{"id":31035,"date":"2013-07-01T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=31035"},"modified":"2015-05-06T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T08:00:11","slug":"facebooks-former-security-chief-now-works-for-the-nsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/07\/facebooks-former-security-chief-now-works-for-the-nsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook&#8217;s Former Security Chief Now Works for the NSA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>About a year after Facebook <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticwire.com\/technology\/2013\/06\/nsa-prism-program\/65994\/\" >reportedly<\/a> joined PRISM, Max Kelly, the social network&#8217;s chief security officer left for a job at the National Security Agency, either a curious career move or one that makes complete sense. The Chief Security Officer at a tech company is primarily concerned with keeping its information inside the company. Now working for an agency that tries to gather as much information as it can, Kelly&#8217;s new job is sort of a complete reversal.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook, among other tech companies, has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticwire.com\/technology\/2013\/06\/facebook-asking-permission-disclose-more-nsa-data-requests\/66253\/\" >distanced<\/a> itself from the government, claiming it only cooperates when it is legally required to. But, &#8220;current and former industry officials\u00a0say the companies sometimes secretly put together teams of in-house experts to find ways to cooperate more completely with the NSA and to make their customers&#8217; information more accessible to the agency,&#8221; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/06\/20\/technology\/silicon-valley-and-spy-agency-bound-by-strengthening-web.html?pagewanted=2&amp;_r=2&amp;partner=rss&amp;emc=rss&amp;\" >report the <i>New York Times<\/i>&#8216;s James Risen and Nick Wingfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Before Kelly \u2014 who once worked at the FBI \u2014 took the job at the NSA, he indicated a coziness with the government. Three weeks after leaving the network in 2010, he made a speech at the Defcon hacking conference that argued greater cooperation between places like Facebook and military defense. &#8220;Commercial entities and the military are dealing with the same problem,&#8221; \u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/venturebeat.com\/2010\/07\/30\/facebooks-former-top-security-officer-says-military-and-commercial-cyberdefense-should-be-united\/\" >he said<\/a>. &#8220;They should both understand their roles in the larger picture. There isn\u2019t enough information shared.&#8221; There he was more specifically addressing cyber-attacks from places like China, which as he predicted <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticwire.com\/technology\/2013\/02\/facebook-hack\/62210\/\" >has turned into a national security issue<\/a>. But, his speech also indicates that he thinks these two, at times opposed, industries should work together.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unclear what Kelly exactly does at the NSA \u2014 he might have a job that has nothing to do with PRISM. Though, the\u00a0<i>Times<\/i> report suggests the feds recruited him because of his Silicon Valley ties. &#8220;To get their hands on the latest software technology to manipulate and take advantage of large volumes of data, United States intelligence agencies invest in Silicon Valley start-ups, award classified contracts and recruit technology experts like Mr. Kelly,&#8221; they write.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook linked up with the NSA for PRISM in June of 2009, according to the slide below. Kelly left almost a year to date after that \u2014 though it&#8217;s unclear if he went right to the NSA. This <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/venturebeat.com\/2010\/07\/30\/facebooks-former-top-security-officer-says-military-and-commercial-cyberdefense-should-be-united\/\" >Venture Beat<\/a> report calls him a &#8220;civilian&#8221; three weeks after his departure. The feds may have wanted him for his <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/s\/article\/9175464\/Facebook_beefs_up_site_against_hackers\" >cybersecurity expertise<\/a>. Or, maybe that plus his connections made him the perfect NSA recruit.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticwire.com\/technology\/2013\/06\/facebooks-former-security-chief-now-works-nsa\/66432\/\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-31036\" alt=\"prism\" src=\"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/prism1-300x224.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/prism1-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/prism1.jpg 623w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticwire.com\/technology\/2013\/06\/facebooks-former-security-chief-now-works-nsa\/66432\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 theatlanticwire.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About a year after Facebook reportedly joined PRISM, Max Kelly, the social network&#8217;s chief security officer left for a job at the National Security Agency, either a curious career move or one that makes complete sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}