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I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? He seems like an intelligent person who could easily get an infosec

I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? He seems like an intelligent person who could easily get an infosec job and be extremely good at it from UX/social engineering point of view, but he was socialized from being a kid to disregard authority and steal from other people in every possible way. I'm sure he wouldn't let Coinbase get away with SMS 2nd factor authentication, something I can never forgive a company to do when there's big money on the line.

meowface 5y ago
>I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? I did. Excellent, captivating interview, but he repeatedly acknowledged he didn't know much about the tech stuff, and he said several incorrect technical things towards the end. I stand by my statement: I think it would've been difficult for him to get a (technical) infosec job at the time of his arrest, or now (assuming a world where he didn't have a criminal record). While listening to it, I actually thought he perfectly fit the archetype of cybercrime forum operators I'm used to coming across. He's certainly a great social engineer, and many other technically unskilled people in the cybercrime space also are. I'm definitely not discounting that ability. A lot of it comes down to brazenness; e.g. being confident and shameless enough to impersonate a law enforcement officer over the phone. There's still a lot of skill involved in being a con artist even then - you need affability and the gift of gab and all that - but it's not necessarily the kind of skill that's transferrable to technical expertise. There are many people with expertise in both areas, but also many who are exclusive to one.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? He seems like an intelligent person who could easily get an infosec job and be extremely good at it from UX/social engineering point of view, but he was socialized from being a kid to disregard authority and steal from other people in every possible way. Be very careful about taking infosec celebrities at face value. Social engineering is and always has been a core feature of black hat activities. When these people graduate from criminal activities to being keynote speakers and consultants, they take their social engineering skills and use them to build a personal brand. In other words: You were getting socially engineered through that podcast. Building an aura around himself is his business now ( https://www.anglerphish.com/speaking-consulting https://www.anglerphish.com/speaking-consulting ). His story is interesting and you can't deny that he's become a great storyteller. But even he admitted that he wasn't the strongest on the technical side of things.

meowface 5y ago

>I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? I did. Excellent, captivating interview, but he repeatedly acknowledged he didn't know much about the tech stuff, and he said several incorrect technical things towards the end. I stand by my statement: I think it would've been difficult for him to get a (technical) infosec job at the time of his arrest, or now (assuming a world where he didn't have a criminal record). While listening to it, I actually thought he perfectly fit the archetype of cybercrime forum operators I'm used to coming across. He's certainly a great social engineer, and many other technically unskilled people in the cybercrime space also are. I'm definitely not discounting that ability. A lot of it comes down to brazenness; e.g. being confident and shameless enough to impersonate a law enforcement officer over the phone. There's still a lot of skill involved in being a con artist even then - you need affability and the gift of gab and all that - but it's not necessarily the kind of skill that's transferrable to technical expertise. There are many people with expertise in both areas, but also many who are exclusive to one.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I'm not so sure about it. Did you listen to the interview of Lex Fridman with Brett Johnson? He seems like an intelligent person who could easily get an infosec job and be extremely good at it from UX/social engineering point of view, but he was socialized from being a kid to disregard authority and steal from other people in every possible way. Be very careful about taking infosec celebrities at face value. Social engineering is and always has been a core feature of black hat activities. When these people graduate from criminal activities to being keynote speakers and consultants, they take their social engineering skills and use them to build a personal brand. In other words: You were getting socially engineered through that podcast. Building an aura around himself is his business now ( https://www.anglerphish.com/speaking-consulting https://www.anglerphish.com/speaking-consulting ). His story is interesting and you can't deny that he's become a great storyteller. But even he admitted that he wasn't the strongest on the technical side of things.