A conversation on TED.com: Why don't hackers get jobs in government agencies and security companies?

Conor Palin-Stewart
Dublin
Ireland

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Why don't hackers get jobs in government agencies and security companies?

Why don't hackers get jobs in government? even thought these hackers leave worm holes in systems afar they have patched them, why doesn't a government body such as the FBI employ them to test and deploy new security systems so that the sensitive information which they are holding remain secret? Do you agree that this could turn their live around? would you take that risk if you worked in a government agency?

Related Talks:

Misha Glenny: Hire the hackers!

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Andrea Grazzini Walstrom 30+
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Sep 17 2011: Conor,

Hackers do get jobs in government security and security companies, as intelligence and/or counterintelligence agents.

I'm not sure it necessarily means their hacker-tendecies disappear. I think there is a certain mischievousness most posses that is satisfied by the act of breaking a code. But if this mischievousness can be distracted and redirected to breaking the code of the a threading other, this might be all they need to satisfy breaking through others perceived boundaries.

Andrea
- Mark Meijer 100+
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  Sep 17 2011: As Shava has pointed out, as I also did in a comment on the related talk page, hacker does not mean criminal. Originally the word was used simply to refer to talented programmers. Bill Gates is a hacker (I know this remark might net me some rotten vegetables, and I don't like him any better, but I'm trying to make a point). It doesn't even refer necessarily to people who break codes or whatever else you would consider mischievous.
  
  Programming is a creative art in many respects, and some people have a particular knack for it. Those people are called hackers, plain and simple. Nobody would easily confuse a painter with a criminal, but then again the world doesn't run so much on canvas as it does on computers. That's the only reason hackers have been in a better position to do good as well as harm, than painters traditionally have. Not all artists spray graffiti on walls, and what's more, not everyone who sprays stuff on walls is an artist.
  
  All those negative connotations to the word hacker are not inherent in the concept of a talented programmer, but inherent in the one-sided, fear-laden media exposure they've received over the past decades.
  - Andrea Grazzini Walstrom 30+
    
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    Sep 17 2011: Mark,
    
    I agree with you the skills hackers are those of problem solvers. They break codes to solve the challenge of accessing new developments, whether these developments are for good or evil intent.
    
    There are large groups of hackers that hack for the "common good" or, as you say, for corporate advancements. Sometimes they are trying to figure out how someone else does something to reverse engineer concepts.
    
    Provided they honor intellectual property rights, this is generally considered part and parcel of the tech industry, if not good for it. This is where open source comes in. Though it is notable that open source implies willful sharing of information while hacking usually doesn't.
    
    That said, as any technologist -- and, yes, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, et all are well-known examples, who as a child took apart an old radio, computer or car knows, the sheer act of deconstructing something can help deeper understandings of systems for future expertise and innovations.
    
    The difference between an uninvited hacker and a curious kid is that the kid is deconstructing something they own. And hackers don't always own the code they are breaking. This is when things become problematic.
    
    Andrea
    - Mark Meijer 100+
      
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      Sep 17 2011: Please pay specific attention to my mention of the word "creative". You still appear to think of hacking as "taking stuff apart", while the original meaning was probably a lot closer to "slapping stuff together". What you refer to as code breaking is called cracking.
  - Andrea Grazzini Walstrom 30+
    
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    Sep 17 2011: Mark --
    
    Yes. Agreed,
    
    Hacking is a creative act.
    
    By creating an algorithm that (even if it already exists in an undiscovered form) solves whatever the programmer is trying to solve. The programmer creates a solution.
    
    Reverse engineering and/or cracking, however, is nearly always an element in engineering new algorithms.
    
    Even if is as simple as remembering some prior-art and/or simple sequence one learned while dinging around in his or her parents garage.
    
    Andrea
    - Luigi Vampa
      
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      Sep 17 2011: Andrea let me asure you and to others without any doubt that hackers are IN the security agencies and institutions.
    - Mark Meijer 100+
      
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      Host Associate
      
      Sep 17 2011: Sure. Pretty much anything and everything builds upon something prior. Which is incidentally also an argument against the current state of affairs with regards to copyright and patent legislation.
Cole Barnshaw
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Sep 17 2011: Because working for a corporation would undermine the entire point of being what you call a "hacker" and what I call an artist.
Shava Nerad 10+
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Sep 16 2011: I only did the funding paperwork in part, and a lot of PR and such, but thanks! Tor (https://torproject.org) is a something I am extraordinarily proud to have been part of (and continue to be part of as a volunteer).

