Also interesting in that the job description 'leaks' another name for a system, SKIDROWE. Some quick searches only turn up the same or similar positions for open for XKEYSCORE.
Ah, I like the guy who lists his databases knowledge to include Excel & XKeyScore. Either XKeyScore is so slick that it is indistinguishable from Excel or this particular person doesn't know what a database is. Either way, that cannot be good.
In theory, codenames are supposed to be random words that are in no way suggestive of the thing that they name. That ideal isn't always upheld, of course - the lure of a cute name can be too strong.
(For example it is suspected that FOGBANK, which is a codeword for a material used in the construction of nuclear physics packages, refers to a silica aerogel)
Reminds me of how Bletchley Park broke some of the Enigma ciphers. The operators were supposed to abide by certain rules when making the 3-letter "keys" -- but they inevitably picked letters next to each other on the keyboard, used the same letters repeatedly ("AAA"), used the same key "pairs", used words, names, etc.
The first thing I did yesterday after seeing Snowden's leaked Powerpoint was search for mentions of XKeyscore in the past and I came across these same job postings (and copied them down since I doubted they would last).
I started compiling a database of the different programs, what's known about them, what you can do to stay off their radar, etc. Sound interesting to anyone?
Programs/tools I came across include: AGILITY, ANCHORY/MAUI, AUTOSOURCE, CONTRAOCTAVE, WISE, INFOSHARE, TREASUREMAP, TUNINGFORK, SCORPIOFORE, TAPERLAY, MAINWAY, PINWALE, Tripwire Analytic Capability, Combating Terrorism Knowledge Base (CTKB), etc. Quite a few and some of those names are Hollywood quality.
Tools that HN readers would know about that were mentioned: ArcGIS, Wireshark, IDA Pro, OLLY Dbg, Snort, Analyst Notebook.
Names are the first step though. You can collect a decent amount from them, like when things started, if they are currently in use, which companies deal with which programs, etc.
So - do you guys apply to these jobs? We need more Snowdens!
By the way - have you guys noticed the text RMS adds to his emails recently:
[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider
[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,
[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example.
I've been thinking about making a switch over to working for a defense contractor over start-up.
The pay seems to be better in lower cost of living area's (Washington DC metro vs. SF); job security better in BigCo like Mitre, SAIC and Booze and less competition from H1B visa holders that cannot obtain security clearance easily.
Get to work on cool technology with big scaling and parallel processing over web CRUD frameworks. Anyone has experience making the switch?
>Get to work on cool technology with big scaling and parallel processing over web CRUD frameworks
It's your right to work on whatever you want, but even though I work with technology, I prefer to focus on what I'm building and its implications instead of what cool implementation details go into it.
Working on mass surveilance systems because the tools are technically exciting is akin to using molecular gastronomy to produce a portion of human feces.
Why would you want to work for a defense contractor after seeing all the awful things they do on behalf of the U.S. government? Is a little extra cash in your pocket and a little more job security worth your selling your soul to the devil?
God damn. Not all defense contractors work on the NSA spying technologies. Personally, I think it'd be cool to work on anti-missile guidance systems or fighter jet avionics.
He specifically pointed out Booze Allen which is known for their NSA spying. It's not like you can walk into the organization and say, "Hey, I'd like a job. You guys don't spy on Americans, right?".
The nice thing about Facebook, Google, and Twitter is that I don't have to use them. If there is a way to opt-out of what the NSA is doing, or what the government of my own country (Canada) is likely doing, I'd love to know about it.
Well if the devil is the government, doing crypto for the government is surely a lot less heinous then implementing NSA bridged backdoors into Facebook backends. At least the former is more morally and legally correct.
The changing of national defense to a for-profit venture that also included protecting corporations within said nation has resulted in a magnificent shift in the quality of staffing.
No longer do you have idealists willing to drive their vision of a great United States by taking a job with marginal income but great reward. You have folks like those above, who see headlines of rights abuses and think "I would like to profit off that."
Sure the quality of life is better in the locality the work is in, but only because it is built upon the lessening of quality of life for others at the expensive of said others.
Others who do not want their tax monies being driven to immunity shielded corporations who work to kill others via drones under the guise of freedom and liberty. Yes, that is SAIC[1].
Hi, ToothlessJake; thank you for your comment. I understand why you might consider people like me as opportunists. However, as I get older, I care less about the abstract goals of "justice/altruism" and more concrete goals of helping out friends and family.
