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by lloyd-christmas 3786 days ago
> Government isn't technically competent by itself, and doesn't know how to select those who are.

This is just dead wrong. I think you're conflating "Government" and "Politicians". The government pays tech very well and hires intelligent people. I once did a consulting gig and went in with your exact mindset. It was the only time I've ever been fully confident that I was the dumbest person in the room.

The reason they'll always lose is the sheer quantity of attacks. Every day we have front page posts critical of the US government. That sentiment (clearly) extends far beyond the front page of hacker news. I'd wager you wouldn't have to put much effort into finding anti-governmental rhetoric in the comments section of a cooking website.

Beyond that, the weak link is rarely the technical side, e.g. Snowden. I think we all can be confident they will lose the information, but I really don't believe it's because they are technically incompetent.
3 comments
BinaryIdiot 3786 days ago
As someone who's done DoD contracting for many years working for different agencies... I have to agree with parent. The amount of competent people I ran into, on the government and contractor side, could be counted on a single hand. I've reported and seen so many security holes that were never fixed it's ridiculous. I'd like to imagine the work done by our group was top notch but even if it objectively is it's rare to work on any DoD project without 10+ contractors all with varying levels of competence.
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avukich 3786 days ago
Very true. I did DoD/IC contracting for 16 years before finally getting fed up and going into the "real" world last year. There are some very talented and intelligent people working as govies and as contractors, but for every very good person there are at least 4 turds.
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cjslep 3786 days ago
The OPM breach exposing personal data of all cleared individuals (and their friends & families) for the past ~25 years points to management as being grossly incompetent.
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Lawtonfogle 3785 days ago
>The government pays tech very well and hires intelligent people.

No they don't. Or at least, not the parts I worked in. Maybe the really secure stuff gets paid well, but from what I've seen government jobs are one of the worst paying jobs for an IT individual.

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