

Calling the NSA: "I accidentally deleted an e-mail, can you help me recover it?" - mosselman
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/6560049/3eb18e64/even_bellen_met_de_nsa.html
A nice thought and practically the same thing that Google does. You hand in your privacy, but you get services back in return.
======
hawkharris
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.

~~~
zybler
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.

~~~
hawkharris
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://reason.com/blog/2013/07/09/nsa-recruiters-peppered-
wi...](http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/09/nsa-recruiters-peppered-with-tough-
quest)

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130704/12162223721/nsa-
re...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130704/12162223721/nsa-recruiters-
get-smacked-down-university-wisconsin-students.shtml)

~~~
sseveran
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.

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gkoberger
While a funny premise, it comes off a bit like someone yelling at a customer
service rep at a retail store. They didn't make the rules; they're just
underpaid to smile and take it.

~~~
omd
If you're working as a company representative, either in retail or customer
service or answering the NSA hotline, then listening to questions and
complaints is exactly what you were hired to do. If you take those complaints
personal then you should find another line of work.

~~~
AaronIG
There's a difference between calling a hotline and lodging a complaint, and
generally being a dick for giggles.

------
cmancini
This is of course not a joke in some countries, and has been done with
success. I am very good friends with someone who grew up in one of the central
asian dictatorships (stan), and their family had one of the (few) internet
lines in the country. One day his family lost an important email, so they
walked to the intelligence office, told them the date, and the officials were
happy to retrieve it for them from the file drawer. They had been printing out
and physically filing every piece of correspondence from each internet user
(somewhat doable for the regime given only a small subset of the population).
The point is, in this stan, there was no pretense of privacy. They were your
helpful backup service.

------
Svip
Reminds me of this old _The Daily Show_ video with Stephen Colbert:
[http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-december-18-2002/so-
yo...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-december-18-2002/so-you-re-
living-in-a-police-state)

~~~
Nux
For non-usa IPs:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd7P78w8cdA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd7P78w8cdA)

~~~
Svip
Actually, it works fine outside the USA, just not from Canada or the UK.

~~~
nisdec
Why doesn't it work from these countries? Just curious.

~~~
vidarh
Probably because they've licensed the show for broadcast here/there and
included online rights. It's on TV in the UK at least.

~~~
dantiberian
Close, they have licensed the show for broadcast on terrestrial networks and
often don't allow anyone to broadcast online.

------
rdl
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-level pbx operators is kind of stupid, even if you
disagree with the organization. Remember the Chick-Fil-A guy?
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-
jzlWcc0E](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-jzlWcc0E)) I like gay people a
lot, and am an atheist, but this guy does nothing but hurt his cause.

(The only time I've ever called NSA/CSS was to get a full set of the Rainbow
Books at age 12. It was weird how they'd only answer with phone extension.)

~~~
leokun
> "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 people. In this world there is a wide range of many wonderful people
and horrible people and everyone in between. The distribution of sexual
preference has nothing to do with where they end up in that range. Each person
is an individual actor, and not a representative for others who they may share
a trait with, but when you say you "like gay people a lot" it is obvious you
don't understand that. In fact, it seems kind of a bigoted, ignorant thing to
say, even if you didn't mean to say anything mean.

~~~
Tloewald
Clumsily said but the point - don't be a dick — is valid. I take it to mean "I
have nothing against gay people although I don't really know any". It's funny
because the opposite clumsy-ism is "some of my best friends are..." With the
idea you can be a total douche towards some group but it's Ok because you're
nice to the ones you actually know.

------
downandout
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.

~~~
frank_boyd
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.

~~~
bdg
Sometimes those of us so ingrained in the world of HackerNews forget what life
of people in other fields of work is like.

I highly doubt this was a jedi-level intimidation tactic from the handbook
they provide to the switchboard operator after training them to respond in
sophisticated ways to people calling in.

Rather, I'm more convinced this was the train-of-thought: Someone's calling,
the call is weird, lets get their name.

------
basicallydan
I see what he's trying to do, but it seems to me like this amounts to no more
than a childish prank, a joke which essentially just uses a receptionist or
switchboard person as the butt.

If you really have an issue with what the NSA is doing, playing pranks like
this isn't going to get results.

If you could get through the head of the NSA, or somebody who is more
obviously in a decision-making position and them questions like this then
you'd maybe be doing some good by grilling them like that.

I feel like this actually cheapens the issue a little.

------
raldu
\- "Soo you don't keep track of e-mail and internet data?" (A long pause) \-
"Not the way you're saying. OK?"

~~~
hisham_hm
He got what he wanted, right there.

------
beloch
Does the NSA have a fax number? I have a flatbed fax-machine that's easy to
sit on and a couple of things I want to fax them...

~~~
straight_talk_2
Just fax them to a random number, NSA will get them :D

------
austinheap
Up next: he's going to call Viacom about MTV not playing music vidoes! _Harass
all the 1-800 workers?_

------
officemonkey
"Someone's playing a terrible joke on you."

You got that right, sister.

------
frank_boyd
Not sure if we should be joking about what could easily be (or become) the
thing that ends democracy.

~~~
venomsnake
Even in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe there was democracy. There were
election held, with very little fraud. I remember my father taking me to the
voting booths when I was a kid - there were only red and orange ballots inside
(the orange were the Communist party subsidiaries the Farmers Party).
Communists won 80% of the votes the farmers 20. We had elections, we had
democracy, we could vote. We lacked freedom and choice.

~~~
afterburner
When people say "democracy", they don't actually mean "one party democracy".

------
lucb1e
Dumpert is the LAST website I expected to see on HN on #1. This is brilliant.

------
otikik
The title should include a Warning - Auto-playing audio on that link.

------
jimworm
It would be very worrying if someone on a random phone call managed to recover
any information on public email from the NSA. At least now we know that the
NSA seems to be safe against very poorly executed social engineering.

------
AlexanderDhoore
Dumpert is one hell of a crazy online community. One more reason to learn
Dutch :)

~~~
jrnkntl
It is mostly a bunch of reposts with a green crown watermark slapped on it.
Also, the -not so sophisticated- discussions going on underneath each video...
I wouldn't exactly call that a reason to learn Dutch =]

------
jeena
Kind of funny :)

------
Thiz
[x] Forgot your password?

Call the NSA.

------
evertonfuller
Dumb.

