Washington D.C. - The NSA is looking to hire skilled players of the game Guitar Hero to help the organization break a new encryption scheme created by the Al'Qaeda terrorist organization.
David Sampson of the NSA explained the technique to reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. “Al'Qaeda operatives have developed an add-on for Guitar Hero where they input an email message then play a song on Guitar Hero which creates a unique key for that message. The person receiving that message must match the notes of the sender's playing exactly to decrypt the message.”
At first, NSA specialists were baffled by the encryption scheme, but a videotaped message by Osama bin Laden gave them the clue they needed. “Osama said 'o all my followers out there. I want you to rock and roll all night and party every day.' That was the clue that we needed to make the connection,” said Sampson.
The NSA usually hires people with strong math and science backgrounds and “competence in Guitar Hero hasn't been a strong factor in hiring employees until now.” The NSA has been attracting applicants through ads on Craig's List and Monster.com.
Many college graduates have faced a tough job market, so the openings have attracted a lot of attention. Avi Carlisle, who received a degree in Women's Sociology from NYU and has had trouble getting a job, said, “That's awesome. I knew my Guitar Hero skills would get me a job eventually, but I didn't expect it to be something like this. Eat it Mom!”
Many critics of video games have tried to link them with terrorism before, but also assumed it would be with violent games like Counter-Strike or Destroy All Capitalist American Infidels.
Sampson shared one interesting fact about the encryption scheme. He said, “The most frequently used songs for the terrorists have been Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Jukebox Hero by Foreigner.”
Sampson suspects that once Al'Qaeda learns that the code has been cracked that they may move to a more complicated scheme using the game Rock Band.
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