"I know a lot of people who are over 60 who are quite capable of using Facebook and Twitter," [the computer expert asked about the move] said.
I would hope MI5 would have higher requirements on their cyberterrorism-fighting employees.
"A six-year-old can use them, so I'm sure a 60-year-old can."
That's hardly a relevant assumption. A six-year-old of today most likely grew up with computers and knows nothing of a world without them. A 60-year-old might very well have not seen the point of computers and resisted using them for their entire adult life. Just because an average 60-year-old person has the cognitive abilities to learn to use computers, doesn't mean that they want to.
Granted, if they were kicking people out based on the assumption that if you're over a certain age, you can't use a computer, that would be one thing, but it seems to me that they're checking employee skillsets and then letting people who don't have the skills needed go. Isn't that basically a good thing?
And of course a 60year old might question something they found on facebook/google - whereas a 6year old will be quite happy to believe it, if it's what their bosses want to hear.
This is exactly the problem the CIA had under Clinton. Forced to rely on electronic intelligence as it's "the future" and not human intelligence, years of accumulated experience, they were taken completely by surprise by the Taliban and Al Queda, who it turns out weren't using the latest Soviet tech, they were simply riding their motorbikes into the desert and chatting face to face.
You are remembering something I must have forgotten. I recall Clinton taking a shot at Bin Laden with a missile and being derided as blowing up an aspirin factory (Bush made fun of him for this too, long before letting Bin Laden escape from a being surrounded in a hole in the ground), and I recall their policy position was that terrorism was the most significant threat to the US national defense and trying to get airport security money (among other things) into the budget.
The country at that time, however, was really mad at him for getting hummers at work, so the Republicans took advantage of his political weakness to take money out of the antiterrorism budget and put it into "Star Wars" defense. They claimed that the biggest threat to Us national security were nukes.
They were wrong.
And, of course, nobody missed the Taliban because they were all over the news for smashing Buddhas and the throats of unveiled females.
They were singly responsible for the influx of gaggles of beautiful Afghani women into US cosmopolitan cities, something that I didn't mind a bit.
Perhaps you are referring to something pre-1998 or so, but I honestly don't recall them missing either Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
I know of a bank who did something similar several years ago. They layed-off all their computer challenged employees saying that that was very unfortunate but that the environment changed and computer knowledge was now needed for the job. They just couldn't employ unskilled personnel.
You had people who worked there their entire life. The bank made them work monday to friday, 9 to 5 and they didn't give them any training. not a single day whatsoever during their entire career.
And then they came and said thanks for working hard all your life for us but we just can't have untrained people like you with us.
I remember a 5th grade teacher telling us that working is like being a lemon. They squeeze all the juice in you and throw you away when empty. He was a bitter old man near retirement :).
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 36.2 ms ] threadI would hope MI5 would have higher requirements on their cyberterrorism-fighting employees.
"A six-year-old can use them, so I'm sure a 60-year-old can."
That's hardly a relevant assumption. A six-year-old of today most likely grew up with computers and knows nothing of a world without them. A 60-year-old might very well have not seen the point of computers and resisted using them for their entire adult life. Just because an average 60-year-old person has the cognitive abilities to learn to use computers, doesn't mean that they want to.
Granted, if they were kicking people out based on the assumption that if you're over a certain age, you can't use a computer, that would be one thing, but it seems to me that they're checking employee skillsets and then letting people who don't have the skills needed go. Isn't that basically a good thing?
I think this is the whole of MI5 not just the specific cyber-terrorism units (just for context).
That whole quote is just silly though... I'm not sure why the BBC called on him but what he said seems entirely irrelevant to the issue :P
The country at that time, however, was really mad at him for getting hummers at work, so the Republicans took advantage of his political weakness to take money out of the antiterrorism budget and put it into "Star Wars" defense. They claimed that the biggest threat to Us national security were nukes.
They were wrong.
And, of course, nobody missed the Taliban because they were all over the news for smashing Buddhas and the throats of unveiled females.
They were singly responsible for the influx of gaggles of beautiful Afghani women into US cosmopolitan cities, something that I didn't mind a bit.
Perhaps you are referring to something pre-1998 or so, but I honestly don't recall them missing either Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
You had people who worked there their entire life. The bank made them work monday to friday, 9 to 5 and they didn't give them any training. not a single day whatsoever during their entire career. And then they came and said thanks for working hard all your life for us but we just can't have untrained people like you with us.
I remember a 5th grade teacher telling us that working is like being a lemon. They squeeze all the juice in you and throw you away when empty. He was a bitter old man near retirement :).