The FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot (2014)

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51 pointszensavona70 comments

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?

Easier to blame the pot, I think.

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.

that's why i hate story like Mr Robot. It give bad impression.

Where does it say there are no long term career prospects? Or 'reasonable' compensation? It just says "they can find more lucrative deals". You seem to be projecting something onto the article that isn't there.

Just before where you found that quote the text is a link to another article that talks about those things.

You mean this? http://www.informationweek.com/government/cybersecurity/gove...

That link also doesn't say anything about long-term prospects. It does say it can't pay the lucrative amounts the private sector can, but that doesn't mean that the pay is 'unreasonable'. In fact, most of that article is about a mismatch of cultural fit, and has very little to do with remuneration.

And seriously, given how much of the hot talent in SV jumps around on a yearly basis depending on who provides the biggest bucks, does anyone really believe that "long-term career prospects" are going to appeal to those hackers? Do talented programmers really sign on to Apple because "I know I'll be a senior manager there in 20 years?

'Job security' is not the same as 'long term prospects'.

> long term career prospects

I doubt many young people even want "long term" prospects anymore.

I can't speak for any other country, obviously culture plays a role, but in Germany we just had an article in one of the top two news sites (and this is the much more reputable one of the two) [0] that says in a poll [1] 1/3rd of students said they'd like to become a "Beamter", which is a special status for life-term government employees who cannot be fired and have their own pension scheme.

Job security was the number one concern overall (63% of said so). Income was only in fifth place. There was a big difference between the sexes, the share of women who wanted to work for the government was much higher (42% vs. 23% of men).

But that's not all - most students prefer to work for very large companies, giants like Siemens, BMW etc. regularly top the ranking of places where students want to go to. Few want to go to small and medium companies, even though we have a lot of them. Even fewer want to work for a startup or even found one.

I am certainly not critical of that attitude, I doubt that throughout history there ever was a big part of humanity that preferred insecurity and excitement and (often dubious) "chances" that actually depend on quite a bit of luck quite heavily over friends, family and a solid secure basis. That is if that was available of course, often people were forced into being more adventurous by circumstances.

[0] (in German) http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/berufsstart/jeder-dritte-stud...

[1] (PDF) http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-Studentenstudie-...

A survey of the general population is not really appropriate for a hyper-niche demographic like talented hackers (the ones they want to hire). There's plenty of mooks out there who want to do the minimum work possible and unsurprising that a general poll would account for a lot of them. That's not to say that you are a mook if you want that, but that idea of a 'safe job' is not something that's particularly big in the hacker world.

> That's not to say that you are a mook if you want that, but that idea of a 'safe job' is not something that's particularly big in the hacker world.

The article is from German media. I can't speak for the US, but in Germany it leaves a bad impression if you switch jobs too often. Also in the last 15 years (in particular under the Schröder administration (from 1998-2005)) in Germany there were lots of reforms of the job market that lead to the feeling of many people that the jobs are much less secure and if you lose the job you will move downward socially much faster. This in my opinion explains pretty well why now lots of people want jobs that are more safe. And I see no evidence that this doesn't hold for hackers, too, since it is well-known that it is much more difficult to find a new job in the technology sector in Germany if you are, older than say, 45 years.

It seems that you guys are trying to have your cake and eat it too. So... you're saying that the FBI is having trouble hiring hackers because... they don't pay the salaries of Silicon Valley, and don't offer job permanence of a German government job.

Besides, if talented hackers were so majorly set on permanence in their jobs, there'd be no game studios.

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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!

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.

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.

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."

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.

Honestly, with all the big tech companies in SV that would be anywhere from 20-30% IME. And many of them would be among the best people at those companies.

I can't imagine a better way to needlessly drive away good people than to have a zero-tolerance policy for weed. It's crazy that any employer still cares about this, as long as people are getting their work done and aren't using it on the job.

This is why very few companies care.

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.

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?

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.

> 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.

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

Not necessarily. They have a lot of "privileges" (such as being able to carry a loaded gun on an airplane) that are against the law for the rest of us. They could simply change the law and write themselves in the "privilege" of being able to toke up.

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.

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?

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.

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)? The FBI that recommended against prosecution of Clinton despite finding that she was negligent in her handling of classified information?

Cry me a river.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

You realise the FBI has prosecuted people in the past, simply for the act of lying to them? Martha Stewart is the person who springs to mind.

