
Red tape, 'tattoo-aversion' snarls government hiring of cybersecurity experts - digisth
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-cybersecurity-dhs-20140426,0,3366683,full.story
======
Balgair
My brother's fiancee has a pretty coveted fellowship with a 4 letter agency
here in the US (full ride, lots of lab time, money goes with her, etc).Her
hair color changes with the week, but no tats or piercings otherwise. She says
that sitting down at dinners with the higher-up is just confusion. The older
grey-beards just do not understand the gaps. Their generation was one of
service and is mostly white men that did not go to Viet Nam and are now 60+
and have at least 3 ex wives. Her generation is mixed in race and gender,
marital status (if ever), and age (22 to 35 year olds). The divide is cultural
to her. These guys are always 'behind the fence' and have been for 40 years.
Their resumes are basically classified, they could never quit as they could
never be hired in another job.

So, when she dines with them and they complain that all their fellows just go
off to Apple or Sun, she knows that she just has to bite her tongue. They just
won't understand because they have been so sheltered for the last 4 decades.
The 'silver tsunami'[0][1] as it is known, is starting to rock the boat of the
Military Industrial Complex.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_in_the_American_workforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_in_the_American_workforce)
[1][http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/12/aerospace-
worke...](http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/12/aerospace-worker-
shortage/)

------
michaelt

      [The DHS] is vying with the private sector and other
      three-letter federal agencies to hire and retain talent
      to secure federal networks  [...] "The hiring process is 
      very, very difficult," she said.
    

Let's be honest, even if you desperately wanted to work for the government,
the DHS is all about confiscating water at airports. Who in their right mind
would choose that over the much cooler FBI, NSA or DOD?

~~~
JPKab
I work with a consulting firm, and while I do mostly private sector projects,
I get stuck in DoD and DHS projects sometimes.... The DHS is a tremendously
broken organization. It is bloated, wasteful, filled with overpaid middle
management idiots, run by overpaid middle management idiots, and has a
conservative (in a bad way) culture due to the politically biased security
clearance process of the United States. (What I mean by that is the security
clearance process weeds out left of center people. Peace Corps, attended
school at Berkeley, smoked pot? Forget about it, you're out. Well, the
smartest people often fit this profile. And they ain't at DHS)

This article hits the nail on the head in one sense. The hiring process is
broken for the Federal government, but so is the firing process. If you are a
productive individual and you work in a place where lazy, late to arrive,
early to leave, incompetent individuals are not only tolerated but promoted,
why would you stay? If you do stay, why would you work hard? That's the US
Federal gov't GS workforce, particularly the DoD and DHS, in a nutshell.

TLDR: The Federal government is not only slow to hire, but because it doesn't
fire, let alone identify incompetent and lazy shitbags, the Dead Sea effect is
in constant overdrive with competent people.

~~~
watwut
"politically biased security clearance process of the United States"

Sounds interesting, have you links or can you described it in more details? I
get smoke pot example, although not sure that it has left wing bias (right
wing pot smoking is not that much lower - maybe they got caught less?)

~~~
Balgair
Membership or expressed intent to be a member of the Communist Party of the
USA will result in a rejection. It's a hold-over from the Cold War, but it's
still there.[0]

[0] I dunno, google it? Make sure to include the term 'executive order'
though.

~~~
mpyne
This would only weed out approximately 0% of liberals in the modern U.S.
though...

~~~
rdl
The greater levels of drug crime/drug crime prosecution in minority
communities, leaving a documented criminal history involving drugs, is
potentially a systematic form of discrimination against minorities in the
hiring process.

(You can get a DOD clearance while admitting to having used drugs, although it
seriously complicates a law enforcement clearance unless it was very long ago.
It can't be ongoing. Having gotten _arrested_ for it makes it a whole lot
worse, though, form what I've seen of the adjudication reports from DISCO,
though. White people generally do not get arrested for small amounts of drugs;
black people do.)

~~~
mpyne
Yes, that's a very good point, though having briefly worked HR for civil
service I'd say the diversity "upcheck" would be more beneficial. It doesn't
erase the systemic discriminatory factor from the difference in criminal
records for the same offense, but it does try to address it in a systemic
form.

