>enforces the culture of elitism in information security
The NSA is elite. Nobody has any business trusting you to outsmart them unless you are also elite.
This is like complaining that nobody will bet on you to defeat Gary Kasparov means there is a culture of elitism in chess. Of course there is. It's a game of skill. Other people are more skilled than you, by a lot, and you're probably going to lose.
> This is like complaining that nobody will bet on you to defeat Gary Kasparov means there is a culture of elitism in chess.
A closer analogy would be berating everyone who tries to play chess unless they studied it for years and they are professional and renowned chessographers. :)
Edit: If we're going to stretch the chess analogy further, it's important to note that the best chess players come from a very chess-positive culture, where many people grow up playing the game from a very young age.
Go ahead and play chess for fun, certainly, and you might become one of those grandmasters eventually, it's just that you shouldn't be betting people's privacy and potentially safety on the proposition that you already are one when you start.
The NSA is elite. Nobody has any business trusting you to outsmart them unless you are also elite.
This is like complaining that nobody will bet on you to defeat Gary Kasparov means there is a culture of elitism in chess. Of course there is. It's a game of skill. Other people are more skilled than you, by a lot, and you're probably going to lose.