Yes, I agree that the prejudice against hackers is great, but part of it is the framing of the word. By using hackers as meaning "people who use computer skills for criminal ends" he is perpetuating the use of the word in a way that the prejudiced public uses it.

Hacker did not used to mean a person who uses skills maliciously, and does that mean that within its own culture today. It's rather like when I moved to North Carolina, and having helped a woman in the support staff at UNC Hospitals for months with her computer problems, long enough to gain some friendship and trust, she felt she could ask me a question: "What do you call a Jew when you are being polite?"

This woman, growing up in white rural NC, had never hear the term "Jew" in a non-perjorative context. So she wanted to ask me, a yankee Jewish girl, what my own term for my people was, so she could call me something nice.

Well, hey howdy.

You know what? I would like it if people like MIsha opened his talk like this: "What do you think of when you think of hackers? Do you think of poorly socialized boys in their mom's basements at 40? Do you think of criminals? Well, this is a hacker..." And have a slide show showing men in military uniform and gray hair, and beautiful young women with very short hair and amazing tattoos, and young women working together on hacking-for-good projects at a hackathon, and young people of ten skin colors and nationalities, and so on. And *THEN* come back to how young Aspies are being exploited by criminal syndicates, and need to be targeted for intervention before they are exploited.

Wouldn't that have been a better talk?

All good things to Misha. But he sees my peeps through McMafia colored mirrored shades.
- Mark Meijer 100+
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  Sep 17 2011: Sure, I get what you're saying. As I watched the beginning of the talk, one of the first things that went through my mind was: "Belittling, fear mongering hit piece..."
  
  But I'm glad I kept on watching to discover that wasn't his intention at all, and this made all the difference. And so I was forced to admit the color of my own shades. Oops, had I just done, without realizing it, that of which I had already convicted Misha in my mind? Yes! And how easily it goes unnoticed.
  
  If you are in fact correct in assuming so much about where Misha is coming from, then that makes it all the more admirable that he is actually trying to challenge those preconceptions at all, privately as well as publicly. That's the kind of stuff that especially needs encouragement. Not only because it's difficult enough on itself, but because it's an example for others to follow.
  
  We're talking now about preconceptions specifically with regards to "hackers", but of course as your "jew" example illustrates, this goes for preconceptions of any kind.
Comment deleted
Gisela McKay 30+
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Sep 14 2011: In addition to chiming in with the "they already do" chorus, I'd like to add that a certain subset end up with records (even if it was just a matter of exploration that resulted in probation) that sometimes precludes them from the requisite security clearance.
tishe Hires 10+
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Sep 14 2011: Hi there, they are already working for the governments. It is a good question. Answer, they are there. So,, "would you take that risk if you worked in a government agency?" umm, the hackers are there. The FBI, is behind in the times. If I was smart enough to elude the "powers to be",, I would take the chance. One simple reason, to show them, just how stupid they are. I apologize, if I offended anyone.
- Conor Palin-Stewart
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  Sep 14 2011: i see what you mean, and its a great point, Its like a form of non violent protest, basically "sticking it to the man" by showing how weak the security of these supposedly secure agencies are
Shava Nerad 10+
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Sep 14 2011: Misha's remarks are completely bizarre in places.

Nearly every security professional is also a hacker. Nearly every security conference has hackers cheek by jowl with the security consultants and executives and various because there are no bright boundaries -- it's a skill set, it's what you do with it. Look, a sheepdog and a wolf and a coyote are all canines, right?

Anonymous is a pack of happy canines running under a full moon. There are a few really clever wolves and a bunch of dogs pretending they are wolves who are really on leashes in their parents basements, and a few coyotes who wish that they were wolves but don't have the class.

99% of Anonymous are what we call "script kiddies" -- people whose limit of hacking is the ability to run a script, or load up a piece of software (usually malware, sadly) and hit a button. These are the people who get arrested.

Most real security consultants are wolves who've decided that hunting wolves and coyotes for profit is a lot more interesting and stable for a family job than working for the organized crime version of the industry.

The lone wolves and the coyotes out in the field just are making money/mayhem, or may just be exploring territory, or be freedom fighters (or using the sort of freedom fighting rhetoric Anonymous spouts to tear up jack and make a bit of money or crack shit on the side).