Perhaps you and I have a different perspective on quality of staffing. Too often, I find a lot of people in academia/life sciences research/NGO's have a propensity to feel or appear to others that they are altruistic or making a difference. But when push comes to shove, the same "altruistic" person will resort to the same old Machiavellian tactics for personal gains that's commonly seen everywhere.
Best way IMO to establish a fair society and company is to make everyone as informed as possible how you will be exploited and lied to; and I find that honest attitude to be more prevalent in BigCo vs. startup's where management appeals more to the "startup" culture to manipulate people to do more work and take less pay.
> as I get older, I care less about the abstract goals of "justice/altruism"
Is this that abstract? These are the tools that will be used to usurp Americans of their privacy. If you just don't care, I can understand that. But if you do care, why sacrifice your values for salary money. I'm just saying, my personal price for driving society back into the dark ages is much higher.
we have a very corrupt system that has many layers of deniability in-built. the next decade will see either an unraveling of the fascist machine we have built, or more genocides perpetrated by US. you know in advance that it is unlikely that our defense infrastructure will be used for completely defensive purposes. how do you avoid not just culpability but reprisal if we are targeted by agents of a foreign foe?
If you wanted to help your friends and family you would not work for murderers or their support staff. Helping friends and family means more than monetary income with walled gardens that consume the rest of society outside of it. It means furthering society, the health of it.
Go find a flower company or something, you can easily avoid work at SAIC or Boeing.
Question to you and other people working or considering working for defense contractors involved in morally controversial stuff: where's the line for you? Would you help design logistics systems for a concentration camp? Is there anything you wouldn't do for a nice salary and interesting technical challenges?
I've bounced back and forth between startups in and out of the Fed space and for Fed contractor mega corps in the lean times.
Short answer: if I had the opportunity to pick up my family and move to NYC or the Bay Area and have a similar standard of living I'd probably do it tomorrow.
Long answer: job security in Fed contractor mega corps generally sucks. You can expect to have a job with the mega corp for up-to-a-year, 2 if you're lucky. Resumes in the DC area frequently go to 3 or 4 pages just listing past jobs and a couple of bullet points each let alone education or any of the other interesting things.
When the contract ends or goes elsewhere, you either get let go or are given a couple of weeks to hunt around internally for another job then are let go. Longevity in any of those companies relies heavily on cronyism and brown nosing so you might stay on the good side of management and get "offered" your next contract job in the same company. With the end of the Iraq and Afghan wars funding is getting massively cut and the sequester has had a very large impact. The same people, working in the same position, but on a new contract, from last year to this year can expect a 30-40% pay cut. I know of dozens of personal contacts who've gotten pink-slipped from the Mitres, Lockheeds, SAICs and Boozes in the last few months. There's also hundreds of smaller 10-300 person companies that sub-contract to those mega corps that might treat you a bit better.
Also, the defense contractor career progression is a mirror of military service. If you left the military as an enlisted, you probably won't ever make a senior management position. If you left in the officer ranks, you can expect to find yourself similarly positioned in senior management beneath and above people who left as officers in almost the same respective positions - it's almost farcical how bad this is.
Most contractors I know are desperate to take a pay cut and get a very stable government job at this point.
Competitive is a generous description for the work market in the DC area. It's more Machiavellian combined with Italian mobster backstabbery and unbelievably political.
The technology is also a bit behind the times (to be generous). Imagine making the kind of tech that's in the leaks, but with the state of software and hardware 5-10 years ago. It's an interesting challenge, but really takes you out of the reverse market, moving from the Fed space to the West Coast startup world is very hard.
A good compromise might be to work for a West Coast defense contractor like Palantir or Thetus...the technology is much cooler to work on in general and you get the benefits of recognition in two major employer markets. Here's a nice list of similar companies http://www.iqt.org/portfolio/ict.html
For a slightly different perspective on this, I work for a very small (<25 people) defense contractor in the MD/DC area, and coming from a civilian government position, it is a breath of fresh air. The management has cultivated relationships with people in the prime contractors and government leadership that recognize that people are not commodities and that the work we do is valuable. The sequester has had very little/no effect on our work, if anything our projects and budgets are expanding.
I also have met many people that work at or formerly worked at places like SAIC, Booz etc. that hated every minute of it and described it exactly as you did, so YMMV. Also, the line of work I and my company are in is slightly "unique", so we may be somewhat insulated from the problems facing contracting at the moment. Regardless, it isn't all horrible out there, and I would much sooner switch to another contracting position or move somewhere completely different than ever take a government position again.
