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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."
That's not hacker! It's cracker. Hackers create, crackers destroy.
-ESR (fake)
Hacker != Cracker. How-to.
[O]ne IT Director [said] doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor
A little extreme on the allegories, aren't we? Virus writing is not exactly like taking out a knife and killing someone. (Although it may result in the shutdown of systems that support people's lives. I'd tend to blame this on the idiots who use Windows for those systems, though.)
As for hiring him, I think my answer would be "maybe". I certainly wouldn't hire him because of his transgressions, but rather despite them. Basically, everyone should be entitled to a second chance. If this employer believes that the guy has a lot of talent and is repentant of his past deeds, then give him another shot! He'll have to try damn hard to remove the stigma from his deeds, but try hard enough and he might just turn his life around.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It'd be more like hiring a doctor who was convicted of illegal cloning experiments to work on alternatives to organ transplants.
doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor
Well, if he's good with a knife..
Honestly though, if a hacker has payed his debt to society and now wants to help businesses prevent what he was doing(Kevin Mitnick), why not let them? Having the most knowledgeable person for the job might just save you from being hacked by someone else--as long as you can trust the person.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
What a loaded question?
Would I hire a worm-writing kid? No.
Would I hire a gray-hat security genius? Absolutely.
A security company might benefit from his experience, or even just the marketting angle "the best hackers work for us!"
In the field I'm in, he'd be a liability. We do government stuff, relating to law enforcement, and while we're not a bunch of angels, we don't want any skeletons in our closet either.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It might be nice while they're working for you, but if you piss them off(who hasn't been an employer and had an employee pissed off?) then they have inside knowledge about your company and the ability to hack.
On the other hand, I wouldn't consider these VBS writers "hackers". They are just glorified script kiddies. Don't reward that behavior.
Chris
Fear the day that you ever have to let him go.
I think it would depend on the QUALITY of the hack. A poorly written hack that breaks out in the wild, that causes unintended results would prevent me from hiring said person.
However, if the hack is an elegant piece of code, that does exactly and only what the author indended would be something I would consider.
Originality also would count. The creative nature of the hack would also weigh in. This prevents script kiddies from modifying existing hacks from the "application" for the job.
In otherwords, I would evaluate each hack and make judgements on the over all skill, novelty and execution of the hack, all skills needed for any programming job.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Note: I'm not saying that this chump is the best programmer around, I'm sure he's not. But if he's a great man for the job and can think of things that you and I won't, then I'm on.
Berto
There are PLENTY of information security white hats that are just as talented, if not more talented, than the black hats. If we are truly talking about hiring a "black hat cracker". Even if they were exceptionally skilled it would depend on the individual.
:)
They commited a computer crime. That is a liability, not an asset. All in all their benefits as a skilled IT professional would have to outweigh their liabilities (being busted for a computer crime). It is a factor that goes into the equation. I would say that in most cases it would be enough to lean me towards not hiring them. I think its a pretty serious thing to hack someone elses system. There are PLENTY of ways to make a name for yourself in a white hat way. Writing papers, studying info sec and staying on top of the field and becoming a noted voice in the communities is one. Ultimately if you need negative publicity to be known (and or hired) your just being lazy
Jeremy
The FBI hired Frank Abagnale Jr. as a counterfeit specialist and it turned out to be a good thing. Why? Because he was just a freaking teenage KID that happened to be misguided through lack of maturity. If this teen hacker was given a little direction and purpose with his life then he could steer everything completely around.
I can't believe that comment about hiring him being similar to hiring a serial killer as a doctor. The director that spoke that comment is an idiot.
I think I would look at what type of hacker they are.
Is it someone who knows systems inside and out and enjoys toying with them? Then definitely yes.
Is it a script kiddie who just took someone elses work and capitalized on it? Definitely not.
The issue is not about elitism, it's about attitude, someone who has gone to the effort to learn something and apply it is in a whole different world than someone who is so socially mal-adjusted they feel the need to tweak the latest worm to say "I RULEZ" and sends it back out.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
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/
Use of the term 'hacker' here is a misnomer. Would I hire someone who has a broad technical ability and excels in why things do and don't work? Absolutely. But allow me to go on a little old-man rant here (and hell, I'm in my 20s): viruses these days aren't what they used to be.
In the 1980s-1990s, you could pick up a copy of 2600 and read the code for a relatively complicated polymorphing boot sector virus -- complicated because it took a good knowledge of assembler, specific system calls, the boot process on a PC, etc., among other things. With a few tweaks, it would be slow-incubating, but deadly.
The internet has changed the way we deal with security, because no longer is the question "How clever is the virus?" so much as it is "How cautious is the user?" Example: the "Microsoft Office 2004 Beta" for Mac appeared on P2P networks a few months ago. When run, it deleted the contents of your user folder. Devastating, yes, but nothing I couldn't do myself without programming knowledge. So the 'virus' wasn't clever, tricky, or even unique in function, except for the method of delivery, which was social in nature -- not technical.
The same applies to security holes in your OS. Whether the hole should be patched is another discussion, but taking the obvious routes through those holes to bring down computers isn't particularly noteworthy. If everyone at my office has VNC installed without a password, and I go delete their My Documents folder at noon today, am I a hacker? No. I'm just a prick.
So when you ask, "would I hire a hacker?" Yes.
But when you ask, "would I hire someone who creates/uses something annoying and not that special; requiring a moderate level of programming skill if at all; that relies on the user to activate it or a major security flaw in the OS?" Absolutely not. These kids' salaries should be going to sociologists who can better analyze group behavior, and real coders, not scr1pt k1dd13z.
It is not about skill or knowledge, it is about "Can I trust this person?". If someone can write a virus, that might demonstrate good knowledge. Releasing the virus shows the person either did not think about the damage they would make, or worse, they did not care. I would not want someone like that in my company or organization. I happen to think those kinds of people belong in jail, because sooner or later they will do something as stupid as the common thug.
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
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!
All you script kiddies out there who are drooling, be warned that you probably wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting a TS/SCI security clearance.
Move along, certainly nothing to see here. BTW I second the post that the Mod's are gullible today. Of all days that I have no points.
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
The IT Director who made the Shipman comparison should be fucking fired. Just what kind of values does a man have when he equates a mass murderer with a teenage computer virus writer? My god, the kid is exactly that, a kid! He isn't a violent drug crazed sociopath, he's doing what many kids do, i.e. messing around to see what he can do and how far he can go, with the exception that he got caught.
This kind of fanatic mentality, where a stupid fucking computer (or a song or movie on the internet) becomes more valuable than people's lives, is a sad testament to the state of our society.
You think I'm over the top? Why is it that people who download songs from the internet get punished harder than the executives of corrupt and failing corporations?
If you give someone a chance, after he or she has messed up, especially as a teen, they might or might not do something useful with their lives. But if you dismiss them outright, you are condemning them for the rest of their lives.
Way to go fuckers.