I honestly think that while this has every right to be here - and be discussed here - given the last couple months' worth of revelations it's pretty offensive nevertheless.
Obviously SIGINT for a nation isn't a bad thing per se, but when they infringe on the core democratic principles of the state they claim to represent then that's just a disgusting abuse of power.
While I agree that this is a tender topic at the moment, I have a hard time stretching it out as far as to being offensive, since it's a cryptography challenge posted by a mathematician.
I do agree that there have been gross abuses of power committed over the past years, but this isn't necessarily something that should be the center of a debate on it. Especially since they aren't forcing you to apply to a job by participating in this challenge.
Makes me think of the movie Mercury Rising[1], where a kid "wins" an NSA crypto challenge and is subsequently hunted by them because he cracked their code.
You, too, can help spy on everyone, infringe on human rights, and help with corporate espionage! Be part of something big. Be part of the surveillance state. The future is here.
What I find scary is that people who would respond to their advertisement/challenge are perhaps those who think themselves better than anyone else, who stand above things such as human rights, surveillance and who can justify for themselves working an unethical job, excuse it away "its just a job and I am one of the few expert enough to do it".
Perhaps GHCQ has found there is only a certain kind of people that would accept their challenge and still wish to work for them after all the leaks - the kind of person they need, the cold calculating moral-less bastards that will become our overlords because they have no conscience or willingness to live in a free democratic world.
What's the process for going about decrypting these things? I've seen some that are just base64 and the like - but those have obvious patterns. How are you meant to decrypt something when you don't even know the algorithm? Is it just a series of brute forces against different algos?
I've tried caesar shift using Q as E (based on frequency) so M is A but that failed epicly... also tried a viginere using GCHQ as the key word but again failed epicly :L
Not even bothering with Playfair.
simple letter to Ascii doesn't work either and i really can't be bothered with going stupidly complicated :/
I grew up in Gloucestershire with neighbours that worked for GCHQ and at least three of my school friends went on to work for the doughnut shaped building (which was a collection of huts back then). Over the years we have had our chats and I tried to work out what they do and why they do it. Were they really dedicated to catching the terrorists?
The benefits of working there are simple: a job for life with enough money to pay the mortgage. Perfect if you want to start a family, bring up the kids in idyllic countryside, work sensible hours with a reasonable commute and retire with a pension worth having. You don't get this if you work in London! For a lot of people this is a pretty good deal, what surprises me is that GCHQ don't try to attract people on this basis.
One of my school friends that went to work for them was actually very bright, however, he was also the first to get into whatever drugs were available and he had a drinking problem before being legally allowed to buy the stuff (18 in the UK). A few years ago I was able to talk with him candidly about interception capabilities, e.g. the lengths one would need to in order to place a truly anonymous phone call. I was also able to chat about things in his domain, e.g. the practicalities of managing untold petabytes of data. He was not a completely leaking sieve, however, if he did have any secrets worth sharing then I am sure that an attractive girl with a four pack of lager would have been able to compromise him in a matter of minutes. He was borderline suitable for 'handling state secrets' (in my opinion).
Questioning his motivation, a lot of it came down to kiddie porn - of all things. He saw himself and the agency as the moral guardian that was saving the world from kiddie fiddlers and their evil ways. So the ethics of 'gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail' did not come into it - some of that mail could be kiddie porn!
As for my other school friends that worked there, they were borderline 'special needs', absent from the top class of maths and maybe 3-5 sets down in the maths pecking order. They were not super-bright by any stretch of the imagination. However, they were smart enough to hold the job down as they had not been given too many stellar opportunities elsewhere. Their lack of intellectual horsepower was an asset in that they would do their work, not ask too many questions and not spill the beans when plied with alcohol by some voluptuous lass.
However, I suspected that they were kept in the dark like mushrooms. They were not privy to the grand plan. They may have had 'dogsbody data entry' work that they just did until clocking off time. They did not have exciting work, hence all the more reason not to talk about it. But they did work on secret stuff, apparently, and that was ego-boost-worthy to them, or at least that was the exterior appearance.
Although anecdotal, what I do know is that GCHQ is not stuffed to the gills with super-smart code crackers that are more giftedly geniuser than you is. There are flawed characters and intellectual also-rans making up the numbers. Like any employer (except Google) they have challenges in attracting the best and brightest, but, for the bulk of their work, they don't actually need the truly gifted. Do-as-your-told types will suffice.
