
NSA can't trust 'brilliant' people, will automate sysadmins - detcader
http://privacysos.org/node/1165
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clicks

        The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the
        more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership 
        and planning coterie. This must result in minimization 
        of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an 
        increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent 
        system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased 
        ability to hold onto power as the environment demands
        adaption.
    

Julian Assange is seeming more and more prescient every other day.

~~~
monsterix
> Julian Assange is seeming more and more prescient every other day.

Quite true.

He was considered quite bold and respectable for all his work until the cables
happened. As long as his leaks did not have anything to do with _back home_
you know. At least that's how it all seems to me.

~~~
antihero
Also the alleged rape really hasn't helped.

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beedogs
> _Before the change, "what we've done is we've put people in the loop of
> transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are
> probably better at doing," Alexander said._

Proving once again that the NSA has absolutely no fucking idea what it's doing
at the absolute highest levels.

~~~
narag
Maybe they could start automating those levels. It should be easier.

~~~
bebna
You thinking about bugzilla?

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ck2
The NSA like the military relies on people to not question authority and
blindly follow orders.

Unfortunately for them, as society becomes a bit more self-aware every decade,
it's harder to find such people and they also throw away their best talent
when questioning orders is unacceptable.

This is why I find it horribly ironic that there are military people now who
are anonymously posting that they "didn't sign up to bomb syria" (and punish
the chemical murder of 1000s of civilians). What exactly did they think they
were signing up for? To pick and choose what orders they would follow? Does
the person who sits at a desk in the military think they have better morals
for not actually pushing the button that literally fires the missiles?

Imagine how moral the US would be if every government agency like the
military, the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, the TSA had a draft instead of
volunteers. They would actually have a consciousness instead of scandal after
scandal because people would not just accept the system blindly.

~~~
coopdog
Actually 'I was just following orders' is not a defence. It's every soldiers
obligation to question the moral standing of their orders. An illegal order,
such as being told to bomb a church/mosque/hospital is invalid and shouldn't
be obeyed.

Obviously it's very hard to have the moral courage to accept being bradley
manninged (because some orders come all the way from the top), but the
obligation to question orders has definitely been established.

~~~
ck2
Right, so when the commander-in-chief orders Guantanamo closed, you leave it
open.

Basically every single person in the military who serves at Guantanamo in any
capacity is disobeying a direct, signed order by the commander-in-chief.

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banachtarski
This is hilarious? What's harder, doing things manually, or automating things
in a way that the automation itself doesn't break, is self-healing, etc?

The kind of people that need to automate these sort of systems need to be even
stronger systems programmers and administrators than the incumbent batch.
Automation can be backdoored as well.

~~~
bigiain
And this explains what's _really_ going to happen. The 90% of their sys-admins
who've already morphed into dev-ops staff, are going to get officially re-
classified as "not sys-admins" – and will continue to have unfettered access
to the VMs, hypervisors, storage pools, hadoop clusters, and password
databases that the analysts and management at the NSA use. (Only they'll
invent some new rules, so it'll probably become a _double_ capital offense to
embarrass the US government, the next Snowden-scale whistleblower will face
getting assassinated _twice_…)

------
pyalot2
"Twitter announced that they need to hire less talented people that are less
productive. A spokeswoman said, that though they have the necessary funds to
hire the best talent they can get, they just couldn't deal with that much
productivity. They are kindly asking that good programmers and sysadmins stop
sending in applications. A new interviewing process will be established
specifically designed to identify competent and talented applicants in order
to deny their application."

Aaaaand that wouldn't happen ever, unless that "company" is funded by your tax
dollars. Enjoy.

~~~
antocv
The money that Twitter makes is the tax dollars.

All productivity and excellence is used now to fuel an organization which
punishes those who are productive and excellent.

------
smutticus
> computer automated sysadmins.

Who will administer these 'computer automated sysadmins'? The entire matter
reeks of nothing but bluster by a control freak overseeing a witch hunt.
Further evidence that we should not assume the competence of intelligence
agencies.

~~~
antocv
Fewer sysadmins compared to previously. And sysadmins with lesser political
capability.

~~~
banachtarski
Yes but these sysadmins need to be stronger. The rationale given was not to
have _fewer_ sysadmins but _dumber_ ones.

------
marcamillion
By the way...this NBC admission of Snowden creating new profiles and
impersonating high-ranking intelligence officials is proof positive that
Snowden wasn't lying.

If he could create any profile and impersonate say Gen. Alexander...then it is
easily conceivable that he could access anyone's records.

Not that we didn't know this already...

------
nraynaud
I have 2 remarks : 1) I'm pretty sure either they are lying or they are going
"blind", because an IT infrastructure project this big always fail on the
first trial. 2) They are just borrowing time, with such a complex system to
manage, the "computer" will get smarter and smarter. When it integrates Plato,
the Snowden case will just be a footnote, the computer will directly kill the
agency director for being so far from moral values.

------
marcamillion
This is either a good thing, that the NSA will not be able to attract the type
of talent to continue doing these types of activities forever.

