FBI Need Potheads To Fight Cybercrime

An anonymous reader writes "The rate of cybercrime is growing and growing, and law enforcement is struggling to keep up. The FBI is in the process of beefing up its headcount, but they're running into a problem: many of the hackers applying for these jobs have a history of marijuana use, and the agency has a zero tolerance policy. FBI Director James Comey said, 'I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview.' However, change may be on the horizon: Comey said the FBI is changing 'both our mindset and the way we do business.' He also encouraged job applications from former pot users despite the policy."

Comments

Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[davydagger]

Wait a second, I thought potheads were worthless burnouts who will never amount to anything?

Looks like one bullshit stereotype driven war is affecting our ability to fight another bullshit stereotype driven war.

The irony is fucking killing me.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you have, you just don't know it because they aren't advertising that they smoke.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

When has admitting that you smoke pot to a law enforcement officer ever turned out to be "good" for you? Seriously, if you hack and smoke pot, don't work for the FBI. Not until pot becomes legal everywhere in the US.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Pot use just doesn't happen in this industry.

...and there are no gays in Iran. Right. :-)

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an accomplished software developer, i smoke pot, i make 6 figures have a family and kids. I have many friends who smoke pot, they include directors of large telecommunications companies, several engineers of different disciplines, and of course other developers. We all have nice houses, cars some of us have boats, yachts and horses. We all hang out and smoke pot together, work on recreational software/hardware projects some private some public, some open source some closed.

We have an uncanny ability to find our own kind like most other subcultures and like many we don't advertise it.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[sjames]

Or they all detected your attitude and so didn't mention it.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[Immerman]

More likely you're a straight-laced prude that no professional who smoked would reveal themselves to for fear of being turned in to the authorities. If I were to guess from my own experiences I'd say somewhere around 20-40% of computer professionals I've known smoke at least on the weekends - more among the creative programmer types.

Ask yourself this - how many computer professionals would you estimate drink alcohol? Now, how many of those would you be able to guess if they never mentioned the fact around you? And how many do you suppose would mention the fact in your presence if it were illegal? The fact is you can't tell what drugs somebody uses just by looking at them, unless they are heavy addicts. A stoner, drunk, etc. is obvious, but they're never going to make it in the professional world anyway. The responsible users who have a glass of wine or smoke a bowl after dinner look just like everyone else once they sober up.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

A financially successful pot smoker admits to smoking pot on an article about pot smoking in which other people claim that pot smokers aren't useful to society. Yet you are implying that somehow his comment is out of place and unwarranted.

I think you're the one being unreasonable.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[mrxak]

This whole "problem" the FBI has would be solved by legalization. It would solve a lot of other problems, too, like our overcrowded prisons and a fair bit of untaxed organized crime.

I've never smoked marijuana, and I don't think I've ever even smelled it. If it was suddenly legal tomorrow, I probably wouldn't become a major pothead (and neither would anyone else who isn't already). I still support legalization. It is such a waste to keep marijuana illegal. It should just be like alcohol or tobacco, both of which are more dangerous and addictive than marijuana.

We all know how alcohol prohibition turned out. Everybody can see how marijuana prohibition is turning out. Everyone who wants to can still get their hands on it, and it's only encouraged a black market largely run by organized crime. The FBI complaining they can't hire any good cyber security experts is just the latest in a long line of absurdities resulting from this nonsense.

Can we please get whatever equivalent to the twenty-first amendment it'll take to end the madness over reefer?

Yes, I went there.

Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs?

[dunkelfalke]

Being financially successful is not the same thing as being useful to society. In fact, often enough people who are harmful to society are financially successful.

Interview on Weed?!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to smoke weed just to make it to the interview I seriously doubt you'll be able to do the job. Some recreational usage might be fine but it you need it to just get out of your apartment to go to a job interview then you have issues and problems that should disqualify for most any job out there.

Re:Interview on Weed?!

[Shados]

Unrelated to the topic, but being qualified for the job and being qualified for the interview is 2 totally different things in the IT and software development field, since there's so many bad interviewers out there.

I wish I could screen for the interview before agreeing to do it. Would save me a lot of trouble.

Drunk

[dickplaus]

Look I'm all for allowing them to smoke on their own time, but I don't show up to interviews or work buzzing off of a couple bloody marys. Relax the drug screenings yes, but showing up high? That's just immature IMHO.

Re:Drunk

[Jmc23]

About as immature as all those people showing up to work buzzed on caffeine.

Different bodies function differently. Just like the majority of people need something to speed them up, some people need something to slow them down.

Re: I call BS

[dickplaus]

Must be true. You are statistically significant.

Re:I call BS

[x0ra]

Let me guess. You probably dress in a shirt with a tie and wear some clean pants. On casual Friday, you *might* switch to a polo. Guess what ? You might not be what the FBI is looking for..

Re:I call BS

[Pax681]

I've been programming professionally for just over thirty years, and in that time I got a BS in Comp Eng in 1993 and a MS in Comp Sci in 2001. I have never even seen pot. I can't remember ever hearing anyone in this field mention using it. It just isn't common in our field. Of course when I was hiring for a new janitorial position here, I couldn't find a single male that could pass the drug test so it appears to be only the uneducated that use it.

that's because all the people who DO smoke it KNOW you are a prick and thus don't mention it near you

Re:ended pretty much by the end of the 80s

[TrekkieGod]

A combination of forces has pretty much made the liquid lunch history(at least in technical fields). Neoprohibitionists (MADD, which is no longer about driving, but about drinking, per se), employer paranoia about "impaired employees", etc.

Not really. I have a beer at lunch once in a while. I do so in plain view of my boss. The way some of you guys describe jobs, I really wonder why you don't leave. You're in a technical field, jobs really aren't that hard to find. Take a pay cut, go work for a startup, get more freedom. Still a ton of work and insane hours, but you're not going to get your boss writing you up for an official warning from HR because you had a beer during lunch.

Now, though, you get text messages during your (working) lunch asking for a response "soonest", and somehow I think that if you texted back "sorry, getting a couple pints with the guys, get back to you tomorrow", the next text would be "we'll ship your stuff to you at the last address you had on file with HR".

Holy shit, tomorrow?? Yeah, I wouldn't blame them for firing you in that case, I would too. The guy you're responding to said a couple of drinks, not get plastered and blow the afternoon off. Somehow I think if you instead texted back, "sorry, I'm currently at lunch. I'll get to it as soon as I'm back in the office," it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It's still a workday, dude.

Why is it still illegal?

[Hamsterdan]

Seriously... Ever see a stoner get violent? Many drunks get violent, yet alcohol is legal. Weed is not the same as hard drugs, and more people than you think indulge (or have indulged) in the stuff.

Besides, if you use a vaporiser, it's not that harmful, and I don't think weed kills more brain cells than beer.