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NSA to Hackers: ‘Please come and work for us’

21st Century Wire says…

How daft can the NSA get? Pretty daft apparently…

 

NSA chief asks a skeptical crowd of hackers to help agency do its job


Robert O’Harrow Jr.

Washington Post

LAS VEGAS — It doesn’t get much stranger than this, even in Vegas.

Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, stood in front of a standing-room-only crowd Wednesday, selling the idea of government surveillance programs.


Isaac Brekken/AP – Army General Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency delivers a keynote address at the Black Hat hacker conference on Wednesday, July 31, 2013, in Las Vegas.

His audience? More than 3,000 cybersecurity specialists, including some of the world’s best hackers, an unruly community known for its support of civil liberties and skepticism of the government’s three-letter agencies.

Alexander praised the group as one of the brightest collections of technical minds in the world. He asked them to help the NSA fulfill its mission of protecting the country, while also protecting privacy.

“We stand for freedom,” Alexander told the crowd in a vast ballroom at Caesars Palace. “Help us to defend the country and develop a better solution.”

Some in the crowd weren’t buying, and one hacker hurled an expletive back at him.

“I’m saying I don’t trust you!” a voice shouted.

This is Black Hat, the annual hacker conference. For a few days every year, it takes center stage in the topsy-turvy worlds of cyberspace, network computing and digital security. The conference serves as a platform for hacking seminars, partying and — more and more — policy discussions about what the government and corporate worlds ought to be doing to confront problems like cyber-espionage and cyber attacks, growing threats with no clear-cut remedies.

Most Black Hat participants are actually “white hat” hackers — security professionals whose careers are built around using their technical skills to thwart the bad guys. But to do their jobs and find security gaps, they often employ the same techniques…

Read more at WP

READ MORE SNOWDEN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Snowden Files

 

 

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