Or it is a bad thing, that incompetent people will still be doing these
activities - thereby making it more likely that their systems will be more
easily compromised and the data end up in the wrong hands easier.

~~~
jka
It is slightly boggling to imagine what the new sysadmin hiring criteria might
be after these statements.

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DigitalSea
There is one flaw in the plan though. How are they going to automate the
automation of the servers? If they can't trust people any more, they're going
to have to find a way to automate a system administrator without the help of a
system administrator (presumably another automated process).

The ridiculousness of this proves that no matter how many billions of dollars
and expensive infrastructure you have at your fingertips, the people in charge
aren't very smart. Automate a system administrator? Good luck replicating a
bearded Unix loving man with a penchant for energy drinks who gets angry every
time something breaks. As someone who works alongside sys admins, I feel as
though I am allowed to say that.

Amaze us, NSA.

~~~
cynwoody
On the one hand, fewer sysadmins means fewer chances for a Snowden to turn up
among them. On the other hand, it means, should a Snowden turn up among the
residual personnel needed to implement the automation, he/she can do even more
damage.

However, this is neither here nor there, since automation is hard, and
Alexander the Geek can't make it happen simply by giving an order, despite his
four stars. But promising it is a way for him to explain himself after getting
caught with his pants down. See, Congress! We recognize we have a problem. But
trust us, we have a plan! We have a solution! Not.

~~~
DigitalSea
Exactly this. General Keith Alexander is basically saving his own skin here by
publicly showing he has a plan because I can only assume those in higher
places are not all too happy about the Snowden breach and as usual in
Government, looking for someone to blame.

Sure, certain aspects can definitely be automated. But it's kind of the
equivalent of using robots in your factor that run on batteries. If the
battery goes dead in a robot, how does the robot replace its own battery if
it's not even on? Presumably another robot, but it proves automation is very
hard,

There will always be human error though. Humans will be programming whatever
automation Alexander has planned and that automation will take years to refine
and perfect before it's close to flawless.

------
wyck
if anyone has not seen Brazil, I recommend watching it.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/)

------
aspensmonster
What could possibly go wrong?

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steve19
Their "problem" is easily solvable by pairing sysadmins up. Make sure every
command or windows click is seen an authorized by another, maybe even an
anonymous sysadmin at a different location. If one sysadmin "steals" secrets,
the other sysadmin would be implicated, so they have a lot of reason to pay
attention. Costs will increase, of course.

~~~
marcamillion
Costs will either increase, or collusion or both.

Imagine they double their headcount - just to get more leaks, because they
have more people looking at the data.

~~~
eck
You pair them randomly so as two co-conspirators can't arrange to work
together. You make sure the ones who are paired don't trust each other. You
tell them that they are expected to report _any_ suspicious behavior -- like
someone mentioning the constitution -- and that they will be tested. You _do_
test them. They get paired with an incognito auditor whose job is to
offhandedly mention that what they're doing is violating someone's rights. If
they don't report him, they're disciplined.

Of course, all these things also make it hard to convince them that they're
the good guys.

~~~
cinquemb
Makes me wonder if the NSA will routinely use entrapment as a technique to
catch would-be conspirators. Sounds like the best environment to serve ones
country…

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scotty79
Hammer dropped on a toe.

Instead of investigating process and even validity of hammer use, promptly
removing all toes.

------
gnoway
I've seen the brilliant comment repeated in 2-3 articles now. The assertion is
that Snowden basically used su to become other (more privileged) users. One
level of misdirection. How is this brilliant?

~~~
u2328
It's all relative. Ever seen Idiocracy?

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u2328
The NSA can't trust 'brilliant' people huh? Worried that they might be acting
against the NSA's best interest? _Weird!_ I can't possibly imagine how they
feel! Nope, not at all! It's not like I have a secretive government agency
stockpiling of much of communications as they can get their hands on that
could one day be taken out of context and used against me or something.
_Crazy!_

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dasil003
If the Snowden leaks were a 12 on the damage scale of 1-10. What's it going to
be when they flip the switch on the sysadmin factory factory and find
themselves locked out of everything because of an off-by-one error?

------
Mordor
Idea: Yeah, let's just keep the top 10% and make them work 10x harder.

Reality: The most loyal are the least productive resulting in widespread
dissatisfaction and even more leaks.

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ankushnarula
It is very difficult to manipulate, misinform, and indoctrinate
intelligent/skilled people who work with information and information systems.

~~~
pekk
How do you know this? If it is true, then why did it take so long to get the
big leaks?

------
ronaldx
I rather read this to be a worrying signal that sysadmins are now expendable,
and the NSA is happy to have an excuse to shed them.

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hack_edu
And who said the 'NoOps' fad was over? :)

------
eparra
The start of Skynet. </sarcasm>

~~~
qbrass
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_%28role-
playing_game%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_%28role-
playing_game%29)

The Computer serves as the game's principal antagonist, and fears a number of
threats to its 'perfect' society, such as The Outdoors, mutants, and secret
societies (especially Communists). To deal with these threats, The Computer
employs Troubleshooters, whose job is to go out, find trouble, and shoot it.

------
ethanazir
brilliant: bright and radiant. Not a part of the dark side.

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madaxe
"Smart people realise we're doing bad shit, so will resist it. Therefore, we
can only hire unquestioning idiots."

This is why the government is now entirely run by unquestioning idiots.

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consonants
Machines are predictable and trustworthy; humans are shifty, fickle, and
expect things like 'rights' and 'livable wages'.

First they came for the computer janitors, and I did not speak for I was not a
computer janitor.