GCHQ can attract intellectual also rans for the 'data entry roles' by hiring locally, the deal being cosy job for life. But, to hire the really clever people needed that they really, really want, what is the hook?
I don't know what happened to the 'war on kiddie porn' but it is now something that the likes of the FBI and GCHQ aren't making a big song and dance about. As for the 'war on terror' that has been bogus since day one, like it or not there are no 'al-qaeda' terrorists out there (although there may be Somali pirates etc.). There is no 'Soviet threat' either. We can only guess as to what they really do, however, thanks to Snowden...
> Although anecdotal, what I do know is that GCHQ is not stuffed to the gills with super-smart code crackers that are more giftedly geniuser than you is. There are flawed characters and intellectual also-rans making up the numbers. Like any employer (except Google) they have challenges in attracting the best and brightest, but, for the bulk of their work, they don't actually need the truly gifted. Do-as-your-told types will suffice.
> GCHQ can attract intellectual also rans for the 'data entry roles' by hiring locally, the deal being cosy job for life. But, to hire the really clever people needed that they really, really want, what is the hook?
Of course GCHQ don't use geniuses for data entry, and most of the work is mundane and most people don't know much about what the other people are doing or where their work fits in.
What's the hook for the actual geniuses?
Imagine you have Asperger's (or similar), and want to work on interesting math with similar people in a comfortable environment. GCHQ is that place.
Your point about images of child sexual abuse is interesting. GCHQ / CESG provide information to the Government, so it's surprising to see such stupid commentary coming from government about images of child sexual abuse. "Google filters spam, why can't they filter images of child sexual abuse" being one paraphrased example of pure idiocy. I don't know how much information GCHQ provides to the Internet Watch Foundation. I hope there is some channel to push information to them or to law enforcement.
google actually pays people to go through thousands of videos and stop the really horrific ones from showing up in the searches (or atleast showing high up in the searches)... the only problem is that apparantly they don't get any psychological help when they leave and i can imagine some of them videos being pretty damn disturbing
1) It keeps things secret, even from the people who work there
2) It claims it obeys the law and that it has strict oversight.
Thus, good people work there in the belief that they are working for an organisation that does not engage in mass surveillance of their fellow subjects. Those people did not know that oversight failed, or that some of the work was a mass surveillance programme of uk subjects.
66 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadPerhaps nations need SIGINT agencies.
/s
http://tineye.com/search/6a395fbbf9ff062a83d5dc28f0416a47017...
Obviously SIGINT for a nation isn't a bad thing per se, but when they infringe on the core democratic principles of the state they claim to represent then that's just a disgusting abuse of power.
I do agree that there have been gross abuses of power committed over the past years, but this isn't necessarily something that should be the center of a debate on it. Especially since they aren't forcing you to apply to a job by participating in this challenge.
For instance, OP might have found it surprising that GCHQ would post such a challenge amidst all the controversy.
Place you bets now, heart attack or car crash?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Rising
Any person who cracks this should post it on a blog straight away just to undermine the whole process.
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/politics/surveillance.pdf
Perhaps GHCQ has found there is only a certain kind of people that would accept their challenge and still wish to work for them after all the leaks - the kind of person they need, the cold calculating moral-less bastards that will become our overlords because they have no conscience or willingness to live in a free democratic world.
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/bletchley.html
2910404C21CF8BF4CC93B7D4A518BABF34B42A8AB0047627998D633E653AF63A873C\
8FABBE8D095ED125D4539706932425E78C261E2AB9273D177578F20E38AFEF124E06\
8D230BA64AEB8FF80256EA015AA3BFF102FE652A4CBD33B4036F519E5899316A6250\
840D141B8535AB560BDCBDE8A67A09B7C97CB2FA308DFFBAD9F9
http://www.standard.co.uk/advertorials/gchq/
It would probably cost most of us more (in terms of what our time is worth) to solve this PR stunt than it would to just buy one of those boards new.
They walk you through cracking some basic codes, and step up from there.
The benefits of working there are simple: a job for life with enough money to pay the mortgage. Perfect if you want to start a family, bring up the kids in idyllic countryside, work sensible hours with a reasonable commute and retire with a pension worth having. You don't get this if you work in London! For a lot of people this is a pretty good deal, what surprises me is that GCHQ don't try to attract people on this basis.
