31–40 of 84 posts
//insert crappy article
I mean, why should we give interviews at all? Obviously someone's resume and a class they didn't complete is all we need to know about them.
Wrong Question. A better Question is : If the Government trusted the NSA with our every phone call and email, why should we trust the Government?
I wouldn't be surprised if the #1 criteria for NSA grunt employees is patriotism. If he's prepared to sacrifice everything for his country than he seems to be the perfect candidate to me.
The kink is that many patriots do actually understand and love the Constitution and if forced to routinely go against it in their line of works, a few will pull a Manning. That is expected. They can't have it both ways.
Wrong Question. A better Question is : If the Government trusted the NSA with our every phone call and email, why should we trust the Government?
Is it really harmful if government get your call and email?
I don't think Slate is trying to crucify Edward Snowden. I think it was more "If a high school dropout with basic computer skills can win this contract, imagine what a talented hacker with malicious intentions could do", and just happened to attack Snowden a bit too much.
>Yes, he could be a computing savant anyway—many well-known techies dropped out of school
They're basically bemoaning his lack of official credentials.
I don't think Slate is trying to crucify Edward Snowden. I think it was more "If a high school dropout with basic computer skills can win this contract, imagine what a talented hacker with malicious intentions could do", and just happened to attack Snowden a bit too much.
Even Slate admits, though, that they have no idea what level his computer skills are at or how good a fit he was for the job: >Yes, he could be a computing savant anyway—many well-known techies dropped out of school They're basically bemoaning his lack of official credentials.
All of the comments taking umbrage that the article isn't celebrating Snowden's character are missing the point. While it is entirely possible that he was qualified or even overqualified for the position he had at Booz Allen Hamilton, nothing in his resume suggests that which raises the question who else has access to sensitive data and secrets? The answer could be that Snowden was an exceptional individual and that'…
That's what would make sense for a nation with due process, but it does lead to increased risk of leaks from people with no obvious red flags that come up during the background check or in-person interviews.
The author is full of stupid snark. Clearly Snowden is an exceptional individual; learning that he used to be a janitor, or whatever, shouldn't cause us to throw away all the evidence we have about him and double-take "they promoted a janitor ?". Perhaps the quality of his work matched his obviously high character, regardless of his initial lack of formal credential. This is IT we're talking about - classes are a jok…
We don't know his story yet but this much is certain: he is by definition an exceptional individual.
Not a big fan of the reasons we are supposedly not supposed to trust Snowden specifically, but the question remains a powerful one in the sense that if you can't ensure that the data and systems you're using for something this powerful can remain secure from the actions of any single person, then you have a huge problem. I've worked at companies where the secrets behind our app signing key are held to a higher standa…