But the idea that the hackers are only the people profiled by this tiny project at the UN is...it's just misleading. It's not the way the industry talks about its own.

A lot of these hackers are not Aspies, and a lot of them are. And a lot of them have very precise ethics, and well developed moral compasses -- and a lot of them would not work for the government, or certain parts of the government, or certain cybersecurity firms who they think are bigger crooks than most honest thieves.

It's hard to profile this complicated culture in 20 minutes, and hey, good try!

Shava Nerad
former execdir, The Tor Project
- Mark Meijer 100+
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  Sep 16 2011: Tor deserves medals. Thank you.
  
  With regards to Misha, I think it's great that he is at least attempting to do his part against prejudice versus hackers (or anyone, for that matter), even though being human, he may fall prey to the same trap himself at times. Personally I think the world could use more of such efforts.
Matthieu Miossec 100+
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TED Translator Associate

Sep 13 2011: They do sometimes. There are a few famous cases.
Debra Smith 100+
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Sep 13 2011: There are conventions of hackers called 'Black hats' that I learned about while doing my MBA. I actually did a few papers on hackers and the techniques that they use (which are amazingly invasive and often undetectable. ) BlackHats though work with companies to detect invasions and find points of vulnerability and access.
The difference with this talk was that the journalist found the creme de la creme of hackers who strayed into criminal domains and he learned their stories and abilities.
While it is a scary idea to give these people credibility we need to think of what is happening in cyberspace as the wild west of the history of America. We need the best gunslingers on our side! They have mad skills that no one else can match and we need as many of them on the side of justice and mercy as possible. I guess I would wonder how anyone would keep them on a leash though once they were inside!
I am shocked to hear that story about the iceman who actually did a great service to his country and yet landed in jail.
- Conor Palin-Stewart
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  Sep 13 2011: realistically we need to set up jobs for these hackers so they don't turn to criminality, but as you said keeping them on a leash is the hard part, maybe that is any as Antonio Robateau said its the government agencies who got burnt even when the hackers themselves were informants for the agencies
Antonio Robateau
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Sep 13 2011: They do get jobs ALL the time. The solution this talk offers is old. The difference is how it has now matured. Hackers are now employed by who they think are peer hackers who are actually government agencies and security companies. It is a classic case of "If you can't beat them, join them" but 'joining' meaning only in appearance. This distancing of their relationship between their "employed" hackers allows legitimate governments and companies to also distance themselves from the risk of the "flashback" or mishaps that would have fallen back on themselves. So, the "trick" is deployed both ways - governments and companies anonymously or pseudonymously manipulate the hackers and their advanced illegal network while publicly swearing that they have zero involvement and hence zero legal risk to us the public. This is also the typical political play of the day between country to country. Underground criminals can do what legitimate, regulated entities cannot - that's why they have always been employeing them without public knowledge just like America prospers on Nazzi technology and acquired knowledge from their atrocious human experiments. They are publicly seen as "the hero" of the day while learning from oand becoming like the enemy. That is why what you see on the news is usually untruthful damage control. That goes back to the other TED question "Why is there no free press anymore?" - because the free press bites the hand that feeds it. When all is said and done, governments and security companies manipulate the illegal underground hacker networks to accomplish their end goals, then cut the strings and use that same knowledge to publicly eliminate those they have unofficially just used - the Wolf Hero! The hackers - cannon fodder in a bigger agenda.
Lokkju Brennr
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Sep 13 2011: Part of the issue is that the Federal Agencies commonly get burned - see the case of the TJX hacker, Albert Gonzalez. Gonzalez was an informant for many years, and was the major instigator behind "Operation Firewall" in 2004... he was also, the entire time he was a federal informant, running side scams.
- Toby Dillon
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  Sep 13 2011: Yes, that IS a problem. The "who watches the watchmen?" concern. I'm still dealing with that one; I'm in a position of high trust and high risk, but low accountability. Since technology is my plaything, technology alone cannot control me, and since I'm the smartest guy at the table, no one else is qualified to look over my shoulder and know what I'm doing. It's a very difficult position, and I can only compare it with various CFOs and accountants. They at least, have audits. An IT audit is outside the scope of money our organization can spend, so the only auditing I have is myself. I am left to my own morality.
  
  I'm a fan of IT co-management: the idea that IT professionals, like medical professionals, have someone they can consult with on their own level. This also produces an environment where neither asset feels they can carry on unethical behavior with impunity. If suspicions arise, the other person can investigate.