[Noisebridge-discuss] NSA wants to hire hackers

Paul A. Vander Waerdt paulvw06 at gmail.com
Sat Jul 28 17:33:37 UTC 2012


NSA wants to hire hackersBy Stacy Cowley <stacy.cowley at turner.com>
@CNNMoneyTech <https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=cnnmoneytech> July
28, 2012: 10:37 AM ET

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[image: NSA Director Keith Alexander came to hacker gathering DefCon for
the first time to recruit from the show's ranks.]

NSA Director Keith Alexander came to hacker gathering DefCon for the first
time to recruit from the show's ranks.

LAS VEGAS (CNNMoney) -- Wearing a t-shirt and jeans, America's top
spymaster -- National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander, also
the head of the U.S. Cyber Command -- took the stage Friday at the nation's
largest hacker convention to deliver a recruiting pitch.

"In this room, this room right here, is the talent our nation needs to
secure cyberspace," Alexander told the standing-room-only audience at
DefCon, a grassroots gathering in Las Vegas expected to draw a record
16,000 attendees this year. "We need great talent. We don't pay as high as
everybody else, but we're fun to be around."

Alexander's appearance is a milestone for DefCon, a hacker mecca with an
often-uneasy relationship with the feds. DefCon is the older, wilder and
far less official sibling of BlackHat, a cybersecurity conference that
wrapped up Thursday in Las Vegas.

BlackHat draws corporate infosecurity workers in suits. At DefCon, they
switch to t-shirts and spend the weekend mingling with cryptographers,
script kiddies, security researchers and a liberal smattering of military
and law enforcement agents -- both in and out of uniform.

DefCon is famed as an elite hacking showcase. The registration badges alone
are a technical feat<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/defcon20-badge/>,
featuring a customizable circuit board and cryptographic scavenger-hunt
puzzle. A hacker group called Ninja Networks set up a private cellular
network to chat on during the show -- a stunt that drew admiring praise
from Alexander during his talk.

Those are the kinds of skills the government needs, he said. Playing to his
audience, Alexander rattled off a long list of tech-industry stars like
Vint Cerf and Dave Aitel who did pioneering work on the federal payroll.

"We're the ones who built this Internet," Alexander said, citing the key
role agencies like
DARPA<http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/24/untruths-at-the-origins-of-the-internet/?iid=EL>
(Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency) played in the network's early days. "Now
we're the ones who have to keep it secure, and I think you folks can help
do that."
Related story: Former FBI cyber cop worries about a digital
9/11<http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/25/technology/blackhat-shawn-henry/index.htm?iid=EL>

To hammer the point home, the NSA set up a special recruiting site for the
show: http://www.nsa.gov/careers/dc20/. It's not your standard government
careers page. This one includes the line: "If you have a few, shall we say,
*indiscretions* in your past, don't be alarmed."

The NSA is especially keen to draw in people like those holed up in a
conference room just 20 feet away from Alexander's presentation, hunched
over laptops and takeout cartons. They're competitors in Defcon's "Capture
the Flag" battle, a kind of geek Olympics.

Hacking is usually a glamorless sport, but Defcon plays up the drama for
its famed-in-nerd-circles CTF showdowns. In a darkened arena filled with
rock music and colored laser lights, 20 competing teams fight for 48 hours
to break into each other's servers and steal key information, called
"flags," while holding off rival attackers. The winner will be announced
Sunday evening during DefCon's closing ceremonies.

Coders from around the globe battle through a series of qualifying rounds
to make it to the CTF. "These hackers here are the top of the world," one
observer murmured in hushed tones, watching the teams bang feverishly on
their computers a few hours after the contest's Friday morning kickoff.

The NSA would love to learn more about the exploits those CTF hackers are
using. But do the hackers want to play ball?

The audience reaction to Alexander's talk was generally favorable.
Organizers had to turn away hundreds of attendees from the at-capacity
conference hall, and the crowd that made it in listened attentively to the
general's talk.

One attendee near the front -- a corporate security researcher who
specializes in defending against digital espionage -- said he came away
impressed. More importantly, from NSA's point of view, he says he would
consider checking out the agency's career options.

"I think it would be thrilling," said the researcher, who asked to remain
anonymous. "I mean, that's the real deal. We're trying to protect our
corporate IP. They're trying to protect the country and people. It would be
absolutely awesome -- even though the pay is nothing."

Of course, not everyone was so easily won over. A few rows further back, a
group of cynics kept up a running counterpoint to Alexander's talk.

"Sometimes you guys get a bad rep," Alexander said at one point. "From my
perspective, what you're doing to figure out the vulnerabilities in our
systems is absolutely needed."

"Then stop arresting us!" one of the hecklers called back.

*-CNN's Heather Kelly contributed reporting* [image: To top of
page]<http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/27/technology/defcon-nsa/index.htm?source=cnn_bin#TOP>

-- 
Paul A. Vander Waerdt
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