
The FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot (2014) - zensavona
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-fbi-cant-find-hackers-that-dont-smoke-pot
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mjevans
How about because those whom are skilled and ethical view a lot of the work
that the government would use them for to be unethical and against the
principles upon which their country is founded?

What if they feel that someone like Edward Snowden is a true patriot, for
standing up and doing the correct thing in the most viable way offered to him?

Or maybe, after a lifetime of experiencing government bureaucracy in schools,
they've seen how broken things can get there, and can't even begin to imagine
how bad things can be in the areas with insufficient light to burn away the
worst offenders?

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draw_down
Easier to blame the pot, I think.

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kmonsen
So even the article says the main reason they can't hire good hackers is that
the can't offer reasonable compensation, long term career prospects etc. But
het, much easier to blame those hackers for smoking pot.

This is just a stupid excuse for why he is not doing his job effectively.

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~~~
mejiacourtney39
Hello im wondering if u could help me find things out

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emidln
Are they still asking you if you've ever knowingly accessed a network that you
didn't have permission to? And is a 'yes' still an automatic disqualification?

    
    
        Them: So we'd like your skills as a hacker, but one last thing. 
              Have you ever actually hacked something? (wink, wink)
        You: Ye...
        Them: (winking intensifies)
        You: err....no. Definitely never done that. That would be illegal.
        Them: Excellent. Also, you never smoked dope right?
        You: Not the devil's weed! Why I'd never!
        Them: Right! Welcome to the team!

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jrockway
Does the FBI's salary compare favorably with what people get at big software
companies? I'm guessing that's the real problem.

Going deeper, what's the career progression like at the FBI? Do you work your
way up to being a higher-titled software engineer, or do you have to
transition into a different role in order to get paid more? Guess what, that's
another problem the private sector has solved.

How much did we pay for that joint strike fighter? That's how much reasonable
cybersecurity is going to cost.

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morrbo
This old fucking chestnut again. I am a pentester for a living, and have been
for 10 odd years. No, the answer is not because they smoke pot. The answer is
because governments across the world pay 30% of going corporate rates, and
tend to be shitty environments filled with politics and work which most people
of that persuasion might not agree with.

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dalke
What's worse is the article even says pot smoking is not a major issue, with
(emphasis mine):

"... the federal government is having a hard time hiring cybersecurity
experts, _largely because many hackers can find more lucrative deals that don
't involve working for the feds_. But there's another wrinkle: the FBI now
says that its drug-testing policies are keeping experts off the payroll."

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kbd
Stupid requirements lead to poor hiring. It's the government's own fault. I
always wonder how much of their workforce a company like Google would have to
fire if they drug tested.

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vacri
An agency whose reason for existing is enforcing the law can't really be
expected to flout the law with its own personnel. It's not like the FBI itself
legislated against marijuana.

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kmonsen
They don't really have to do drug tests though. Should they for example
install monitoring in employees cars to make sure they never speed?

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vacri
I don't mean to defend the FBI's activites, I just mean to note that if your
reason for being is "opposing X", then it's reasonable that you check your
employees for X. The FBI opposes drugs big time. It doesn't care about people
speeding in cars.

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wolfgke
> The FBI opposes drugs big time. It doesn't care about people speeding in
> cars.

First: If the FBI opposes drugs: then they should at least as strongly oppose
nicotine and (in particular) alcohol, too. Oh, you mean drugs that are by some
historic accident illegal.

Second: Do the cybersecurity jobs one does at the FBI have any property that
will prevent former pot smokers doing them? If not, it's simply a
discrimination.

~~~
vacri
Isn't the management of alcohol and tobacco in the US hived off to the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms?

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Kopion
I applied to the FBI, made it all the way through the hiring process and then
failed the polygraph portion. It was 100% a false positive... Maybe they
should look at utilizing a method other than the polygraph for assessing
deception.

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DrStalker
I thought polygraphs were so well discredited by now that no-one used them; is
the FBI still screening with them? What sort of questions are they asking and
disqualifying you on?

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Kopion
They are largely discredited, especially for pre-employment screenings. The
polygraph exam is the last phase in the Special Agent hiring process, which
can take up to a couple of years to complete. Several federal agencies still
use it. I can't discuss what is asked, but you can walk out of the exam and
know whether or not you told the truth - there is no ambiguity about the
answers you give. That is why I am 100% certain it was a false positive.

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duncan_bayne
The same FBI that fights the War on Drugs and the War on Whistle-blowers so
violently? The FBI that was behind COINTELPRO
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO))?
The FBI that recommended against prosecution of Clinton despite finding that
she was negligent in her handling of classified information?

Cry me a river.

