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If you are interested in helping the US Government fix this particular trashfire, consider joining the Defense Digital Service. We work on a variety of DoD pro

If you are interested in helping the US Government fix this particular trashfire, consider joining the Defense Digital Service. We work on a variety of DoD projects as part of the US Digital Service "tech peace corps". https://www.dds.mil/ https://www.dds.mil/ If you're not ready for that level of commitment (though it's amazing work), and you're interested in being involved as a security researcher, reach out to me and we can talk about joining our bug bounty program.

iaabtpbtpnn 8y ago
If this intrigued anyone else, just a quick summary: 3-6 week interview process, no relocation assistance, no bonuses, no equity, citizenship requirement, oh and the kicker: drug testing.
- hlieberman 8y ago
  Yup! We’re all employees of the federal government, so we have to meet the requirements of all Federal positions. Honestly, you don’t do this job for the money. I took a pay cut when I joined, on top of losing bonuses and equity. You join because you want to make a real difference in people’s lives, in a visceral, real way. I can say without exaggeration that there are people who would have died except for the work that our team had done. Even when the stakes aren’t life or death, the impact you can have working for USDS is massive compared to anywhere else. You can personally change the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. That’s the kind of hook that beats equity for me any day.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    Keep up the good work. If you see Matt Cutts, say hi for me.
  - BurnGpuBurn 8y ago
    > You join because you want to make a real difference in people’s lives, in a visceral, real way. What that difference may entail varies greatly though. For one, it might be not being blown up by that IED. For another, it might be being bombed to bits at your cousins wedding, along with the other 40 members of your family, by a drone operator in Nevada. Very visceral indeed. If you think that working for the military is "doing good" and the US is oh so innocent I suggest you watch the excellent documentary The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_Unit...
  - percentcer 8y ago
    I don't understand why the benefits have to be so terrible when we spend 600 billion a year on military
- ryandrake 8y ago
  It's almost if they are trying to limit their candidate pool to the smallest possible set of potential employees.
ILikeConemowk 8y ago
How can one best reach you?
- hlieberman 8y ago
  You can reach me at harlan@dds.mil!
metaphor 8y ago
Thanks for chiming in. Curiously, I had a few questions: 1.) Does DDS really pen test developmental/operational weapon systems? I'm talking about custom flavors of standalone PIT systems at the lowest embedded level, not just public-facing unclassified commidity IT systems. Maybe I'm missing something, but the projects highlighted on DDS's website suggest otherwise. 2.) How's your Blue team ops? The current RMF meta in the field strikes me as an all-Red team party, while the Blue side of business is pretty much always MIA. I suspect it's partly because pen testing is fashionable these days, successful outcomes can be quite dramatic and perceivably understood by stakeholders, and avoidance of the inherent liablility of defensive posturing without significant impact to performance/capability if a complex system's requirements are not well understood (a compounded issue not exclusive to weapon systems), to name a few.

iaabtpbtpnn 8y ago

If this intrigued anyone else, just a quick summary: 3-6 week interview process, no relocation assistance, no bonuses, no equity, citizenship requirement, oh and the kicker: drug testing.

hlieberman 8y ago
Yup! We’re all employees of the federal government, so we have to meet the requirements of all Federal positions. Honestly, you don’t do this job for the money. I took a pay cut when I joined, on top of losing bonuses and equity. You join because you want to make a real difference in people’s lives, in a visceral, real way. I can say without exaggeration that there are people who would have died except for the work that our team had done. Even when the stakes aren’t life or death, the impact you can have working for USDS is massive compared to anywhere else. You can personally change the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. That’s the kind of hook that beats equity for me any day.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Keep up the good work. If you see Matt Cutts, say hi for me.
- BurnGpuBurn 8y ago
  > You join because you want to make a real difference in people’s lives, in a visceral, real way. What that difference may entail varies greatly though. For one, it might be not being blown up by that IED. For another, it might be being bombed to bits at your cousins wedding, along with the other 40 members of your family, by a drone operator in Nevada. Very visceral indeed. If you think that working for the military is "doing good" and the US is oh so innocent I suggest you watch the excellent documentary The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_Unit...
- percentcer 8y ago
  I don't understand why the benefits have to be so terrible when we spend 600 billion a year on military
ryandrake 8y ago
It's almost if they are trying to limit their candidate pool to the smallest possible set of potential employees.

ILikeConemowk 8y ago

How can one best reach you?

hlieberman 8y ago
You can reach me at harlan@dds.mil!

metaphor 8y ago

Thanks for chiming in. Curiously, I had a few questions: 1.) Does DDS really pen test developmental/operational weapon systems? I'm talking about custom flavors of standalone PIT systems at the lowest embedded level, not just public-facing unclassified commidity IT systems. Maybe I'm missing something, but the projects highlighted on DDS's website suggest otherwise. 2.) How's your Blue team ops? The current RMF meta in the field strikes me as an all-Red team party, while the Blue side of business is pretty much always MIA. I suspect it's partly because pen testing is fashionable these days, successful outcomes can be quite dramatic and perceivably understood by stakeholders, and avoidance of the inherent liablility of defensive posturing without significant impact to performance/capability if a complex system's requirements are not well understood (a compounded issue not exclusive to weapon systems), to name a few.