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Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

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Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#91

Post by sseveran »

hawkharris wrote: post #37
zybler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are obviously saying that because you are pissed. And deep down inside you are hoping that they won't be able to recruit bright young people. But the truth is, economy is a bitch, unemployment rate is high, if they actually pays well, I'm pretty sure bright people will still join them, whether they are young or old.

Young people who earn jobs or internships with the NSA are generally in the tops of their classes. While they aren't immune to the recession, they have more prospects than the average grad, and employers sometimes compete for them. I couldn't find any publicly available data about NSA recruitment, but there are some interesting anecdotes to show that the NSA is having a harder time recruiting top-notch students: http…

Lets not forget that many NSA "employees" are actually contractors from companies like Booz Allen Hamilton. Also Palantir doesn't seem to be hurting finding people to build surveillance technology.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#92

Post by anu_gupta »

rdl wrote: post #51

I was kind of surprised by the operator saying "Are you the NSA?" "uh huh" rather than something more professional like "Yes sir, this is NSA." And then even more surprised that the operator was actually giving him helpful advice ("you should probably contact your email provider.") That was more helpful than most actual tech support employees I've interacted with, let alone PBX operators. And, being a dick to low-lev…

I like white people a lot, and i'm glad most of them aren't like you.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#93

Post by lettergram »

hawkharris wrote: post #12

When one of my friends in college landed a math-related internship with the NSA years ago, I was very impressed and proud of her. If a friend were to land a similar job or internship now, my gut reaction would be vert different. As illustrated by this video, the agency's prestige among the public seems to have degraded considerably. I wonder how this has affected its ability to recruit bright young people.

I'm a student at U of I, my major is CS in the Engineering college and I'm fairly certain the NSA isn't even making an appearance this year (at least from what I've seen) at the career fair, though the CIA will be here.

If they did show up I think it would be one of those booths that are neglected for the most part.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#94

Post by AaronFriel »

lightcatcher wrote: post #81
300bps wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government jobs seriously underpay. This was true in the past, it hasn't been true for a very long time however. It used to be true that government jobs paid less in wages but more than made up for it in greater benefits. Now they are equal in wages and still have the cushy benefits. http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/31/news/economy/federal_worker_... http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921 There are of course studies that c…

Can you point me to any government jobs that will pay you $100k right out of college? That's the sort of salary available in SF/bay area, and the sort of numbers that graduating students are looking at when considering getting a government job. Also, from a sibling comment: >No one accepts a lower paying job just because. Some people accept lower paying jobs because they think the work is more interesting or that it…

> Can you point me to any government jobs that will pay you $100k right out of college? That's the sort of salary available in SF/bay area, and the sort of numbers that graduating students are looking at when considering getting a government job.

> implying everyone lives in the SF/bay area.

Look, startup culture is nice, but some of us live in the Midwest. Government jobs have to be compared to cost of living and other metrics before they're useful.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#95

Post by lightcatcher »

AaronFriel wrote: post #94
lightcatcher wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to any government jobs that will pay you $100k right out of college? That's the sort of salary available in SF/bay area, and the sort of numbers that graduating students are looking at when considering getting a government job. Also, from a sibling comment: >No one accepts a lower paying job just because. Some people accept lower paying jobs because they think the work is more interesting or that it…

> Can you point me to any government jobs that will pay you $100k right out of college? That's the sort of salary available in SF/bay area, and the sort of numbers that graduating students are looking at when considering getting a government job. > implying everyone lives in the SF/bay area. Look, startup culture is nice, but some of us live in the Midwest. Government jobs have to be compared to cost of living and ot…

I don't have any statistics on this, but I expect the majority of people getting $100k offers in the bay area right out of college don't live in the bay area when they get their offers. The only schools that are really in the bay area are Stanford and Berkeley, and although a lot of bay area tech workers come from those schools, many many workers come from other parts of the country.

My point is that if you're a college student graduating with a CS degree and you're looking for a job all around the country, no government agency will pay you as much as tech companies in in SF/bay area or finance companies in NYC. The salary difference is even large enough to make up for the relatively small cost of a recent grad moving across the country.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#96

Post by 300bps »

lightcatcher wrote: post #81
300bps wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government jobs seriously underpay. This was true in the past, it hasn't been true for a very long time however. It used to be true that government jobs paid less in wages but more than made up for it in greater benefits. Now they are equal in wages and still have the cushy benefits. http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/31/news/economy/federal_worker_... http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921 There are of course studies that c…

Can you point me to any government jobs that will pay you $100k right out of college? That's the sort of salary available in SF/bay area, and the sort of numbers that graduating students are looking at when considering getting a government job. Also, from a sibling comment: >No one accepts a lower paying job just because. Some people accept lower paying jobs because they think the work is more interesting or that it…

Can you point me to any government jobs that will pay you $100k right out of college?

