| Author | Message | ||
     Gregtonn |
Anybody read the book Black List by Brad Thor yet? If you have any doubts that the NSA spying thing is bad you should read it. I'm about a third of the way through and it scares the crap out of me. Makes me wonder why they summoned me for two days of testing many years back. G | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Who's this "they" who summoned you? can you really be sure that "they" were really who "they" purported to be? Did they smell funny? and this testing, did it leave you feeling uncomfortable in unusual places? Did you wake up somewhere completely different from where they took you? Aliens!! quick quick fetch me the tinfoil before they catch me again. | ||
| Hootowl |
Put your tinfoil away. The book is a work of fiction. Looks interesting though. I may buy a copy. Thanks for the lead  I'm always looking for a good author. Blazing through 'A Memory of Light', so I'm almost out of reading material. | ||
| Gregtonn |
Was humor Grumps? Sometimes Brit humor goes right over my head. I was working on a TS project in the Silicon Valley in CA. One day my boss said I was to report to the security office. They handed me a packet with a plane ticket, hotel reservation and rental car reservation. The instructions in the packet said a car would take me to the airport next week and I was to report to a building at the National Security Agency in Linthicum, MD. No probes but lots of hours filling in the dots and interviewing. Yes I think I was summoned. G | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
I've just finished "The Long Earth" by Terry Pratchett & Steven Baxter, an excellent read. Just started "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman. (He who wrote "American Gods" which is an awesome book.) | ||
| Hybridmomentspass |
by buying that book youre now on another list....  For non-fiction - Check out George Friedman "America's Secret War" its just good, not about the spying exactly, but what our country does to prop up some other groups for war etc Focuses on our involvement in Afghanistan with the Taliban in during the Russia stuff And how that is why 9/11 happened and our current war. Friedman rules. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
"Three Days Of The Condor".....  | ||
| Aesquire |
Just picked back up "The Peshawar Lancers" http://www.amazon.com/The-Peshawar-Lancers-S-Stirl ing/dp/0451458737 Alt-history, and a fine understanding of period attitudes, tech, and warfare. Awaiting the next one in this series. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_6?url=sea rch-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=honor+harrin gton&sprefix=honor+%2Cstripbooks%2C288#/ref=sr_kk_ 3?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Ahonor+harrington+series+ in+order&keywords=honor+harrington+series+in+order &ie=UTF8&qid=1372129248 Honor Harrington is classic Wooden Ships and Iron Men with Starships, top notch Highly recommended. For Spy novels, A long time favorite is the ultimate sendup of James Bond. Matt Helm. While the movies with Dean Martin play off Bond the party guy, The original novels make Bond look like an idiot. Matt Helm is gritty, scary realistic, with tradecraft lifted straight out of the OSS handbooks. http://www.amazon.com/Matt-Helm-Wrecking-Donald-Ha milton/dp/0857683365/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qi d=1372129356&sr=1-3&keywords=matt+helm My Father's a big Brad Thor fan. Good stuff. | ||
| Pwnzor |
Grumpy, you have good taste in reading material. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors and American Gods is one of the great books of our time. In my opinion. | ||
| Airbozo |
I am surprised that so many people are "surprised" that the NSA and/or our government would be doing this. The NSA has been monitoring all of our phone calls since the early 70's. Cell phones and the internet have just made it that much easier. If I could tell you some of the stuff that took place when I was in the Navy, you would think I was quite nuts. When I was working for SGI, I helped open the new campus they built (which is now the main Googleplex), we had one data center in our building that had a direct connection to Mae West. Almost over night a secure cage popped up in that location (complete with motion detectors, heat detectors and weight sensors on the floor tiles), and some of the gear was SGI supercomputers and some were Cisco switches. When we asked questions about that cage, all of the engineering access to that room was cut off, the door locks changed and the room itself was reconfigured (I assume to limit access and hide stuff). This was not a surprise to me since I have worked with the government many times, but it irked my management since they got zero notice and absolutely no explanation. I am pretty positive that room is still occupied with similar gear despite what Google says. (it's good to have friends in most of the Silicon Valley companies) |
