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Comment by user24 | Hacker News Reader

Context:

"Nicole Smith, an associate attorney at Tully Rinckey PLLC in Washington, D.C., and a former security clearance investigator"[1]

"In a photograph posted online after Snowden revealed himself, his laptop displays a sticker touting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a longstanding advocate for online rights and staunch opponent of government surveillance. That would have been enough of a warning sign to make it into his file, Smith says"[1]

And the EFF respond by showing a picture of the director of the NSA wearing an EFF T-Shirt.

[1] http://nation.time.com/2013/06/15/potential-blind-spots-in-c...

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More Context: It looks like he was wearing it at devcon to help recruit hackers. I wonder how that worked out for him.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/27/technology/defcon-nsa/index....

Two things from the article that I want to comment on:

>>"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."

There was an EFF talk at Defcon a long while back where they told us about how the RIAA was recruiting talented hackers to join their ranks. Their warning was that the RIAA wasn't just a bunch of goons. They were hiring among us and we should be more careful about covering our assets. Not completely related but possibly relevant.

>>Alexander's appearance is a milestone for DefCon, a hacker mecca with an often-uneasy relationship with the feds.

It's not quite as serious as they're describing. With the "Spot the Fed" game being the most obvious nod that there isn't a real uneasiness but rather the rebellious "us vs. them" feeling of hackers vs. government. All very friendly though. I'd imagine most people thought it was neat to be in the same room as the NSA Director.

Doesn't hurt that most of the organizers work for the DoD now...

I guess this would be the talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz0ejKersnM

and this would be the counterpoint:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIz-RNUL1g

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