldn't kill prisoners of war in order to solve an interesting scientific problem, would you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment [wikipedia.org] Why is that different from helping to kill 3 million Vietnamese in exchange for working on an interesting technical problem?
Of course, maybe you're totally immoral. Maybe you want to be like Abdul Qadeer Khan, who sold the Pakistani nuclear weapons secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. I'm not sure what to say to those people.