Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The World (Wide Web) Is Not Enough

Fancy a life of international intrigue and espionage? Then get back to Superpoking and wall-posting on your Facebook account. The Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, has recently launched a series of ads on the popular social networking site for the recruitment of future would-be spies, asking its 124,000,000 users if they would take to a "career in world events". 

Among the skills sought in a potential candidate are communications, data ordering, and even "attention to detail"--which is pretty routine to a seasoned Facebooker. Between managing one's friends lists, organizing media and applications, and rifling through countless posts and messages, running a Facebook account has become an exercise akin to "collecting and analyzing global intelligence." The techie is no longer typecast as the socially inept recluse holed up in some basement whittling the hours away on an IRC trivia channel. Technological awareness has become inextricably linked with social adeptness, and it would seem that MI6 has taken notice. 

The MI6 Facebook profile provides links to some mock scenarios which simulate real-life recruitment tools. Turns out I'm better suited to an administrative desk job than field work as an operational officer/agent. Not quite as espionage-ey as I was hoping.

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