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Would You Hire A Hacker?

Posted by timothy on from the depends-on-circumstances dept.

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."

8 of 466 comments (clear)

  1. No, no, no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's not hacker! It's cracker. Hackers create, crackers destroy.

    -ESR (fake)

    Hacker != Cracker. How-to.

    1. Re:No, no, no! by ePhil_One · · Score: 5, Informative
      Yeah, I don't think this kid is all too bright compared to a lot of other hackers. I mean, for one, he got caught.

      For another, he's clearly subject to certain moral lapses.

      I've been given this opportunity before, an applicant admited to hacking into a company to demonstrate his abilities and knowledge; they hired him. While I recognized his potential to help secure our network, could I trust him not to monitor peoples mail for his own amusement, access private data like salaries, "attack" computers of folks he didn't like, or otherwise cause trouble?

      It took a slam dunk "Hire him" to a long debate, we wound up not making an offer.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
  2. Yes and No by nickgrieve · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hacker yes, Cracker No.

  3. Sure; (caveat) by Emugamer · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know a lot of people who are "Hackers" who work in IT... Hiring someone who writes worms and virii though? not bloody likely... Hackers aren't always malicious, and more then likely they know what they are doing with system administration then someone whore just reads a few FAQs and manuals...

  4. FAQ'ed and Answered already. by eddy · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Hacker FAQ.

    --
    Belief is the currency of delusion.
  5. I did hire a hacker! by Offwhite98 · · Score: 4, Informative

    And he worked out great. We both had similar skills and were able to hammer out a lot of code. We do not work together anymore, but I still work with hackers. If you do not enjoy pulling things apart to see how they work and hack them to do new things you should not be writing software.

    --
    Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
  6. you can hire dead people? by Anonymous+Cowpat · · Score: 2, Informative

    Harold Shipman committed suicide 9 months ago
    There must have been a better analogy than mentioning hiring a dead person

    --
    FGD 135
  7. Re:Why is he qualified? by theLOUDroom · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why on earth should we assume that someone who can break security has the slightest knowledge of how to fix security? I can break regular glass with a rock, but have no clue how to make shatter-proof glass.

    Sure, but some companies actually have more than one employee.

    They might have one guy who designs locks, and a SEPERATE PERSON who tries to break them.
    While a theif might not know how to design a lock, he could still be perfectly suited for a job as a tester.

    --
    Life is too short to proofread.