I actually agree with this. The govie jobs offer stability, but squash every ounce of creativity and drive out of a person and in exchange for the stability you get lower pay, pay freezes and unending bureaucratic BS. If you've ever gotten a loan to by a house, imagine doing that kind of paperwork every day as part of your normal job on top of trying to do the job you are supposed to be doing.
The mega-contractors are a different kind of hell, you have to stay engaged and you have to have lots of drive, only it doesn't get spent in the actual work you're doing, it's all jammed up in office politicking and contract cycles. It's remarkably the same experience at the different mega corps also. I think being so close to the culture of the government, it bleeds down and creates this weird kind of secondary effect that seems the same no matter where you go...even if their public image and mission seem quite different.
The places I've enjoyed the most have been the smaller sub-contractors or product companies that vend into the government. I think it's because they're allowed to define their own culture and do things their way, with the primes as a shield to soak up all that badness. That all being said, shit rolls downhill, and being a sub or sub to a sub or a vendor like that does end up with your company in some bad positions from time to time...this includes getting acquired by one of the big guys.
Thanks Bane for your detailed and informative reply. What you say makes a lot of sense.
It seems to be that contracting comes with a lot of job security risk due to funding variability and getting a full-time role in one of these MegaCorps or with the Feds directly comes with lots of politicking and competition since everybody wants to live off the largess of the US taxpayers.
I wish you the best in your endeavor whether that may be living off the US tax-payers or otherwise.
I don't want to talk you out of it! Having talented and skilled people around is about the only thing that makes working in this kind of environment tolerable. But it's definitely a "grass is greener" kind of moment.
I've tried to make the jump out West a handful of times, but getting good jobs for me and my family at the same time out that way, at this point in our careers, and with resumes that read like random acronym spaghetti, has been near to impossible.
Even with the higher cost of living in the Bay Area, many of the places I've interviewed have balked at my salary requirements. During interviews with one big West Coast company, I made it through all of the phone screens, phone interviews, work history discussions, face-to-face interviews, lunch, meeting with the senior management, and then it all fell apart when we got to salary. "You realize Mr. Bane that not even the CEO for this organization pulls that kind of salary down?" "That's fine, I'd be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for preferred stock options" and that usually is the end of the discussion.
The interviews I've had with the Googles and the Facebooks have also left the interviewer at a loss for words as they tried to untangle my resume and ask reasonable interview questions. The environments: the technology, the politics, the hiring practices, the career progression, the titles, everything is just so different that at some point the interviewer and I inevitably end up just realizing it's not going to work.
For example, most people out West with a similar career progression as me might have done a year long stint in Hyderabad or Shanghai trying to setup a new office. In a normal interview we'd chat about the challenges doing that, how it's so hard to get approval from the local government for the kind of high speed internet business line we'd need or the difficulty in ensuring overnight delivery of important data center parts or whatever and how I'd solve that with a reasonable inventory of spare parts but not provision too many blah blah blah.
When the topic comes up with me I have to talk about my time in a couple of combat zones, dodging mortar fire or stepping over a pile of gore that used to be a man. My principal challenge wasn't recruiting local talent, it was finding cover from a late night firefight or figuring out how to get fiber in my diet after a month underground in a bunker eating MREs so I could use the toilet. After all that was accomplished, then I got to figuring out how to coax industry obsolete technology running off of a jury-rigged diesel generator to do something useful for my work.
I don't regret it out here, I've managed to be involved in some history making events, had some awesome travel, met incredible people and did far more than figure out how to get people to click ads. There's a concept I've heard from PhD students [1] where they describe that moment where, before they publish their first paper or their dissertation, they know something new that nobody else in history or on the planet knows. Working here is kind of like that. There's been moments where I've solved a problem or learned something that nobody else on the planet knows and it's pretty awesome to be there at that moment.
But at the same time, you don't really ever "build" anything in the sense of creating something that will advance the species. It's not what I would call "life affirming" work. You build siege engines that become obsolete as soon as the walls of the enemy are penetrated. You become Leonardo da Vinci looking for work. [2]
I had an MI MOS in the Army, and I don't miss the invasive ness of background checks one bit. Do you want to have your past pried open to get a TS clearance? Are you ok with lie detectors and random urine tests? Do you do any illicit drugs? Are you trans? For the right kind of person, sure, but some people can't/won't subject themselves to that.
Meet Bob. Bob got a job working on a random system through an NSA subcontractor. After several weeks on the job, and having gone through rigorous training, Bob was starting to feel uneasy with the work requirements and amount of details he knew. Bob had a TopSecret clearance however, and couldn't tell anyone - not even his wife. After a few more weeks, he decided to try his luck at another employer. Bob was damn good too, one of the best in his field - he was guaranteed a job anywhere for competitive pay.
