NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers
The most dangerous and stupid meme percolating in pop tech culture is that the people engaged with tech culture have a unique claim to computer science, electrical engineering, cryptography, information security, and privacy technology. The Slashdot diaspora genuinely believes that most of the world's computer engineering talent reads their comments.<p>The reality is that not only does money do a fine job of buying talent, but, if it's the USG you're thinking about, they don't even have to try hard; extremely qualified engineering graduates compete to secure positions at NSA, which has been ~10 years ahead of private industry for the last couple decades, before which time they were even further ahead.<p>Part of the reason the USG doesn't actually have a problem recruiting people is that actually believe in training people. I don't know how effective they really are at it, but I do know that our industry is fundamentally unserious about training. The kinds of commercial organizations that take in raw recruits generally turn out extremely mediocre J2EE and .NET developers. The rest, to a first approximation, run their recruiting programs based on measurements of reproductive organs. Giant defense contractors haul in green IT graduates by the truckload and adapt them to jobs that command significant premiums on the private market. Again, I'm not saying defense contractors can turn information management grads into electronic supersoldiers, but: they're not hurting for recruits.<p>The reason I think you care about this is because it informs you of a hidden handicap that private industry and activist groups have when facing down the government. I'm very sorry if I'm the first person to break this to you, but if you're an activist targeting the USG, your adversary isn't stupid. In fact, I think it's likely that they're significantly smarter than any of us. Bear that in mind when you design your NSA-proof email applications.<p>I don't do work for the USG, and haven't before, but I'm realistic about the impact of that decision; it has more to do with my own psychological welfare than it does with anyone else's.