from the article: Christy had mentioned that one of the things they were doing at Defcon was recruiting. He went on to tell the crowd that if they were interested, and "had not gone over the line," to talk to him afterwards. The "had not gone over the line" comment became one of the hottest topics during the Q&A.
It appears that the lessons the intelligence community has learned from 9/11 have not yet trickled all the way down through the federal bureaucracy -- particularly that bit about the failure of
I would agree with you in that the Feds are looking for those who are generally upstanding citizens who are not, and have not been, career criminals, before they filled out the application forms.
What they leave out the picture are grayer operations, where they do in fact work with criminals. But such actions are almost always intended to catch bigger fish and not to compromise the security of the country as a whole. Recall the American truck driver who was a foot soldier for al Qaeda. (This was in the last year or so; I don't have exact dates.) They had caught the guy, then offered him lighter dealings in exchange for information of and with his superiors. They had in fact been privy to a lot of communiques between the low-level operative and his handler, and that was how they got a peek into the actual language (i.e. code words and phrases) that was used in their emails.
So when the Feds work with blackhatters, it is virtually always the case that they (the Feds) believe they can come out ahead in the endgame, not necessarily because they think breaking into things is cool.
They had caught the guy, then offered him lighter dealings in exchange for information of and with his superiors.
This is how things are supposed to work. The FBI and Justice Dept have worked this way with organized crime for decades. Nab a guy for something small, plea bargain, find out what the boss has been up to, get him to wear a wire, etc, and get the leadership in jail with a nice long sentence. In exchange the guy gets only probation, and if necessary, witness protection for life (which makes p
9/11 lessons (Score:5, Interesting)
Christy had mentioned that one of the things they were doing at Defcon was recruiting. He went on to tell the crowd that if they were interested, and "had not gone over the line," to talk to him afterwards. The "had not gone over the line" comment became one of the hottest topics during the Q&A.
It appears that the lessons the intelligence community has learned from 9/11 have not yet trickled all the way down through the federal bureaucracy -- particularly that bit about the failure of
Re:9/11 lessons (Score:2)
What they leave out the picture are grayer operations, where they do in fact work with criminals. But such actions are almost always intended to catch bigger fish and not to compromise the security of the country as a whole. Recall the American truck driver who was a foot soldier for al Qaeda. (This was in the last year or so; I don't have exact dates.) They had caught the guy, then offered him lighter dealings in exchange for information of and with his superiors. They had in fact been privy to a lot of communiques between the low-level operative and his handler, and that was how they got a peek into the actual language (i.e. code words and phrases) that was used in their emails.
So when the Feds work with blackhatters, it is virtually always the case that they (the Feds) believe they can come out ahead in the endgame, not necessarily because they think breaking into things is cool.
Re:9/11 lessons (Score:0)
This is how things are supposed to work. The FBI and Justice Dept have worked this way with organized crime for decades. Nab a guy for something small, plea bargain, find out what the boss has been up to, get him to wear a wire, etc, and get the leadership in jail with a nice long sentence. In exchange the guy gets only probation, and if necessary, witness protection for life (which makes p