One of my school friends that went to work for them was actually very bright, however, he was also the first to get into whatever drugs were available and he had a drinking problem before being legally allowed to buy the stuff (18 in the UK). A few years ago I was able to talk with him candidly about interception capabilities, e.g. the lengths one would need to in order to place a truly anonymous phone call. I was also able to chat about things in his domain, e.g. the practicalities of managing untold petabytes of data. He was not a completely leaking sieve, however, if he did have any secrets worth sharing then I am sure that an attractive girl with a four pack of lager would have been able to compromise him in a matter of minutes. He was borderline suitable for 'handling state secrets' (in my opinion).
Questioning his motivation, a lot of it came down to kiddie porn - of all things. He saw himself and the agency as the moral guardian that was saving the world from kiddie fiddlers and their evil ways. So the ethics of 'gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail' did not come into it - some of that mail could be kiddie porn!
As for my other school friends that worked there, they were borderline 'special needs', absent from the top class of maths and maybe 3-5 sets down in the maths pecking order. They were not super-bright by any stretch of the imagination. However, they were smart enough to hold the job down as they had not been given too many stellar opportunities elsewhere. Their lack of intellectual horsepower was an asset in that they would do their work, not ask too many questions and not spill the beans when plied with alcohol by some voluptuous lass.
However, I suspected that they were kept in the dark like mushrooms. They were not privy to the grand plan. They may have had 'dogsbody data entry' work that they just did until clocking off time. They did not have exciting work, hence all the more reason not to talk about it. But they did work on secret stuff, apparently, and that was ego-boost-worthy to them, or at least that was the exterior appearance.
Although anecdotal, what I do know is that GCHQ is not stuffed to the gills with super-smart code crackers that are more giftedly geniuser than you is. There are flawed characters and intellectual also-rans making up the numbers. Like any employer (except Google) they have challenges in attracting the best and brightest, but, for the bulk of their work, they don't actually need the truly gifted. Do-as-your-told types will suffice.
GCHQ can attract intellectual also rans for the 'data entry roles' by hiring locally, the deal being cosy job for life. But, to hire the really clever people needed that they really, really want, what is the hook?
I don't know what happened to the 'war on kiddie porn' but it is now something that the likes of the FBI and GCHQ aren't making a big song and dance about. As for the 'war on terror' that has been bogus since day one, like it or not there are no 'al-qaeda' terrorists out there (although there may be Somali pirates etc.). There is no 'Soviet threat' either. We can only guess as to what they really do, however, thanks to Snowden...
> GCHQ can attract intellectual also rans for the 'data entry roles' by hiring locally, the deal being cosy job for life. But, to hire the really clever people needed that they really, really want, what is the hook?
Of course GCHQ don't use geniuses for data entry, and most of the work is mundane and most people don't know much about what the other people are doing or where their work fits in.
What's the hook for the actual geniuses?
Imagine you have Asperger's (or similar), and want to work on interesting math with similar people in a comfortable environment. GCHQ is that place.
Your point about images of child sexual abuse is interesting. GCHQ / CESG provide information to the Government, so it's surprising to see such stupid commentary coming from government about images of child sexual abuse. "Google filters spam, why can't they filter images of child sexual abuse" being one paraphrased example of pure idiocy. I don't know how much information GCHQ provides to the Internet Watch Foundation. I hope there is some channel to push information to them or to law enforcement.
1) It keeps things secret, even from the people who work there
2) It claims it obeys the law and that it has strict oversight.
Thus, good people work there in the belief that they are working for an organisation that does not engage in mass surveillance of their fellow subjects. Those people did not know that oversight failed, or that some of the work was a mass surveillance programme of uk subjects.
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-43702630-1']); _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-43702630-2']); _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-43702630-3']); _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-43702630-4']); _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-43702630-5']);
A COMPUTER WOULD DESERVE TO BE CALLED INTELLIGENT IF IT COULD DECEIVE A HUMAN INTO BELIEVING THAT IT WAS HUMAN WWWDOTMETRODOTCODOTUKSLASHTURING
Now onto something a little more productive.
Answer 2: bletchley
Answer 3: ?
Answer 4: colossus
Answer 5: secured
Don't feel like supporting this recruitment drive, to be honest. GCHQ appears to be the rolling data buffer for the NSA...