No it isn't. I know plenty of self-taught people who are highly skilled and understand very complex systems. In this field more than probably any other, there's less reliance on "paper" credentials and formal education and people routinely achieve high knowledge/skill levels without all the formality.
As far as I'm concerned, his high-school education, or lack thereof, is a total red herring.
His lack of education is relevant because when you have at least some understanding of the depth of complex systems, it becomes very hard to imagine that a self-taught person has enough knowledge to speak competently about multiple such systems.
Not really. I'm just saying that some of the things that some people interpret as damaging his credibility, don't. At least in my opinion. His education, for example.
We also know about the NSA's operations from their open source projects like selinux and Accumulo. And given that context, it absolutely damaged his credibility when he suggests that there is some list of assets that he could read.
I'm fairly familiar with both SELinux and Accumulo, and I'm failing to see the connection. Keep in mind, an organization like the NSA is (presumably) fairly large, and probably very bureaucratic and probably had a hodge-podge of different rules, processes, procedures, etc. spread around. That the NSA can produce high-quality software products like SELinux or Accumulo, and still make a mistake in terms of how they grant security access (if there even was a mistake) seem like orthogonal issues to me.
I think you have to admit, if you've dealt with enough such people, that they are the exception -- the mean and floor of that population's technical capacity is lower than of the educated population, in my experience.
This is not my experience, and let me tell you why I think it's so.
First up - I was self-taught up to the time I went to (a humble) college, and proceeded to learn little, and instead wrote compilers and won programming competitions in my spare time; college was just a means to a piece of paper. I ended up working on the Delphi compiler at Borland before the tools division got sold; and am currently working for a financial software startup. Why did I go to a humble college? Because I had difficulties in what you might call high school, because all I was interested in was CS, and that was not a subject available to study.
Second, my experience is that all the best developers I've worked with got started in programming outside an academic context.
Thirdly, a hypothesis about selection; all the developers I've worked with who didn't have a formal CS education were very good, and one in particular was outstanding. I believe that having succeeded despite the lack of a certificate from an authority, they must have been better than the average drone. And they often had soft skills that made them yet more effective that semi-autistic logicians.
Now, I don't know where you're coming from, but the gist I'm getting from what you write is that you have a lot of ego wrapped up in credentials, for some reason. Maybe you were a grad student, maybe you still are. My industry experience is in contradiction to your own.
His education is completely irrelevant. His body odour (if he has it) is irrelevant. The size of his nose is irrelevant. if he was an axe murderer is irrelevant.
What is relevant is are those documents real. Since the government is not saying they are fake, clearly they are real.
That is what you should be talking about.
While I'm behind whistleblowers in general, and I agree with the linked article that completely irrelevant information is being used to smear Snowden, I do find a number of things suspicious. We know practically nothing about this guy, and it's not so easy to tease out true facts from what's currently available.
He comes across as a person who asks questions, a person with genuine curiosity. In fact, I'd say that his lack of high school diploma is actually a positive attribute in light of the fact that he was able to do his job enough to get paid $200k, i.e., the skills to perform his job came out of somewhere, didn't they? Without formal education, it shows that he picked them up himself. (On the other hand, the most robotic, unquestioning, confirming do-anything-for-social-glory types are almost always the "well-educated"; they perceive that they have a lot to lose by asking questions and have excelled at playing the hierarchical authority structure game, i.e., doing what pleases parents, teachers, professors, etc; in return for good grades and appreciation, which ultimately builds up to being the boss' pet in return for a good bonus).
Do we know what clearance he had?
Yes, he was a sysadmin. But, at what level?
And again, the fact that he did not have an "education" but was granted a $180K job speaks for itself on his professional capabilities.
So, balance is needed. Yes, on the two plates of the scale.
You are making my point -- we know nothing, very little, and what is known has numerous large red flags. Those flags would be obvious to most HN readers in another context, but emotions are high on this one -- it presses all of this crowd's persecution triggers.
You're painting the people involved as dishonest, which may or may not be true. But to assess that, the source of alternative information to be considered. And "elsewhere" is not a good source.
I didn't really expect to see such a statement about the necessity of community education and the impossibility of self-education on HN. You don't need to learn in a formal group setting in order to understand complex systems.
I don't think it serves anyone to think the worst of Snowden while at the same time thinking the best of the NSA. In both cases the reality is likely more towards the middle.
What, like 'cat /home/dirnsa/undercover_agents.txt'?
As for the question of how did he get a slideshow? I don't know, but it's not difficult to imagine that an attachment on an email is easier to access than a wiretapping database.
His lack of education is relevant because when you have at least some understanding of the depth of complex systems, it becomes very hard to imagine that a self-taught person has enough knowledge to speak competently about multiple such systems.
EDIT: let me amend this last statement, since so many people seem to want to focus on an extreme interpretation of it. Yes, very brilliant people do sometimes have no papers or letters backing up their knowledge. I think you have to admit, if you've dealt with enough such people, that they are the exception -- the mean and floor of that population's technical capacity is lower than of the educated population, in my experience.
Now your argument has to be that Snowden was exceptional -- where is the evidence for that? His pay? Who honestly believes salary is highly correlated with ability?