[john_strinlai]

>they're cops with too much access, it doesn't take a genius to outsmart a cop

the nsa has an unlimited budget and spend a good portion of that budget recruiting some of the smartest people in the country. while they dont have super powers, they also arent the town cop who took a 6 month course after high school then joined the force.

it does no good to hold them up as mythical figures. it also does no good to pretend they are bumbling idiots.

(every math phd i am acquainted with has been approached by nsa recruiters. none of them have been approached by police agencies.)

[kelnos]

> the nsa has an unlimited budget

No they don't, and if you're going to try to argue something with that as your opener, it very easily casts large amounts of skepticism on whatever you are about to say.

Perhaps you're exaggerating for effect, but that also undermines your point.

[john_strinlai]

>No they don't, and if you're going to try to argue something with that as your opener, it very easily casts large amounts of skepticism on whatever you are about to say.

if you read my comment like we're having a normal conversation instead of a thesis defense, you'll get my point just fine.

[schoen]

I appreciate the balance here.

Some of the smartest people I know have worked on fighting NSA, but they had a drastically smaller budget than NSA itself, and the mental availability bias is skewed by the fact that the "fighting NSA" people talked about their work all the time, while the "being NSA" people generally didn't.

I do know one extremely smart person who went to work there, and I witnessed a failed recruitment of another extremely smart person.

[micromacrofoot]

> every math phd i am acquainted with has been approached by nsa recruiters.

how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles?

it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop, which at the end of the day is a government job... the only people they make rich are contractors

I'm not saying there aren't smart people working there but it's ridiculous to assume they have an iron grasp on all communication from the top tech companies in the world, while also monitoring half the world's governments... they just don't

[john_strinlai]

>how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles?

this is not really relevant to the point, but to satisfy your curiosity: more than one, and one.

>it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop

the nsa's brightest aren't doing "cop" things. certainly none of the people i know of working there are "cop-minded" in any sense.

they are doing cool research and application things. otherwise they wouldn't be able to entice the phds to stick around. these are people that want to work at the forefront of their field, doing interesting work, and the nsa is one avenue of doing that (with good job security, benefits, etc.).

>it's ridiculous to assume they have an iron grasp on all communication from the top tech companies in the world, while also monitoring half the world's governments

we agree here. they are certainly doing "HNDL" (harvest now, decrypt later) at a very large scale. but obviously they are not able to collect and store every piece of communication at every tech company over years and years. (the intelligence community comprehensive national cybersecurity initiative data center is large, but not that large)

[kelnos]

> this is not really relevant to the point, but to satisfy your curiosity: more than one, and one.

What? That's not only relevant to the point, it's incredibly relevant. If the NSA is only able to recruit 2% of the math PhDs they approach, then that's important information.

"More than one" is not particularly useful; you seem to be dodging the question because it undermines your argument.

[john_strinlai]

>"More than one" is not particularly useful;

telling you exactly how many people i know in the NSA is also not particularly useful. i'm one guy. there is no statistically significant information from my answer.

>you seem to be dodging the question because it undermines your argument.

my "argument" is that there are plenty of smart people in the NSA. that's it. i am confused why that is seemingly so offensive to you that you had to reply twice.

[micromacrofoot]

all the people working at the cop agency hope they're not doing cop shit, but it's the whole reason the agency exists

[TimorousBestie]

> how many of them took them up on the offer, and how many are in leadership roles?

In my cohort? Several, and who knows? The recruitment effort is very visible and intense.

The US math phd market has been a slow-rolling disaster for over a decade. Everyone who can hack it outside the ivory tower is actively looking for the exits.

So why is it surprising that some of them go to work at the NSA?

> it takes a very narrow range of personality to want to be a cop, which at the end of the day is a government job... the only people they make rich are contractors

I don’t think you have context on what math phds are making in entry level positions, post-docs, or adjuncting. I just picked a random entry level NSA role on LinkedIn (doctorate + 0 yrs) and they’re offering solid six digits. There are tenured faculty (post-doc(s) + 5ish yrs) who don’t make that.