Except word got out about Bob's employer - and specifically the subsystems Bob was responsible for implementing. After the negative press, the NSA didn't renew Bob's company's contract which forced said company to let Bob go. That's okay, Bob thought, he had enough experience in the field, right? Everywhere Bob looked was disgusted at his previous job and the moral choices his superiors' superiors made. But they took it out on Bob. Bob was never offered a job anywhere for close to the amount of money and psychological income he had at his former job.
>After several weeks on the job...Bob had a TopSecret clearance.
Top Secret clearance usually takes a few months. I'm comfortable with a world in which someone who worked for an NSA subcontractor for several months being stuck with menial employment for the rest of their days. Sometimes it pays to have ethics.
My brother got a TS. It took him about a year to get the thing. He had no clue what the TS part of the company was like before 'stepping through the rabbit-hole.' He worked at the job just fine for a few years. One day, he said he knew he had to look for other work. It took him a few months to find a way to leave. Eventually, he just quit without any job at all. He has a job now, not nearly as glamorous but he is employed.
Just because they work for a contractor for the NSA, or they have a TS or S or Q clearance, doesn't mean they are not very smart and hard working. Hell, you know they went through the ringer to prove they are trustworthy and loyal. Because they wanted to help out all of us here in the US and then they felt they could no longer, that does NOT mean they should be punished. What did they themselves do wrong?
Besides, this is ONE program the NSA runs. Mostly likely the majority of the TS cleared people out there have nothing to do with all this stuff. Those people do make a lot of sacrifices for their job and for the US. A lot are multiply divorced because of the stress, the secrecy, and the unpredictability of the job.
"Hey Sugar, gotta go. I can't tell you where, for how long, or if I will be safe, or talk about a really traumatizing experience afterwards so I'll drink hard liquor quietly on the back porch a lot. Pick the kids up at basketball, will yah?"
> "Hey Sugar, gotta go. I can't tell you where, for how long, or if I will be safe, or talk about a really traumatizing experience afterwards so I'll drink hard liquor quietly on the back porch a lot. Pick the kids up at basketball, will yah?"
In addition to the potential ethical issues, this is the second reason why I made the decision not to get involved with classified work (the majority of IT jobs in my hometown are at defence contractors). I simply couldn't handle not being able to talk to my family and friends about my work - especially if there were things that were causing me stress on the job.
I wouldn't hire Bob because he's the kind of person that does not clean up after a mistake, instead try to pretend it is not in his powers and move on to let other people fix it. I would never like a person like this in my team.
This is like saying that a government isn't going to change just because of your one vote.
It is incumbent upon all people working in our industry to make an ethical judgement about the projects they are working on, and decide whether or not they are comfortable with what is being done.
If you find the work to be wrong, you don't have to risk your life by leaking info, but you can still leave the job. If enough people started having a conscience and didn't just take the "I'm just here for the money, I'll do whatever I'm told" attitude, then organisations running unethical programs will have difficulty retaining good staff.
I took the story as Bob leaving because of being uneasy with what the job entailed. My comment was more saying leaving a position he found morally objectionable is the most he can do in this case.
If I were interviewing Bob, and he told me that he left because he felt morally uncomfortable with the job, he would earn considerable respect from me. In this case, it would not be a barrier to hiring, and in fact I would be glad to have someone on staff who is principled in such a manner.
"You can't quit, No-one else will hire you, you're poisoned for good now, you might as well do all the grey-ethical stuff now" could be the new line for manipulative slimey NSA managers to use against their employees now.
What I have been told is that as long as it is not a protected status, you can discriminate on it.
Having worked for companies you don't like doing things you don't like is generally not protected, so I personally doubt that you would get into trouble in not hiring from people who were contractors.
However there may be exceptions. For example if you do contract work with the federal government then http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/factsheets/vetright... applies and you would probably not be allowed to discriminate against veterans who had worked on these projects.
Legalities aside, the way you drain the pro-surveillance companies' talent pool dry is to be more welcoming and enticing than they are. If private businesses started discriminating based on whom qualified candidates worked for before, a whole bunch of people would effectively be forced to return to or stay with the surveillance industry.
Your idea has superficial appeal but would backfire in the real world.
All American technologists are supporting the surveillance state, indirectly but tangibly. Would you ask all of us to give up our careers and skills completely?
There is no point in sacrificing yourself when there is nothing to actually be gained by doing so.
If somebody could organize a general strike of enough of the civillian workforce (especially engineers) until the NSA is banned, that would be worthwile. If a few of us quit sporadically, there will be no gain; it will just be a loss.
