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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem.

Huh? Why the united states couldn't? It's government/military budget is much higher...

As for the "force them", China and Russia don't need to force anyone to work for their cybersecurity teams either (nor it would be wise to have someone do such crucial tasks against their will).

Paying goes a long way...

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I could be "forced" to do a whole lot of stuff for $200k/year, plus a zero-deductible health plan and fully-matched 401(k), that also doesn't require living in California, NYC, or DC.

I won't compromise my personal ethics, though. Not at that price. I'd need another $300k/year, a real defined-benefit pension, family gym membership, company-leased car, tuition benefits, and a bullshit story that I can tell myself in order to sleep at night.

And in order to set aside my personal vendettas, such as by actually propping up AT&T or Bank of America in some way, I'll need 8 figures and a 30-hour work week. And unrestricted common stock--not so much that the CEOs have to kiss my ass, but enough that I don't get automatically ignored.

Congress sets salaries and benefits for government positions, but most of those jobs are under the executive branch. So the president can't just increase the head of cybersecurity's salary to $1M, that has to be approved by Congress. The DoD and intelligence agencies get around these restrictions by contracting out the technical work, but the problem is the top decision makers still don't make nearly enough to attract real experts in the field.

In the government agency I'm employed with, the cyber security manager for our products has only a logistics management background. The information assurance personnel are contractors, but they don't have much impact on the real decision making.

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