Of course, diversity initiatives simply covers hiring, not clearance
adjudication. But there have certainly been many other areas of DoD where
people with known criminal histories (to include felons) have made it to
positions of responsibility, often to the amazement of the public. E.g.
childcare workers at DoD bases, and even the civilian security forces at a
grouping of Navy bases.

Even diversity planning has to bow to "bona fide occupational qualification"
though. If the position description requires you to have a record free of
things like organized criminal activity, then diversity planning can't help
you (though it can make it that much easier for minority groups with no such
criminal record to make it in).

------
mpyne
I dealt with the Federal civil service hiring rules at lot at my last command.

It would take us weeks to hire someone to do routine military personnel
administrative tasks. No clearance needed, no degree, no special skills beyond
being trainable on a computer, etc. Weeks.

I can only imagine the difficulty present in needing to run through the hiring
process _and_ having to run a security clearance. Especially in the wake of
Snowden, Aaron Alexis, Manning, and USIS screening contractor scandals, which
have all combined to help guarantee that no one tries to so much as streamline
any part of the SF-86 and its background investigation.

The military even has problems with this; it's not uncommon for new accessions
to be delayed at their initial entry training schoolhouses due to "clearance
issues". But they're at least already drawing a paycheck, and it's not as if
the students waiting can just take a new job out of their frustration. And as
the article mentions, it's in many ways much easier (as far as red tape goes)
to join the military than to join the civil service.

I hope DHS get better hiring authorities. It may seem weird in SV but "direct
hire" is practically fighting words for many groups watching the government,
who are concerned that it would just be abused for nepotism.

However I do agree with the points about not needing people with a clearance.
By definition DHS is not engaged in offensive cyber and defending critical
network infrastructure is hardly a task that requires a year-long background
check.

------
theboss
What? Three letter agencies recruit very heavily at my particular school and
computer science department.

While I can't comment on their hiring practices for people without a college
degree (even though I know a few people who have had successful careers with
the govt without any college experience), I think a more likely reason heavily
tattooed people could have a problem working at the government is that they
are more likely to be people who are difficult to clear (heavy drug use in the
past, surrounded by people who are heavy drug users, etc.). They clearance
process is honestly really stupid. Having tattoos will not disqualify you, but
surrounding yourself in people with bad habits will.

As someone watching close friends get hired weekly to places where they "can't
say where they will be working", it seems like Uncle Sam will hire anyone with
a pulse who even expresses an interest in security.

And if not, the people will just go make twice the money at a defense
contractor....

edit: I think a lot of the "red tape" belief for the government comes from
people who are on the outside of this industry looking in not understanding
the hiring process. It is the opposite from a place like Google.

Basically. You end up in someone's office and they talk to you for a few
minutes and know if they are going to hire you within the first 3 minutes of
the interview. The important part though, is that you are clearable. Since
this is a long and expensive process, a lot of contractors put on their job
requisitions "must be able to obtain a security clearance". They will believe
you if you tell them you are clearable. That's because getting denied a
clearance can be a big deal if you want to work at the gov't later. It also is
a auto-fire for the particular job (I would know. The clearance I was denied
was the best thing that ever happened to me)....

~~~
asdfologist
Did you even read the article? It's about the difficulties of DHS in
particular, and in the very beginning of the article, explicitly makes a
distinction between it and the other three letter agencies: "the department is
vying with the private sector and other three-letter federal agencies to hire
and retain talent".

~~~
shitlord
He has a point, though. The entire clearance process is a gigantic pain in the
ass, and it takes WAY more time than anything else the DHS (or any triple
letter agency) would throw at you. I, personally, been waiting for 15 months
and know firsthand just how annoying it can be.

