Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work for a 4 letter agency that is trying to go back to the "mall" in 5 years. The talent is a bit lackluster, compared to what I expected.
I see what you did there.
I don't.
CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
21–30 of 147 posts
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#22I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
One of my best friends worked at the NSA, then the CIA. Smart guy. Unfortunately he got charged for Vault7 leaks and is going to spend the rest of his life in jail. So, in short, don’t work for them. It might seem cool, but it’s not worth it. If they don’t like you, they’ll fuck you.
Do they have the wrong guy or is “they don’t like you” == “commit espionage against the United States”?
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#23It's interesting that US government is embracing Tor, while Germany is cracking down on it[1].
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#24I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
I think there’s an aspect of your question that deserves sincere engagement, but I also think there is a very overblown idea of “the best in their field” and a misconception that if you were “good enough” to get hired into top private sector jobs, it somehow means you are better than peers. For one thing, people grow & change. Out of some hypothetical cohort of peers in year X, some few may have been the “best” in sc…
> I feel they have talented people who are massively underpaid.
They pay enough to get the talent they need * . Or in other words, if they're sufficiently staffed it's because people are willing to work there for less than market rate.
Patriotism, a chance (in some roles) to work on cutting edge tech / scale, and making a difference in the world attract people.
You can feel however you want about the agencies morally and ethically, but their work is unique.
* Subject to Congressional cooperation and government pay scales
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#25Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#26It's interesting that US government is embracing Tor, while Germany is cracking down on it[1]. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19399576
To be fair, "embracing Tor" is an interesting phrase, considering the FBI was actively breaking it 5 years ago: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/11/07/how-did-...
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#27It's interesting that US government is embracing Tor, while Germany is cracking down on it[1]. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19399576
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Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#28> ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion How does one store links like this? You'd need a bookmark file, which would sort of give the game away, I'd have thought. How do you make sure you notice when you visit a URL with the same readable prefix?
Password safe seems like a good idea, especially since you'll quote likely want to store credentials for the site anyway.
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#29It's interesting that US government is embracing Tor, while Germany is cracking down on it[1]. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19399576
The US government created Tor for intelligence purposes.
So it being embraced by the US intelligence community is unsurprising.
Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site
#30I have a question for the HN audience. Many here have gone to top schools and studied crypto, ML, etc with the best. And are probably the best in their field. Do you currently work for any three letter agencies? Did your smartest colleagues go to work at three letter agencies? I am trying to gauge the quality of talent at CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. All of my best colleagues went to the private sector, usually tech or securi…
I think there’s an aspect of your question that deserves sincere engagement, but I also think there is a very overblown idea of “the best in their field” and a misconception that if you were “good enough” to get hired into top private sector jobs, it somehow means you are better than peers. For one thing, people grow & change. Out of some hypothetical cohort of peers in year X, some few may have been the “best” in sc…
My experience is that I’ve worked at a federal agency and at a national lab, but in the waning days of the Cold War, so things may be different now.
For tippy-top talent, I imagine it’s kind of like the same way academia can compete with tech firms. You get freedom to work on interesting problems in a relatively low pressure environment. Additionally a lot of federal agencies (ironically it might seem) are no-bullshit places to work. There’s a published pay scale and promotion schedule. You show up do the work you move up. You never get laid off. One other thing is that certain national security important roles do get paid on a higher scale than the usual GS scale.