Not a new topic - few years ago, the Jen Easterly-era CISA made a hard recruiting pitch at defcon. Patriotism and service-messaging one might recognize from their own time in the military.

What was surprising was the intense applause from a hacker con to this pitch.

Given what was to come, also notably absent discussion from the audience or speaker about how working for CISA did or did not mean working for DHS. Assurances of firm segmentation on this aspect from speakers after the formal talk ended were similarly a bit weak.

Not that anything was inherently bad about her recruiting pitch, but for a hackercon, it was a bit close to the flagpole. And notably that CISA crew is “no longer at CISA” and under prosecution, or intense social pressure, or otherwise.

Feels worth evaluating!

Spooks have been doing keynotes for a few years now. The so-called hackers are on toes, because deep down they wish to be daddy'd up to get to do some silly, secret-type shit. Contrary to the past, when spooks despised computer people (that's how cypherpunk came about.) On the other hand, Clearances are not what they used to be, too; every fart having to do with computers, analysis, collection is classed TS by default.