That is _one of_ the bottlenecks here; it is something that prevents the
government from hiring the best and the brightest, and having them _actually
do useful work_.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I'm not sure that I feel good about people named "shitlord" on HN are the
types of people working at the DHS with clearance.

~~~
shitlord
Not DHS. Anyway, I had another account here a long time ago (back when HN had
google sign in). After they got rid of google sign in, I couldn't access my
account anymore and had to make a new one. I was kind of annoyed, so I decided
to make my username as shitty as possible.

------
javajosh
I imagine the aversion is symmetrical. Given the extent to which the USG has
systematically and cynically abused the trust of the American people, and done
everything in their power to avoid detection, it's no surprise that the people
who have the technical chops to do legitimate cyber-security work for the USG
would balk at doing so. These "self-inflicted wounds" only cement the truth
that no self-respecting technologist with any scruples would work for the USG
in any capacity. Until something big happens (a constitutional amendment, or
at least legislation that unambiguously protects us from blanket surveillance)
I would expect the talent supply to be dry.

This makes me incredibly sad. I grew up believing in the goodness of my
country; The Change started on 9/11\. Now, we're a nation that no longer has
even a speck of moral high ground: we torture, we assassinate, we spy on
_everyone_. Defending your country doesn't matter if your countries values
have been _decimated_ by power-mad leaders manipulating the public into
accepting their new lot as an under-class.

Jesus Christ, Snowden showed the NSA is spying on every American! And instead
of taking strong action to correct the mistake, they went after Snowden! Is
that really the kind of organization worth saving?

------
etherael
_The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear
and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in
minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in
cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline
resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands
adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems
are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by
their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand,
mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace
them with more open forms of governance.

If total conspiratorial power is zero, then clearly there is no information
flow between the conspirators and hence no conspiracy. A substantial increase
or decrease in total conspiratorial power almost always means what we expect
it to mean; an increase or decrease in the ability of the conspiracy to think,
act and adapt…An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think is powerless to
preserve itself against the opponents it induces._

Here's hoping the malady proves fatal, bravo.

------
LukeB_UK
I don't understand the aversion to tattoos in many workplaces. I have tattoos
myself, one on each leg and one on my arm. You cannot see them when I'm
wearing my interview clothing, but during the summer when I wear shorts and a
t-shirt at work you can easily see them. When people see them, they don't
expect me to be the kind of person that has tattoos.

By associating tattoos with a certain type of person before you even get to
know their abilities means that you lose out on a lot.

The same goes for people who have differently coloured or styled hair. The
lead developer for one of our products at the company I work for has a green
mohawk, yet he's an extremely talented and knowledgeable developer.

Appearances have nothing to do with knowledge or ability. The quicker people
learn this, the better for all of us.

~~~
hippich
Playing devil's advocate: Let's be honest here - just like gender, age,
nationality, political view doesn't have anything with knowledge. Well.. It
kinda does, but in a different way. Just like anything else. This is system -
if you do not fit in particular one - it become expensive and risky to try to
fit you in. Why HR should risk, what is the point? They will find another
developer who have more in common with their management expectations. And then
we start talking about not just knowledge, but blob of characteristics under
"company culture"...

~~~
InclinedPlane
> Why HR should risk, what is the point? They will find another developer who
> have more in common with their management expectations.

Except they won't. The talent pool isn't infinite, passing up talent for silly
reasons is a major opportunity cost. The whole article is about how that's
having a huge impact on the government. I imagine it has just as much impact
elsewhere, except few people have the guts to answer the "why can't we find
anyone?" questions with "because you already disqualified the best
candidates".

~~~
hippich
Having tatoos and being in software development doesn't automagically make
someone "best candidate."

There is still risk that person who wear tatoos is trying to get against
system. Just like girls would be expected to be less technical, just like
foreigners would be expected to be hard communicate with.

Startups and other frugal types of businesses can afford that. Big corps - not
really. The whole point of big corporations is to standardize everything and
run as few expenses (including time of CTO to interview "non standard"
candidate) as possible.