~~~
iamdave
I'm going to agree with you re: Whistleblowers & COINTELPRO, but was Clinton
criminally negligent or just "Best practices were not adhered to" negligent?
My impression from Comey's statements are the latter.

Asking this genuinely, since I didn't read far into the story beyond said
statements.

~~~
xenadu02
The email thing is just a conservative smoke smear. Reading the FBI
investigation files makes that extremely clear... and obvious why she wasn't
charged: no crime was committed. She even went so far as to avoid Colin
Powel's advice on how to hide her emails from FOIA requests.

~~~
douche
Using BleachBit on servers, smashing devices with hammers to destroy hard
drives, and straight up losing dozens of devices with classified information
on them? At best its got some real subpar optics, and even being charitable
and assuming no ill intent, it looks bumbling and incompetent.

~~~
iamdave
_At best its got some real subpar optics, and even being charitable and
assuming no ill intent, it looks bumbling and incompetent._

Okay.

But are those things criminal? The parent of this chain mentioned the FBI
recommending against prosecution, implying criminal acts occurred, so I think
this posit is non-ignorable.

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duncan_bayne
Personal opinion: they were criminal, and anyone without Clinton's level of
political clout would have been vigorously prosecuted. As another example,
consider Aaron Schwartz, who was hounded to death by the State (possibly not
the FBI?) over Copyright infringement.

It boils my blood that seemingly half of the USA want to give Clinton a free
pass on this, just because she's on "their side".

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rdtsc
I never smoked pot, but I don't know what it would take to apply to work for
FBI.

Having dealt with the government as a customer, no thank you. Endless sea of
red tape, outdated tools and practices, stupid requirements, paper security (I
call that security driven by a checklist on a form. A system is deemed secure
if it passes all those checks. Which often make no difference or makes things
even worse when it comes to actual security).

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voidz
"When you're high, you can do everything you normally do just as well — you
just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.” ―
Bill Hicks

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nefitty
Three years seems like an unreasonable timespan. They might end up with people
who have little to no social skills with that kind of policy. I don't mean to
say that not abstaining for that length of time is abnormal, but young people
who are the most adept and skilled with new technologies are bound to find
themselves in a situation where they take a hit. I wonder if the drug tests
after that are regularly scheduled or if they take you at your word once
you're hired.

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MichaelBurge
Now that it's been legalized in Oregon, there are marijuana stores all over.
But before that, I don't even know where'd you'd get the stuff. Occasionally
when I'd ride a train to work at 4 AM, somebody would come up and try to buy
it from me; so I guess I look like a drug dealer. In states where it's
illegal, do you just wander the streets at night asking people for pot, and
hope it's not laced with rat poison?

I've literally never seen actual marijuana in real life before, even in a
state where it's legal. So I'm not sure I buy this argument that you can't go
3 years without smoking the stuff.

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flukus
It's about knowing the right people, you have to know someone, or know someone
that knows someone. Ideally that someone is near the end of the supply chain.

Have you asked around your circle of friends? Or asked them to ask around for
you? You probably aren't too many hops away from a supplier.

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gozur88
Hmmm. When I went to get a security clearance they said "When it comes to pot
we don't care what you did in the past as long as 1) you don't lie about it
and 2) you stop when you're working for us." If the FBI is hurting for people
they can relax it at least that far.

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huffmsa
CIA doesn't have these problems, for better or for worse.

Thanks In-Q-Tel

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joesmo
That's because the CIA doesn't hire _without_ a criminal record. And smoking
weed alone is probably not enough of a criminal record for the CIA.

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fabrixxm
I don't ever thought that FBI's agents had so much problems finding people
because they are all smoking so much pot...

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siscia
Could we update the title to reflect that this is an old article?

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raverbashing
(2014)

I even think it was posted at that time (or maybe a similar article)

Well, can't say I'm sorry for them.

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caub
good hackers don't smoke

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kctess5
What leads you to believe this? Do you also think that good hackers don't
drink?

~~~
caub
the loss of neurons that goes with smoking

