Edward Snowden and Pet Talk... well Pal Talk

[lizbud]

Not surprising at all, especially given his skill set and training.

Alphabet soup agencies dealing with datamining and hacking routinely go outside the normal loop for hiring. t's not abnormal for someone to be hired into a placeholder position such as a custodian and then moved into what they were really hired to do when their security clearances come through.

One of my friends growing up was a junior high dropout, hired by DEC as a security consultant at 14 years old.

I see that you disagree, No surprise there. What "training" did he have for the job? Gov. agencies (in IT for example) rarely hire out of the private sector, it's
generally the other way around. Government jobs are training fields for the private sector.

I think he might have had some good recommendations from somewhere.

[Lady's Human]

Government jobs in IT aren't a training ground for the private sector, as government IT operations are normally 5-10 years behind private sector software and firmware versions due to contracting requirements. They used to be the source for private sector IT employees, but that has changed, and hasn't been the case for at least a decade.

The Government LAN operations are handled in house to a point, but the data transfer from the router in the building to the router at the other end goes through the TELCO cloud. Outsourcing is a wonderful thing, unless you give a damn about data security, which was lost in the tech transfers to China in the 1990s when Cisco and others got ITARS approval to give source code to China n exchange for the ability to set up cheap manufacturing facilities there. The Chinese don't need information from Mr. Snowden, they own the backbone. If you build the backbone of the internet, tapping data off of it is a cakewalk.

As to what training he had for the job, it doesn't take a degree to get network certifications. A book, a test, and you have your certificate.

[RICHARD]

Back in the day - when IT first started?

You had problems keeping a good IT person happy and 'with the company' for long.

Most of the hard core people were the nerdy, book people who had the apptitude for programming....Hell, I wrote queries and was a sys admin and I barely can keep my rear end clean.

I went to meetings and read the books.

I taught myself how to write reports and to use programs to extract info.

The Harder Core people were treated like royalty because they were able to keep a system up and running and they were always looking for a better job.

I didn't know who I was going to talk to when I called a help desk...people quit and newer faces came on board every week.

This guy was probably a self taught kid who impressed someone that had hiring rights.

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I am amazed he gave up a stripper/poledancing GF, a huge paycheck and a life in Hawaii to get stuck in Russia?

Moron/