How The NSA Plans To Recruit Your Teenagers

[twomp]

Kids across America no longer have to wait until college to plan on being a part of the National Security Agency. In fact, they could start preparing for their NSA careers as early as age 13.

The NSA has begun sponsoring cybersecurity camps for middle and high school students, agency recruiter Steven LaFountain told CNBC’s Eamon Javers in a recent interview. Six prototype camps launched this past summer, and the NSA hopes to eventually have a presence in schools in all 50 states.

The camps, LaFountain told CNBC, teach “low-level programming… where most cybersecurity vulnerabilities are” and sponsor activities like a “wireless scavenger hunt” in which 10th graders were dispatched to hunt down “rogue access points.” The general idea is to eliminate “threats out there on the Internet”

“The students are really, really into it,” LaFountain added.

This isn’t the first time the NSA has reached out to the youth of America. In 2010, the NSA introduced CryptoKids, animated characters tasked with the vital mission of informing kids about cybersecurity. And unlike Saturday morning cartoons, the CryptoKids are still going strong.

If the NSA wants to give its summer camp program the same longevity, it might think about bulking up the curriculum. Somehow, despite training kids in sophisticated techniques to defeat computer and network attacks, the agency’s curriculum is silent on one of the simplest, and highest profile, data breaches in NSA history. “I typically don’t talk to them about” Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked a vast trove of secrets, LaFountain said.

No word yet on if the curriculum offers students an Intro to Executive Order 12333 or gives them spark notes on using FISA warrants to surveil American activists.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...uit-teenagers/

[Christian Liberty]

https://www.phc.edu/si.php

[CPUd]

These camps are more in line with what NSA is supposed to be doing. If they are teaching low-level programming to 10th graders who are interested, I don't see how that's a bad thing. They are not all going to join NSA, probably very few of them will. I've seen low-level programming taught to college kids who are afraid of it, and they just stare at you.

[FindLiberty]

50-50 odds of good/bad may result from this (like DARE has/has not accomplished)...

It could even "program" future hackers/code kitties that grow up to resist nsa or
hack into ATMs. I bet they will be taking IDs and forever tracking everyone attending.

[acptulsa]

50-50 odds of good/bad may result from this (like DARE has/has not accomplished)...

It could even "program" future hackers/code kitties that grow up to resist nsa or
hack into ATMs. I bet they will be taking IDs and forever tracking everyone attending.

Well, that's fine too. If law enforcement doesn't encourage someone to embark on a life of crime, where will their job security come from?

[twomp]

These camps are more in line with what NSA is supposed to be doing. If they are teaching low-level programming to 10th graders who are interested, I don't see how that's a bad thing. They are not all going to join NSA, probably very few of them will. I've seen low-level programming taught to college kids who are afraid of it, and they just stare at you.

You may be right but in my opinion, 10th graders who are interested in programming would find their way to that field anyways. There is no need for government to "guide" them into that direction. I believe this just part of the NSA's plan to "bag and tag" any future programmers/hackers either to recruit them for work or to keep an eye out on them in case they try to dissent.

[LibForestPaul]

These camps are more in line with what NSA is supposed to be doing. If they are teaching low-level programming to 10th graders who are interested, I don't see how that's a bad thing. They are not all going to join NSA, probably very few of them will. I've seen low-level programming taught to college kids who are afraid of it, and they just stare at you.

Why programming? No other skills that can be taught ?

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Why programming? No other skills that can be taught ?

No other skills will matter in 30 years.

[idiom]

No other skills will matter in 30 years.

Its not the skill its the interest that is sparked and nurtured. Like Space camp or any other camp.

This is just a hacker camp. Its not an Orwell Camp. That's Camp David.

[CPUd]

Why programming? No other skills that can be taught ?

Programming is more than jut a skill. It can be used as a teaching tool to interact with things that are abstract, or too small / move fast to understand on their own. In a course about microprocessor design, you will learn, or will be expected to already know some flavor of assembly language (depending on what hardware you will be studying). Otherwise, stuff like ALUs and registers are just words- you really don't get the full picture of how everything works together.

If you don't understand it, it will look something like this:





If you do understand it, then it will look something like this:

[tod evans]

No other skills will matter in 30 years.

In 30 years I'll be drooling in the corner, if I'm still alive, but my son who's 10 now will have MANY more skills than button pushing!

[RonPaulIsGreat]

In 30 years I'll be drooling in the corner, if I'm still alive, but my son who's 10 now will have MANY more skills than button pushing!

Most people will have skills other than programming, they won't matter though in an economic sense.