NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#2Have to appreciete the direct honest approach:
"It's true that you must be a U.S. citizen, and you'll need a security clearance that requires a background investigation and polygraph. But ... If you have a few, shall we say, indiscretions in your past, don't be alarmed. You shouldn't automatically assume you won't be hired. If you're really interested, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot."
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#3Have to appreciete the direct honest approach: "It's true that you must be a U.S. citizen, and you'll need a security clearance that requires a background investigation and polygraph. But ... If you have a few, shall we say, indiscretions in your past, don't be alarmed. You shouldn't automatically assume you won't be hired. If you're really interested, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot."
Indeed. That has to be a first from a US government agency.
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#4I can't believe this shit flies here.
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#5Have to appreciete the direct honest approach: "It's true that you must be a U.S. citizen, and you'll need a security clearance that requires a background investigation and polygraph. But ... If you have a few, shall we say, indiscretions in your past, don't be alarmed. You shouldn't automatically assume you won't be hired. If you're really interested, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot."
Indeed. That has to be a first from a US government agency.
I think its great though that the NSA is acknowledging the resource that DEFCON is though.
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#6Have to appreciete the direct honest approach: "It's true that you must be a U.S. citizen, and you'll need a security clearance that requires a background investigation and polygraph. But ... If you have a few, shall we say, indiscretions in your past, don't be alarmed. You shouldn't automatically assume you won't be hired. If you're really interested, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot."
Indeed. That has to be a first from a US government agency.
From what I learned and searched for (sorry, no references), in general the important thing for a security background check for government agencies is not that you have shady business in your past - but that you're willing to be totally transparent to your (governmental) employer. Was in the past a heavy consumer of weed/was part of a cult/always attending protests against federal government policies? No problem, just tell us that on the forms/interview BEFORE we find it out for ourselves (and they will find it, because you'll give them permission to).
Transparency and trust is the most important thing here, not your history (in the non-extreme cases).
So willing applicants, don't let your history prevent you from trying.
EDIT: to clarify, the main reason it's being done is because one of the main actual real-life-no-movies-plot threat for such agencies is that someone will find something in your past they don't know about and will blackmail you for confidential information. It's ALL in their interest not to disclose your past shady activities as that will deter recruits from being frank with them, supplying blackmail potential to adversaries. Judge on your own, but if you were my friend I would advice you not to be afraid to fully comply with the screenings as you'll just do harm to you and your country.
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#7A few NSA reps should hang around HN, if they are not already, to respond to any questions and partake in the discussion on this thread.
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#8Embrace, extend, extinguish
Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#9Re: NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. That has to be a first from a US government agency.
From what I learned and searched for (sorry, no references), in general the important thing for a security background check for government agencies is not that you have shady business in your past - but that you're willing to be totally transparent to your (governmental) employer. Was in the past a heavy consumer of weed/was part of a cult/always attending protests against federal government policies? No problem, jus…
Doesn't this approach seem kind of backwards though?
For example, weed. If they want to prevent enemies from blackmailing their employees for past weed use. They should come out and say we don't care how much weed you smoke, we're not going to drug test you now or ever, we just don't care what you do in your free time.
The fact that they polygraph & question you to find the exact # of times you have done drugs in the past opens the door to blackmail situations.
Polygraphs are not perfect, I'm sure some people that work for the NSA claimed no drug use on the application when that was not the case or claimed to have done it a handful of times when they really did it a lot more. Now an enemy could blackmail those people because they would be afraid of losing their jobs if the truth came out.