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Comment by syswsi | Hacker News Reader

Is this a common thing in the infosec industry? Personally I have known two people who were sexually harassed who work in security. I've also hung out with some and they do seem to have an unrealistic view on the opposite sex.

Some examples I've found of documented cases: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/female-hackers-st... https://www.the-parallax.com/2015/10/26/how-myth-of-meritocr...

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The more well-known infosec conferences, especially in the US, have a long-held tradition of being a place to show off, do drugs and party. The percentage of people I've known in infosec circles who are also heavy drug abusers easily doubles or possibly triples the general population.

At least that's my 20 years of experience of them.

Crypto absolutely attracts a strange group of people as compared to other disciplines. That includes some people who are very liberal in their definition of consent, almost by definition, which in turn can affect other areas of their life.

[Note: I am not making excuses for their behavior, although I'd hope that would not need saying.]

Are you an academic cryptographer? I'm not, but I'm a practicing crypto engineer, and I go to the occasional conference and workshop. What I've noticed is that crypto is far better about stuff like this than CS and certainly than infosec; I think it's a consequence of crypto being as much a part of mathematics as about computer science.

It's one victim telling the story, enabling other victim to tell theirs. This happens in many communities, not only IT. But the first person to speak up opens the gate for others who experienced it for a long time.

That's one of the reasons it's important to share them. You'd never expect what happened to people you personally know sometimes.

> Is this a common thing in the ~infosec industry~ black community? Personally I have known two people who were sexually harassed who work in ~security~ the black community. I've also hung out with some and they do seem to have an unrealistic view on the opposite sex.

If you think I have a problem with afro-americans, you have a problem with getting the point

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