Comment by tw04
14 hours ago
I for one, after doing a bit of reserach, was shocked to find out the person in question is apparently completely unqualified for the job (if him pasting sensitive information into public ChatGPT didn't already make that abundantly clear). But the highlight from his Wikipedia page is this one:
>In December 2025, Politico reported that Gottumukkala had requested to see access to a controlled access program—an act that would require taking a polygraph—in June. Gottumukkala failed the polygraph in the final weeks of July. The Department of Homeland Security began investigating the circumstances surrounding the polygraph test the following month and suspended six career staffers, telling them that the polygraph did not need to be administered.[12]
So the guy failed a polygraph to access a highly controlled system full of confidential information, and the solution to that problem was to fire the people in charge of ensuring the system was secure.
We're speed running America into the ground and half the country is willfully ignorant to it happening.
Polygraphs have to be one of the most awkward / bizarre requirements for accessing a program. They are not scientifically reliable.
There is a reason why nobody uses them but the U.S.
The US uses them more pervasively it seems, but there's still remnants of it elsewhere.
The UK uses them for post-conviction monitoring in certain offenses: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sent... ...and there's more than one British polygraph group: BPA and BPS (https://www.britishpolygraphassociation.org/, https://polygraph.org.uk/)
Australia did indeed reject the polygraph for security clearance: https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2006/10/19/australian-securit...
Canada however does seem to use it as part of their intelligence screening: https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corpo...
> Do I have to go through the polygraph test to join CSIS?
> Yes. All CSIS employees must obtain a Top Secret security clearance and the polygraph is a mandatory part of the process.
Seems to be the same for CSE and to get "Enhanced Top Secret" clearance.
Back to the US, the Department of Labor says that private employers can't force people to undergo a polygraph test: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/polygraph But of course this does not apply to public sector jobs, where it's used more pervasively.
They're somewhat effective at stopping people applying if those people know they will have to lie
Not defending the buy but completely might be inaccurate. He has a masters in comp sci eng. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala
I do realize this scholastic achievement is not indication he knows what he is doing.
And an MBA. He seems like a lot of people I know who skim through their technical degrees just to get the credentials. And my experience is that Masters is often easier to get than a Bachelors.
Anyway what he did makes it abundantly clear that this person should not be head of security for anything.
A polygraph isn't a competency test.
It's a person reliability test and he failed it.
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meh diploma mill is a dime a dozen in University of India
It’s from UT Arlington - does that even count?
They aren't willfully ignorant, they're cheering it on.