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[TheBiggerFish]

V&?

[Loud Whispers]

v& = vanned
Picked up in a van by feds because you did something very bad

[Bauglir]

Ah, sorry. "v&", read "vanned", refers to getting stuffed into the back of a black van by the authorities, never to be seen again. It's most commonly used to describe the alleged fate of those who post child pornography and get caught, if I recall correctly, but it has obvious applications if you want to talk about a police state.

[Rolan7]

V&?

Vanned.  By the government.  Related to but distinctly different from b&.  (ninja'd)

So, basically, Trump thinks of himself as the economic equivalent of the mythical nerd who gets a job at the NSA by breaking into their servers - "I'm doing this to show you why it shouldn't be possible, and you should reward me with the power to help stop it." Which about as plausible a scenario as anything he's actually said, given that actually trying that would get you v& even if you succeeded, so I suppose that's par for the (Trump-brand golf) course. There's something to be said for demanding that the system be changed so that he can't do that anymore, instead of demanding that people just stop abusing the system, but on the other hand I don't think there's a doubt in any of our minds that he's doing it because he likes money, and he's only embracing populism because it's easy votes.

That's how I interpreted his claim, yeah.
Though I can't speak as to the NSA, but hackers definitely get jobs at corporations and independently as penetration testers.  Even antivirus companies.

[Bauglir]

Absolutely, but not by breaking in unprompted. That's terribly illegal and will absolutely not get you a job - nobody wants to hire an unethical genius to run their security. Pentesting is something I want to do, actually, but I'm pretty sure that's the worst possible form of advertisement.

[wierd]

Ethical pentesters that do it independently create a test lab, then pentest the test lab.

Say you have a version of an HTTP daemon that you think may have a security weakness. You can either 1) Try to hack a wild server that somebody has production data on (STUPID.), or you can set up your own server using the exact same daemon, then pen test it inside the isolation of a local network, then report your findings. (Sane)

That is however, where this analogy breaks down. You cant just set up a test economy to test things like that.

[Loud Whispers]

Absolutely, but not by breaking in unprompted. That's terribly illegal and will absolutely not get you a job - nobody wants to hire an unethical genius to run their security.

In the UK and US a shortage of cybersec specialists actually resulted in the recruiting of captured hackers, whose options were go to prison for a long time or receive a well-paid job with good (no pun intended) job security

Pentesting is something I want to do, actually, but I'm pretty sure that's the worst possible form of advertisement.

I think they are less angered by a job application xD

Though really there are other avenues of employment, like Adrian Lamo who went from being homeless to an award winning journalist after coasting off the fame he got from hacking news peeps, and a lot end up starting / joining private security companies because having an infamous reformed hacker on your team makes your company sound sexy and tacticool

[smjjames]

Ethical pentesters that do it independently create a test lab, then pentest the test lab.

Say you have a version of an HTTP daemon that you think may have a security weakness. You can either 1) Try to hack a wild server that somebody has production data on (STUPID.), or you can set up your own server using the exact same daemon, then pen test it inside the isolation of a local network, then report your findings. (Sane)

That is however, where this analogy breaks down. You cant just set up a test economy to test things like that.

You can set up a simulated economy, but forget to plug in one factor or another (or plug it in incorrectly) and it may come out wrong.

Not sure if it can really be simulated reliably though because, despite somewhat predictable human behavior, theres so many factors.

[Reelya]

Well, also in a real world economy you can get unpredictable events that are outside any "factor". What if an earthquake hits, or a terrorist attack. The best you can do for that is to run your simulation a lot of times and throw random events in (like they do for weather forecasting), but you have to hope you've modeled things like the probability and effect of disasters properly.

[smjjames]

Plus theres the fact that an economy never exists in a total vacuum, theres always other economies and things happening to those economies.

[Loud Whispers]

The economy economizes economically on economies of economic economy

[smjjames]

Clintons email server: drip, drip, drip

Also, 'beyond top secret' is an actual classification? I shouldn't really be surprised, but I thought it was more of a hollywood thing.

edit: Also, Clinton indictment when?

[wierd]

I already went rounds with that earlier.  Yes. Her email server was in violation of standing policy prior to her tenure as secretary of state. Yes, the server was not properly secured. Yes, the server did not have proper oversight or data retention rules. Yes, the server was used to send highly classified correspondence. Yes, Clinton knew this and chose not to act. Yes, Clinton has been caught in bold-faced lies about this.


However, her supporters dont consider these offenses to be big deals, because CLINTON 2016!

indictment: Never

Next question.

[Frumple]

Just as soon as they actually find something to indict. Given the current record, odds seem to be good on "Never."

[Bouchart]

The Rosenbergs were executed for less.  Fortunately for Hillary, a stroke might do her in before she sees the electric chair.