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Comment by a3n | Hacker News Reader

A professor in college suggested to me that if good people don't work for defense companies, then only bad people will be working in defense companies.

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With everything revealed in the Snowden leaks, it doesn't seem like the good people are having much of an impact.

I left the NSA a few months ago after working for them four years for that very reason. I realized nothing I did was going to affect what they were doing, and while I personally couldn't effect any change, I could at least leave and not contribute to it. So I did.

I just wanted to say that reading your comment was encouraging and made me happy.

Thanks for posting this.

Did you consider IAD or one of the defense contractors focused on highly-secure technology? Hell, even groups doing R&D funded by NSF or DARPA on secure systems work. There's a ton of stuff going on out there that either (a) benefits security of government/military or (b) could benefit everyone at some point.

I can understand if (a) didn't interest you but being ex-NSA might help with positions doing (b). Not sure how INFOSEC people would react given the climate, though. Wise ones should see a skill and character reference from getting and quiting the job respectively.

Thank you not only for posting this, but also for refusing to contribute.

I commend you for your decision.

At that point, why should there even be private defense companies? Why do we accept that weapons manufacturing is outside of democratic control and civilian restraint?

Interesting question. I have no idea one way or the other, I've never studied economics beyond 101. An exploration of that question might include why the US relied on private industry for WWII military needs, rather than building its own factories or taking over existing ones.

The US effectively commandeered private industry in WWII. They were compensated, but that was nothing like the current military weapons procurements system.

But they were still private. Under orders, just like individual citizens were under orders, with the draft and rationing. It was arguably an existential threat.

But the commandeered private industry was what the current MIC grew from. It wouldn't have happened without WWII.

It's not outside of civilian control and democratic restraint in the US. It's just an extremely convoluted route from that to the end product.

In fact, we'd probably get a better deal if there were less so. The amount of money wasted on politically-supported but infeasible/impractical systems is mind boggling.

This contains a hidden logical error. For example, no good people are working to simulate the original ENIAC at the vacuum tube level on the Apple watch.

But no bad people are working on it either.

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