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How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

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Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#61
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA does pay FAANG people FAANG salaries. It's just through private contractors, many of which you've never heard of.

Many of which you’ve never heard of. Have you? Is this just public information I didn’t see? Or are starting a conversation with an impossible premise? I also wouldn’t make assumptions.

That's the "royal you", not you individually.

If you go looking around on linkedin or crunchbase, you'll find numerous 10-50 employee defense contractors. Having known a few individuals employed this way, I would rank them as smart, capable, highly technical and easily capable of working at FAANG. They're getting comparable compensation/benefits with far less stress, and probably work on more interesting problems than the average Googler.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#65
post #6

From the NSA, this seems like historical revisionism as it contradicts the bin Laden story widely accepted. The short version is: 9/11 happens. The Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden and George W. Bush refuses [1]. Bin Laden escapes into Pakistan. We then start a completely pointless war in Iraq against someone who played no part in 9/11. There was a letter from many conservative leaders prior to 9//1 calling for t…

Iraq was never about 9/11. The error of Iraq happened because the US followed one HUMINT source Saddam was developing WMD. Considering bin Laden was in Pakistan, it would presumably require a multi-source confirmation.

Error!

Bless your heart.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#66
On minute 38 out of 48 (listening on 2x speed), and so far there's nothing worth hearing in here.. the first 18 minutes is one of them explaining what a signal is and how the NSA keeps the world safe and follows the law, then another one of them talks in general about, yeah someone got a signal and it lead to Bin Laden. How? No further details...

Edit to add: The last 10 minutes have the guest talking about the day of the raid, how only about 50 people in the NSA were aware it was going to happen, how one of the guests' wife figured out he was part of the operation - he was away the whole weekend, and she heard about the raid in the news, the emotional impact (release of tension), how they informed a junior analyst or two that their work contributed to that operation, their pride, and again how the NSA keeps the world safe, while following the law!

The aim of this podcast is definitely PR and recruiting.

Unsaid is of course that the USA accused, found guilty, and executed someone without trial, where evidence is shown of their guilt. Sure on balance I think Bin Laden is responsible for 9/11, but I think the source for this belief is the US government.

Re: How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

#69
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA does pay FAANG people FAANG salaries. It's just through private contractors, many of which you've never heard of.

Many of which you’ve never heard of. Have you? Is this just public information I didn’t see? Or are starting a conversation with an impossible premise? I also wouldn’t make assumptions.

Some of L3's subsidiaries definitely recruit from HN
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