Again, simplifying a lot, HR have either hire someone wearing tatoos, or tell
"well, for salary we have in budget we don't have anyone." So why they should
risk?

~~~
InclinedPlane
If you reduce your talent pool intentionally and then you find you have
problems filling roles, you have only yourself to blame. At large companies it
may not be as obvious that they aren't getting the same level of talent they
could have but usually the end result is a diminished capacity to execute
successfully.

Why should they risk? For two reasons.

The best people are often not "normal". Look at some of the best coders or
hardware hackers out there. Imagine if Netscape didn't hire Jamie Zawinski,
would they have been as successful? When Jobs and Wozniak started Apple their
previous most successful business venture was phone phreaking, selling illegal
"blue boxes" that allowed people to hack the telephone network (and make free
calls, incidentally). If you only want boring people then you will quickly
remove some of the most talented people from consideration.

------
loteck
The word tattoo appears 3 times in this article, two of them in headlines.
Nothing substantive in the article actually says tattoos sharply impact
hiring. Can anyone cite an actual source?

------
Theodores
As an insurance policy against life getting so bad that I feel compelled to
work for the dark side of the government I think I might just head down to the
nearest tattoo parlour.

Maybe I could get tattoo-cliche-style text but with offensive wording like
'Dulce et decorum est...'. Or, like Lady Gaga, a CND symbol, somewhere not so
easy to cover up under a suit and tie. Or, to absolutely, definitely make sure
that I don't end up doing things like spying on my neighbours or dropping
bombs on innocent people overseas, I could get a hammer and sickle. That
should do it. In so doing I could guarantee never working for the military
industrial complex, be able to filter out narrow-minded conservative folk and
maybe get on with those common tattooed folk a bit better.

------
adrianhoward
Back in 1993 I was doing the whole tourist cross-country road trip thang in
the US. A couple of hundred miles south of DC I had this bar room conversation
with this guy who told me he resigned from the FBI because they wouldn't let
him hire the right people to do the job. Now - I have no actual evidence that
he was what he said he was - but the two things he talked about were:

* FBI hires had to be full agents. Run the assault courses, cleared for firearms, etc. Which made hiring some of the white-hat hackers he wanted next to impossible since they were... not really the assault course running types.

* Inter-agency hiring was almost impossible. He wanted to get better humint skills into his group. He had some guy who wanted to move across from the DEA who was dealing with folk who were informing against drug cartels in Mexico who would have been ideal... but couldn't because "that's not how we do things".

Again - no idea if the guy was just bullshitting me... but it seems a mildly
odd topic to confuse the English guy with if so ;-)

~~~
hga
Believe the "must be full agents" bias, at least back then.

The FBI has been notorious for various sorts of incompetence because of their
bias that a full agent, vs. a domain expert, be in charge of things. E.g.
their infamous crime lab.

------
sailfast
In addition to the issues laid out in the article (which are problems for
finding good talent in all areas of government, not just cybersecurity) is
that the cybersecurity mission for the United States crosses a number of
agencies and I'm not really sure anybody knows what is going on - let alone
new hires trying to navigate the morasse.

The result is that multiple agencies cannibalize talent to perform what could
be the same mission - and might not even talk to each other.

Who is responsible for domestic network security? Government network security?
Public/private cooperation? Critical infrastructure? Cyber crime? Cyber crime
that crosses international boundaries or that might impact national security?
Right now cyber is a great way to get money out of congress. To be effective
moving forward the responsibilities for each agency need to be figured out,
and the checks and balances on each should be established.

------
gaelow
That kind of discrimination makes me wonder about 2 things:

1) what kind of weird people would like to work there?

2) what other weird rules do they have? earrings? hairpieces? nail polishing?
dyed hair? beards? skirts? what about shoes? what about tan people? Is natural
tan ok, but solarium tan forbidden?

------
mschuster91
The entire "clearance" stuff is a steaming pile of bullshit waiting to blow
up.

IIRC millions of people hold various levels of secret information clearance -
even assuming a low probability of 0.01% you have thousands of potential
leakers, and a lot of them isn't employed by the government, but private
companies instead.

------
sjg007
fluff piece.

------
Betelgeusian
My understanding of the excellent feminist discourse related to geek
subcultures and the tech industry, is that the dominance of certain fields by
particular subcultures, encourages exclusion and discrimination.

So instead of thinking of 'tattoo-aversion' as discrimination, we should
consider it a form of affirmative action. It will help the government to hire
more talented security experts who _don 't_ have tattoos, or self-identify as
hackers.

~~~
drdeca
I don't understand your last sentence, or rather the last part of it.

It seems to be suggesting (incincerely, of course) that looking to hire people
without tattoos would help to hire people who identify as hackers (but who
would not be considered to be hackers by some standard or definition not
including self-identity).

But I don't see the connection between tattoos and hackerishness or self
identifying.

Is it a thing, and just not one I had noticed/heard of?

I get (somewhat anyway) the "feminist:self-identity" connection, And some of
the other connections,

But I don't understand what meaning is being expressed by the last part of the
last sentence.