Please bear in mind: I'm not a Trump supporter, I'm not a conservative, and I'm not a Sanders supporter either.

I just don't understand how anyone can look at the FBI's kid-glove treatment of Clinton and conclude that any 'regular' citizen would be afforded the same generosity.

Yea but what 'regular' citizen would have, all else being fair and equal-anywhere near the levels of information that Clinton had without having conducted some activities that probably warrants less than 'kid-glove' treatment from the authorities?

Any one of the Whistle-blowers who the current administration has prosecuted (or driven into exile, like Snowden).

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).

"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

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.

Three years is kind of crazy. NSA, CIA, and other agencies it's one year.

FBI should have the easiest time finding hackers. Unlike the CIA and NSA, they have offices in almost every major city, but they don't seem to take advantage of that at all. They don't event list any tech/cyber/whatever roles here: https://apply.fbijobs.gov/

False. NSA is definitely 10 years [1].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Scope_Background_Invest...

You can still pass your investigation if you've done drugs in the last 10 years but you do have to disclose it and sign a form that states you won't do it again or associate with anyone who does while you have a clearance (edit: or at least that's how it was 10 years ago).

The purpose of clearance investigations isn't to dig up dirt in order to hurt you you, it's to find out what dirt foreign intel services can dig up on you in order to hurt/blackmail you.

> or associate with anyone who does

No wonder they're having problems finding candidates. Hackers are probably way more likely to use certain drugs like weed, MDMA and psychedelics than the general population, due to their intellectual curiosity and intelligence levels (which I assume are significantly higher than the average).

Do they really force applicants to disassociate with their friends and family, like in Scientology, or is it just a rule they only care really about in the most serious cases (if friends are dealers or have drug problems etc)?

Well, they make everyone sign the papers, and they frequently polygraph. It's risky to get a clearance if you are breaking the rules. You'd have to keep your story straight, and have the ability to defeat test anxiety. Maybe that's a good process if you are trying to find a good spy. Not very good for recruiting a hacker.

I hear they bend the rules for extraordinary candidates - maybe that applies to all hackers these days.

Using a broken lie detection methodology? Is that even legal?

Polygraph evidence is not admissible in US courts anymore.

The Employee Polygraph Protection Act prevents US employers from testing their employees. The government is exempt.

>Do they really force applicants to disassociate with their friends and family

Anecdotal but it wasn't enforced at all. I suspect it was a CYA measure for firing someone with undesirable connections but no illegal activities.

Now, you may have experimented up to a certain very low threshold (something like experimented with marijuana less than 3-5x in your life) before applying for your first clearance. You are still fucked if you have a clearance and do drugs, ever.

Ehh... no, that's how far back they look, but only within the last year is sometimes a disqualifier. I can tell you that they will overlook even fairly recent usage sometimes.

CIA: "To be considered suitable for Agency employment, applicants must generally not have used illegal drugs or misused prescription drugs within the last 12 months."

NSA: "Recent and/or frequent use of illegal drugs, including marijuana even in states whose laws permit its recreational or medical use, could raise a security concern, and may be disqualifying"

They are most likely randomly administered to all employees along with a regularly scheduled polygraph. That's the DoD's model.

>I wonder if the drug tests after that are regularly scheduled or if they take you at your word once you're hired.

If the FBI anything like the DOE it's random for the duration you have a clearance. Random polygraphs too which are much, much worse.

So scrolling through this thread so far we have

- No smoking pot in 3 years

- Random drug tests

- Random lie detector tests

- Not the best pay in the world

- Lousy career prospects

- Working with others who they admit aren't the most technical in the world

Yeah can't see why they're having trouble hiring

They probably rely on a sense of patriotism/duty/exclusivity to make this work for other "on the line" departments

I guess you can throw ridiculous dress code in too?

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.

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.

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?

First off, it is the rare businessperson who sees harming their customer as the road to success. But such antics do occasionally happen, so I won't belabor it.

Second, you live in Oregon? Unless you live with a restrictive religious sect, I guarantee at least one of your friends gets high. Figure out who it is, ask them. I'm sure Portland, like Seattle, has a park or two; put your hoodie on and go for a walk. Or just ask the internet these days.

All moot for you now, as you swing by the store on the way home.

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.

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

Thanks In-Q-Tel

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.

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

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

(2014)

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

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

good hackers don't smoke

great hackers do though

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

the loss of neurons that goes with smoking

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