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Comment by Kalium | Hacker News Reader

Not as much as you'd think. Even if it was, it's not a better place. Now you're trapped in a slightly different sector that you can't leave because your skills don't transfer.

And your job is probably a lot less reliable, because short-term auditing or pen-testing contracts offer a lot less stability than 3-5 year government contracts.

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I have no sympathy for this kind of whining.

"Help, I love designing guns, but the only people willing to pay me for that will use them for evil!"

If you're a talented "network attack specialist" then you're likely also a worthwhile network engineer. So work in that role and do the gun-design in your spare time and hopefully for a good cause.

That's a pretty poor proposition to make to someone with a family to support. It's poor enough that they're going to ignore you and go on doing work you almost certainly object to.

Also, the skills required to be an effective network attack specialist have very little relation to those required to be a network engineer. I thought I covered this up-thread.

It doesn't get better by adding even more entitled whining.

If you have a family to support then how about choosing a less problematic career path than "Network Attack Specialist"?

You are not entitled to making a living from your favorite hobby if that entails building a dystopian future for everyone.

Have you considered that telling someone to give up their livelihood is not a good way to get them to accept your advice?

The parent is being a bit of a dick, but he does have a point. Not every job in the world is ethical, and simply being good at something is not always enough reason to do it for a living.

This is ultimately a deeply personal choice that everyone has to make, but sometimes we really can't both have our cake and eat it too.

I also work at a government sponsored R&D lab, so I'm familiar with the conundrum (not for myself - I'm just a dumbass programmer whose skills are so pitifully generic I could go literally anywhere in the world... some of my colleagues - not so much)

It is a deeply personal choice. It's also one that doesn't get any easier when people insist on being dicks about it.

I don't know why it's so important that some random HN contributor be polite about this. Isn't everyone here speaking to you, and not your friends? Why does their tone matter so much?

Given that the context is that culture matters and that HN attitudes are relevant, I'm attempting to make the point that being rude does not help shape the attitudes in the way we-the-commentariat want.

"a family to support". ah the ole "but think of the CHILDREN" argument. so sophisticated.

Love it or hate it, it's a huge factor in how people make decisions. If you want to shape their behavior, you have to consider how they think and what they care about.

Nope, a network engineer is way different.

Much closer would be writing boot loaders and compilers.

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