Salaries are high in the San Francisco Bay area. This goes for private as well as public employees. I would think it's obvious that anyone that lives in a high cost of living area would need a high salary if they are to remain employed. Check this out - not hard to find $100k+ government workers living in the San Francisco Bay area. Did I say 100k+ government workers? It's actually not hard to find $300k+ government workers in that area.

http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area

Be sure to sort it by descending salary (which it is not sorted thusly by default)

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#97

Post by lostlogin »

selfexperiments wrote: post #90
zybler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are obviously saying that because you are pissed. And deep down inside you are hoping that they won't be able to recruit bright young people. But the truth is, economy is a bitch, unemployment rate is high, if they actually pays well, I'm pretty sure bright people will still join them, whether they are young or old.

Only people with no ethics or morals would take an NSA job now, no matter how bad the economy is.

What about the arms industry? There are more jobs there and those are more directly hurting people.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#98

Post by tripzilch »

frank_boyd wrote: post #48
downandout wrote: post #31

I'm a little bit curious why the operator wanted his contact info, and repeatedly asked for it, knowing full well that it was a ridiculous call. It makes me wonder if taxpayer dollars would have actually been spent investigating him.

He called using SKYPE which belongs to Microsoft. We know of both companies to partner with the NSA. So they have at least - all chats and most certainly - all calls converted to text at their disposal. So it looks like an intimidation attempt.

how would the call centre operator know it was Skype? I only knew when I heard the particular disconnect sound, and she wouldn't even have heard that.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#99

Post by dimitar »

dimitar wrote: post #85
downandout wrote: post #31

I'm a little bit curious why the operator wanted his contact info, and repeatedly asked for it, knowing full well that it was a ridiculous call. It makes me wonder if taxpayer dollars would have actually been spent investigating him.

There is an easy answer - the operator is trained to ask for names and contact information on every call; all tech support, operators and customer service representatives do. If she doesn't there is a chance her call will be monitored and points will be destructed from her call score, affecting her employment. No, QA might be cool and ignore this obviously prank cool, but do you think QA at the NSA will be cool, laid…

I can't believe how many mistakes I made in this comment. Sleep deprivation isn't healthy, folks! And thanks for upvoting.

Re: Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?"

#100

Post by chrischen »

leokun wrote: post #56
rdl wrote: post #51

I was kind of surprised by the operator saying "Are you the NSA?" "uh huh" rather than something more professional like "Yes sir, this is NSA." And then even more surprised that the operator was actually giving him helpful advice ("you should probably contact your email provider.") That was more helpful than most actual tech support employees I've interacted with, let alone PBX operators. And, being a dick to low-lev…

> "I like gay people a lot" A little off topic from your post, but this is one of those gross generalizations that just actually portrays you as not getting the gist of the problem with bigotry. "gay people" are not a homogeneous group of like-minded people. Discrimination against sexual orientation or being transgendered is a sad and unfortunate injustice, but these are simply traits shared by a diverse set of peopl…

> A little off topic from your post, but this is one of those gross generalizations that just actually portrays you as not getting the gist of the problem with bigotry.

leokun, he never stated that. I think you read too much into his statement.

When people say "I like x a lot," they really mean "I like most of x a lot that I have met." Seeing as you probably don't know the guy/girl, you really can't say if he can legitimately form that opinion. Thought experiment: what if rdl has in fact met many gay people and liked them. Would you still call him a bigot for saying that? rdl was simply stating a fact. He should not be scolded for stating a fact of his personal preference.

Gay people aren't homogeneous, but they do share similar traits (being attracted to men being only one of them). So it's not unlikely someone can like certain things about gay people as a whole. The argument that saying you "like gay people a lot" is bad is almost as inane as saying "I'm not racist—I don't see colors"—you'd be blatantly ignoring the uniqueness and distinctness of human peoples and ignoring the fact that it's not that we're not different, it's that we shouldn't treat each other unfairly because of inconsequential differences.

Finally, "I like gay people a lot" is a subjective generalization. It's not really in your authority to judge what type of opinions he should or should not be forming because it is possible that he has met many many gay people and have liked them all. The statement by itself is not really harmful or insensitive, but I agree it can imply that the person who's saying it is naive about gay people and what they're like. That's probably where you saw the bigotry, but it was merely a projection. However, it's not proof that the he/she is naive about gay people. I think you made a logical mis-leap and inferred his bigotry from statements many actual bigots do make.

The OP could either have been

1) Has not met many gay people. Therefore he is making a subjective generalization. But this doesn't affect anyone else but himself.

2) Has met many gay people and likes them. Therefore he is not really even making a generalization, but simply stating a fact of personal opinion.

In neither of your cases is your scolding really warranted though, but what's even worse is you don't even know which case it is in the first place.

You're also diverting attention from the real issues, and from real bigots by focusing on this, and encouraging people to focus on this.

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