Would You Hire a Former Black Hat?

Mark Zenson asks: "Understanding the mindset of a hacker and the likes of one may be useful to counter security attacks, but apparently companies still object to hiring former, or even reformed, black hats." The article asks this question of several executives in the industry and for various reasons, many of them were skeptical to the idea of hiring such people. Would you give black hats a second chance if you were in their position?

Comments

Re:It All Depends on Their Maturity

[russ1337]

Are these big companies likening it to hiring a reformed bank robber as a teller, or a paedophile as a teacher?

Anyway, I thought the biggest part of being a 'black-hat' was to keep your online identity COMPLETLY SEPARTE from your real life ID... A big company should have no idea they've employed a 'former' black hat - at least if they were any good at it. If they got caught then he/she might not have the attention to detail you require for an employee in that field.

Re:It All Depends on Their Maturity

[sgt scrub]

My observations as an old person by definition using your rules:

        * Can they work with people?
        * Can they dress well?
        * Do they shower?
        * Are they capable of staying after normal work hours every now and then to see to something getting finished?
        * Are they sensitive to other people and their surroundings?

Black Hat Hacker.
I am clean, charming, well dressed, always working, and my sensors are constantly monitoring people and places. I'm also perfectly cold and capable of taking every coin you own and are capable of borrowing. I will do this using my clean, charming, well dressed, and sensitive persona.

White Hat Hacker.
I showered today because I wasn't up all night playing WOW. Jeans, T-shirt, piercings, tatoos, uncombed long hair and beard are my personality, get over it. People are either cool or annoying. I try not to be around too many of them at one time but there is nothing wrong with that. Most of my friends are on IRC and WOW anyway. As long as I bang out enough code to meet my boss' requirements I'm golden.

Re:It depends.

[jlarocco]

I might be willing to hire one as a code monkey to churn out boring stuff that could easily be audited, but even then only if there were no other suitable applicants.

Yes, that's exactly what you want. A *bored* (ex)black hat hacker.