So, I wouldn't blame the individual engineers that work in the defense industry and end up contributing to these projects more directly. Nor do I blame the poor folk who end up getting a job screening me at the TSA checkpoint (violating the 4th Amendment is literally their job), though I used to be mad at them. We are all victims. Collective action could accomplish something, but individually, we only each have one life to live; we can't just throw it away for nothing in return.
I used to be really not know how to handle the fact that the Founding Fathers started a revolution, and I haven't been even trying to start one. I mean, they wouldn't put up with this shit! They rebelled over a freaking stamp tax!
Then I realized that my thinking was disconnected from reality. There is a HUGE difference between my situation, and that of the Founding Fathers.
They knew that they could win.
They were selfish people. They would not have started the Revolution if there had been no chance of actually gaining something and actually winning.
We cannot win, at least, not that way. The only way we can probably hope to win is by speaking up and slowly changing the culture. We are far closer to 1984 than the Founding Fathers were.
Civilian employees of the federal government are not a protected class. You can deny someone a job in the US for any reason, no matter how capricious, except membership in a protected class.
Don't like football? You can refuse to hire someone for having participated once in a football game when they were seven. If you live in an employment-at-will state, you can fire them for watching a football game on their own time at home. You can even fire them for suspicion of watching a football game. For that matter, you can fire them for watching a football game or, in the alternative, not having watched a football game, for failure to complete the labors of Hercules, or for any reason or no reason at all, unless that reason is membership in a protected class.
Makes sense really. Someone over qualified for a job will probably take this job and continue to look for a new job and if they find one quit and move on. You don't want to hire someone only for them to quit in 4 months time.
I went through a few rounds with a company and after they asked me how much I make they were stunned because they wanted to pay someone 40% of what I make for that position.
Sure, they can claim that's the reason why they didn't hire you. But if you can show in court that that wasn't their actual reason, and the actual reason for not hiring you was illegal, then yes, you can win.
Am I the only thinking that working on a project like this would be awesome ? From an engineering point of view, they offer an incredible technical challenge.
There's a whole world of problems like that though, that don't involve questionable ethical practices (depending on your own personal beliefs).
Math is the language of reality, it's applicable to anything so I don't know why getting involved with these sorts of projects over just about anything else is so alluring from a technical standpoint.
When I saw the ads in my state for Booz-Allen-Hamilton jobs requiring clearance a few months ago I knew that it was spook work, but thought nothing of it at the time... (I refuse to relocate, it's telecommute or I go freelance)
I wonder if Ed Snowden responded to those same advertisements?
A script combing linkedin for skill solicitations that regex match ALLCAPS could probably uncover all NSA job postings. For supposed mastery of encryption/deception these fucks sure seem hamfisted in looking for employees.
I'd apply just for an opportunity to be another leaker, but there's no f%!#ng way in Hades that the feds would ever hire me. I've been WAY too outspoken in my radical anti-government / libertarian / anarcho-capitalist viewpoints and have said way too many things that would - I'm pretty sure - automatically disqualify me.
Them: "Have you ever advocated for the overthrow of the US government?"
Me: "Well... ah, I mean, errm... aah... define 'overthrow', please?"
My brother has a TS. He said they mostly hire Mormons. They have a clean living background and can speak the languages due to their missions. Also he said they asked a lot about being a member of the Communist Party.
Really? The Community Party? Seems somewhat quaint. I would assume now they ask you stuff like, "What do you think about the war in Afghanistan?" "Have you ever traveled to the PRC?" etc.
I also guess that their recruiting methods will have been adjusted since the leaks. So if you give it a shot, be well prepared.
You might also want to try and have a friend waterboard you over a weekend, so you'll be able to answer with a very frank and firm "Absolutely NOT!" when they ask you if you would object to the next part of the recruiting process.
SAIC is also running domestic surveillance, currently having a facility in Oakland built[1]. The facility is currently being funded by the DHS, being built while no privacy controls or data retention policies are known.
This is an ongoing trend of the names most know as being involved in national level surveillance actively involved on the state and local level too. Another case is Booz Allen Hamilton's processing of digital forensics for local law enforcement via federal funds[2].
Yea, no chance for conflict of interests when firms granted immunity, having access to the world's data, are involved in 'petty' things like domestic surveillance/forensics to assist in prosecutions of the wire-tapped non-immunes.
This is an absolutely horrific trend that must be halted, as in halting literal construction.
Cryptome is already on it: http://cryptome.org/2013/08/nsa-xkeyscore-saic.htm