• NSA firing 90% of its sysadmins to eliminate potential Snowdens
    42 replies, posted
[url]http://boingboing.net/2013/08/09/nsa-firing-90-of-its-sysadmin.html[/url] [url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/09/us-usa-security-nsa-leaks-idUSBRE97801020130809[/url] [quote]The National Security Agency, hit by disclosures of classified data by former contractor Edward Snowden, said Thursday it intends to eliminate about 90 percent of its system administrators to reduce the number of people with access to secret information. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, the U.S. spy agency charged with monitoring foreign electronic communications, told a cybersecurity conference in New York City that automating much of the work would improve security. "What we're in the process of doing - not fast enough - is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent," he said.[/quote]
Hawaii's population is gonna be cut in half.
Now THAT is what you call paranoia. Of course now you have the remaining 10% with either insane security clearance or the burden of all the NSA's systems.
"We're totally not spying on you still, nothing worse being done here, nope, what's that? Oh nothing, just firing 90% of our employees with access to other secret information, nothing to worry about."
Ah hell. My Dad could be included in that 90%. :/
They didn't fire anyone, they just revoked admin privileges according to the article.
There must be some pretty secretive shit about to go down, you don't just fire 90% of your staff because they may be like snowden.
[QUOTE=Mikesword221;41790497]Ah hell. My Dad could be included in that 90%. :/[/QUOTE] Does he score at least 10% on the potental Snowden threat test?
[QUOTE=ridinmybike;41790526]There must be some pretty secretive shit about to go down, you don't just fire 90% of your staff because they may be like snowden.[/QUOTE] Not necessarily. And I certainly hope this does not mean all these people are actually getting fired, just revoked access. Unemployment sucks.
[QUOTE=ridinmybike;41790526]There must be some pretty secretive shit about to go down, you don't just fire 90% of your staff because they may be like snowden.[/QUOTE] Not really, between Snowden and Manning, it was a very short time period, they can't afford to keep having these leaks to one day have some really serious shit be leaked, what this leak has shown them, and they're now doing, is that the human element needs to be minimized as much as possible in this matter.
[QUOTE=Mikesword221;41790497]Ah hell. My Dad could be included in that 90%. :/[/QUOTE] Say thank you to Snowden
Excellent, get rid of all the humans no information has ever been leaked from computers, they're doing the right thing!!!!
i'd laugh hysterically if this had the opposite intended consequence
Gosh darn it, i bet the NSA did this.
So, instead of trying to make the situation better (don't ask me how, I'm just a guy on the internet), they decide to get rid of a huge portion of their work force possibly creating either a large amount of people now willing to talk or trusting far fewer individuals with potentially more secret data that if one were to speak out it could be even worse than Snowden. Is this what's going on?
Would the real Snowden please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?
[QUOTE=ColdWave;41790733]Gosh darn it, i bet the NSA did this.[/QUOTE] ...As opposed to another agency firing their employees for them?
Computers always have the tendency to make errors or be hacked. NSA, your time is coming. You cannot hide your unconstitutional spying practices forever.
Those other sysadmins will probably have too much work to do lol
[QUOTE=ridinmybike;41790526]There must be some pretty secretive shit about to go down, you don't just fire 90% of your staff because they may be like snowden.[/QUOTE] Or maybe they don't just want more people throwing all the NSA's shit to the wall to see what sticks
[QUOTE=Fangz;41790517]They didn't fire anyone, they just revoked admin privileges according to the article.[/QUOTE] so how does one administrate a network without admin privileges
[QUOTE=ProWaffle;41791239]so how does one administrate a network without admin privileges[/QUOTE] Good point, but the article never said fired or let go. They could have been transferred.
What a lot of sysadmins do when they're wrongfully let go: Install backdoors.
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;41790985]Would the real Snowden please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?[/QUOTE] I think we're going to have a problem here.
Watch as the remaining admins get pissed at the 90% bigger workload and leak something out of spite
[QUOTE=Foogooman;41791430]Watch as the remaining admins get pissed at the 90% bigger workload and leak something out of spite[/QUOTE] 900% bigger workload, unless I'm mistaken.
Wouldn't it be funny if some of the fired system admins ended up pulling Snowdens before they left just out of spite? :v:
Wouldn't this cause them to be sort of upset, and have more of a reason to blow the whistle? Beyond that it would make identifying which one did it a whole lot harder, since there's so many angry people left over. unless they mean [I]fire[/I] them.........
In all seriousness, people don't voluntarily abandon freedom and their families and make the global Most Wanted list out of spite for their employers.
[QUOTE=Map in a box;41791290]What a lot of sysadmins do when they're wrongfully let go: Install backdoors.[/QUOTE] i don't think most of them have the balls to do that in this case i mean let's be honest, if they ever got caught using such a backdoor then they've basically forfeited their life
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