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CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

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Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#51

Post by cyphar »

danesparza wrote: post #26
xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #23

It'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-...

And the fact that the NSA spent a large amount of resources trying to break it. But law enforcement all over the world uses Tor to ensure that potentially-illegal websites can't fingerprint them.

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#52

Post by [deleted] »

Mizza wrote: post #5
vowelless wrote: post #2

I 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…

If you're well credentialed, tech-smart, greedy, and morally bankrupt, it's probably more lucrative to work for Google than the NSA.

[deleted]

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#53

Post by huffmsa »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
vowelless wrote: post #2

I 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…

Do you realise that almost nobody working in this kind of job can disclose that?

"can anyone on this board who works at an alphabet soup agency please identify themselves?"

Nice try Infernal Affairs.

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#54

Post by chippy »

vowelless wrote: post #2

I 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…

Some of my old buddies worked for the NHS. They said they all accept a paycut compared to the private sector because of the value and prestige of the agency itself.

In a way I think those in the spy-ish agencies also think along the same lines but they get no recognition from the public about the benefit compared to national health care.

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#55

Post by dlphn___xyz »

CPLX wrote: post #42
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The main question I have is why the agencies are able to pay such low salaries, sometimes even in urban areas, no bonuses, etc. I grew up in DC and have a bunch of friends that went to work for the Federal Government. Not in these types of agencies, but nonetheless instructive I think. The incentives at these places are completely different. Pay is somewhat low at start but it's rock solid stable and grows predicta…

government shutdown / furlough proves that that gov jobs arent stable.

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#56

Post by black6 »

jwilli wrote: post #3
vowelless wrote: post #2

I 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 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.

Yah me too. I expected more “get shit done” and less “let’s meet to plan when we’re going to talk about putting together the design committee”. It’s an over-staffed bureaucratic nightmare with too many “helpers” and not enough “doers”.

To be fair there is some ENORMOUS talent in certain directorates, but a lot of that has gove over to SpaceX, Blue Origin, et alia.

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#57

Post by _wldu »

black6 wrote: post #56
jwilli wrote: post #3

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.

Yah me too. I expected more “get shit done” and less “let’s meet to plan when we’re going to talk about putting together the design committee”. It’s an over-staffed bureaucratic nightmare with too many “helpers” and not enough “doers”. To be fair there is some ENORMOUS talent in certain directorates, but a lot of that has gove over to SpaceX, Blue Origin, et alia.

Have you read the "Policy on Policies" yet?

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#58

Post by dragonwriter »

cyphar wrote: post #50
dragonwriter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government created Tor for intelligence purposes. So it being embraced by the US intelligence community is unsurprising.

The US Navy created the concept of onion routing . Tor was not developed by the US government, it was developed in public (by Roger Dingledine and the rest of the Tor community).

> The US Navy created the concept of onion routing. Tor was not developed by the US government,

Yes, it was, and it was released under a free license by the US Naval Research Lab in 2004.

> it was developed in public (by Roger Dingledine and the rest of the Tor community).

No, it was developed by Dingledine and others under contract with US Naval Research Lab before being released by that Lab under a free license. Further development occurred after it was released in a public project (most of whose funding over its life has come from...the US government.)

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#59

Post by dmv_resid3nt »

vowelless wrote: post #2

I 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…

This sounds sill, but I have a really serious question -- how accurate are the Bourne type films w/r/t how things are at these three lettered agencies? If you are to believe even half the movies, it seems the workers are burned left and right as regular consequences of seniors' political battles. Is that how it is?

I know this sounds silly, but i've been at big companies before (Fortune 10) and have seen some pretty ugly things (once, three reports of a manager alleged a sexual attack on a rival manager; rival manager is fired; manager who's people made the accusation gets promoted.)

Now I can imagine these types of political battles at three lettered agencies might involve false accusations that might land someone at jail. Is it like that?

I'd honestly love to work at the intelligence agencies and serve the country in a role better suited given my technical skills, but I dont want to end up in some shark tank.

Re: CIA’s Latest Layer: An Onion Site

#60

Post by cs02rm0 »

Mizza wrote: post #5
vowelless wrote: post #2

I 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…

If you're well credentialed, tech-smart, greedy, and morally bankrupt, it's probably more lucrative to work for Google than the NSA.

It's probably more lucrative to work for the NSA then Google.
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