
Why Equifax’s error wasn’t hiring someone with a music degree - RKoutnik
https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/22/dont-blame-equifax-hack-on-a-music-degree/
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schoen
I learned yesterday that Mudge's degree is from the Berklee College of Music
(a top school for music performance):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peiter_Zatko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peiter_Zatko)

So I think that's a great example of how someone with a music degree could
potentially be one of the world's top infosec experts. (Also I believe Chris
Palmer, who used to be my boss and currently works on the Google Chrome
security team, has a degree in linguistics but would probably have been rather
tempted by a music degree considering his huge passion for music performance.)

I think it's worth considering what really does make for good infosec
qualifications, but it's easy to see that it's not necessarily a university
degree. (Also considering how many leading infosec experts didn't finish
university.)

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pixelperfect
I haven't looked into the Equifax hack, but plenty of highly competent
programmers have music degrees. Rich Hickey for example. (source:
[https://gist.github.com/harfangk/f98e627f7567b7b5741fe0c239b...](https://gist.github.com/harfangk/f98e627f7567b7b5741fe0c239b57d6c))

~~~
dang
The only interesting thing about this non-issue is that people brought it up
without realizing how they were embarrassing themselves. Talk about a
middlebrow dismissal.

~~~
schoen
I think there's a real issue about the resources that are brought to bear on
information security, and what we need to do to get more traction on it, but
focusing people's academic background is a misleading way to try to talk about
that.

~~~
dang
Those are two completely different things.

It couldn't be more ignorant to think that a music degree suggests anything
about someone's technical competence (other than maybe a weak positive signal
of intellectual breadth). One expects that from media outlets but to see it
crop up on HN was shocking. Among people who ought to know better, I can't
imagine a stronger indicator of small-mindedness.

