Ask HN: Security Researcher Jobs | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Security Researcher Jobs

7 pointsturnersr3 comments

Hello,

My name is Rafael. I am a third year college student studying math. I am trying to learn about careers in computer security but I can’t find any good resources. Maybe you could help me out? I would really appreciate it.

1) Where have you worked? Where are you currently working?

2) What are the major differences between working in software development and computer security?

3) What security firms would you enjoy working for? Why? Any in Chicago?

4) What do new hires usually do for their first year? Do you have a lot of freedom to explore different fields?

5) What do you like least about your job? What do you enjoy the most?

6) What do you spend most of your time doing? Coding? Debugging? Reading? Code Reviews? Talking to clients?

7) What sort of skills do you wish you had before you started working in computer security?

8) Do you know of any security focused open-source projects that use Python or C?

9) Did you intern somewhere? Do you have any recommended places to intern at?

10) Do you mind if we talked more? How can I contact you? My email is turnersr [you know what] uchicago DOT edu

Thank you so much, Rafael

First of all, put your contact info in the 'about' section of your profile.

There are a lot of amazing people on HN, and some of them are involved in various aspects of computer security. Contacting them privately might be your best bet.

Thomas Ptacek (in the Chicago area)

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek

Cody Brocious is around here somewhere, but I can never remember his HN user name, and I "think" he works with tptacek (above) at Matasano.

Nate Lawson

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=NateLawson

The above have posted to the monthly 'jobs' thread, so they are looking for people to hire. If you didn't know, on the 1st of each month there is a jobs thread and a freelancer thread here on HN.

There are also people involved with crypto work:

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cperciva

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=JoachimSchipper

There are many others, so you'll need to dig around.

Thank you so much! Updated my profile.

I tried getting in contact with Thomas Ptacek and some other people, but I have not received any responses. I'll ping the other names you gave me.

I made a short list of security firms. But I have no idea how to assess them. Matasano has the most informative website. Do you know of any competitors to Matasano? How would you compare computer security companies? What metric do you use?

Matasano

ISEC Partners

Counter Plane

Rapid7

Nss labs

Inverse Path

Stach & Liu

Trend Micro

Reversing Labs

> Thank you so much! Updated my profile.

Nope. All you put in the 'about' section of your profile is the fact that you're a student in Chicago. Your name is missing and so is your contact info. The email address used to sign up for HN is never shown, so you need to put it in the 'about' section if you want others to see it. You posting your email address in one of your posts, so you don't have any issues about divulging it (some people do).

> I tried getting in contact with Thomas Ptacek and some other people, but I have not received any responses. I'll ping the other names you gave me.

Give Thomas a break. It's Thanksgiving weekend so he probably has far more important things to do besides answer emails, namely, family commitments.

> I made a short list of security firms. But I have no idea how to assess them. Matasano has the most informative website. Do you know of any competitors to Matasano? How would you compare computer security companies? What metric do you use?

First and foremost, you keep tossing around this undefined phrase, "computer security," as if it actually means something. The phrase is far to widely used to mean anything specific, and hence, it is exceedingly vague. Do you want to get into reverse engineering, auditing, virus analysis, exploit research, analysis automation, forensics, physical attacks, penetration testing, cryptanalysis, and the list goes on and on.

To answer your question directly, for me, there are only two metrics that matter: (1) Do I like the people? and (2) Do I like their work?

In the long run, little else matters. Some people are brilliant but are not nice, and others are nice but don't do anything worthwhile. Both of these scenarios are recipes for an unsatisfying working relationship. Do some research on the people as well as the kinds of things they do, and then get to know them.

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