Slashdot Mirror
Would You Hire A Hacker?
theodp writes "A German security company has divided opinion in the IT industry by offering a job to the teen charged with creating Sasser. Silicon.com asks its CIO Jury: Would you hire a hacker? and finds the jury split down the middle, with one IT Director saying doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor Harold Shipman to treat your ailing and aged mother."
Fear the day that you ever have to let him go.
mmm honey
I give up, what sort of stuff do you do at National Endowment for the Arts?
It's amazing to me what kind of gullible suckers the mods are around here.
Hear hear! I can't stand how many people keep making this simple mistake. By calling destructive computer criminals "hackers," you're bringing down everybody who codes for the love of it. Lots of us have been calling ourselves hackers for years, only now to get painted with this negative brush.
I don't expect the mainstream press to know any better, but this is Slashdot. Can we please try to keep our definitions straight?
A hacker is a skilled, passionate computer programmer -- nothing more.
A person who commits malicious computer crimes is a biscuit. Like those evil software pirates who walk around with those parrots on their shoulders: "Polly want a biscuit!" Get it right, people.
Breakfast served all day!
one IT Director saying doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor Harold Shipman to treat your ailing and aged mother.
Being that Shipman is dead, it would be really stupid to hire him for anything.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
7/11 doesn't ever close. You can spend time trying to pick the lock, but I think i'd probably just try the door first.
You only think you work for the N*A.
Ever watch a TV show called Alias?
My employer does...
Not any more, you are fired! I have told you not to post on slashdot...
Yours ex-Boss
It sounds exciting working for the NRA.
Hmmm, how many other organizations start with "N" and end in "A" that have nothing to do with computers?
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Having a clue on security is apparently against their policy.
./lxnt
I rememebr years ago the strident arguments on IRC: "No No! this is NOT some AOL 'room'. This is a CHANNEL!"
We need a new word that denotes a good or cool hack, or hacker. I propose "mugwump" but am open to reasonable suggestions...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
We had a lesser, but similar situation at the company where I work. This guy applied for a programming job, and his entire coding experience consisted of writing spamming tools.
He'd openly, and seemingly without shame, listed all his spammer tools on his CV (resume for you over-the-pond types)
I desperately tried to get the guy doing the recruiting to hire him, just so I'd get an opportunity to beat the shit out of the filthy bastard.
Best logging system for super secure systems I ever heard of.
A good old fashion linefeed dot matrix printer... so a cracker may at some point be able to disable the feed, but if you were tracking them on the way in there's no way to cover their footprints electronically.
If the "poor white crackers in the southern US" aren't destructive, then why are there bullet holes in the mailbox?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
As in "Last night I mugwumped your sister".
It's more like hiring the Hells Angels to provide security at your concert. That being said, it still doesn't sound like the best idea.
Geeze you kids.
This is the way we actually used to do it. You ended up with with stacks of 14" wide greenbar paper literally feet high at the end of the week. Changed the ribbon all the time. Hell, we knew how to service the damned print head ourselves.
If the resource you're protecting is important (in the days of ultraexpensive computers it was), the effort is worthwhile.
And don't get me started on punch cards. You could stuff a futon with the dots you cleaned out of the machines in a month.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You should probably add to your defintion there a part about the person calling you a hacker actually knowing what the hell they're talking about... because by your current wording, i'd be a hacker. I'm not. My boss occasionally refers to me as "hacker" at work (other choice nicknames are "Dell", "Pentium", and "Bum-bum-bum-bum!" which is supposed to be the chimes from the Intel commercials. He tried to call me "Compaq" one time but I gave him a dirty look so he doesn't do that anymore).
:D
My hacking skills that impressed him so? Tracking down a missing document on the company network (thanks to my amazing ability to press 'ctrl+f') so we could copy it to a floppy disc for safekeeping.
Last month I taught him to say "leet" (1337). I was so proud!