6 ms·

Why is there so much overlap between infosec and furries?

by whalesalad 4y ago

throw_m239339 4y ago
Pigalowda 4y ago
- _notathrowaway 4y ago
  That's a very prejudiced and uncharitable way of looking at a fellow hacker. Have you got evidence to back your views?
  - Pigalowda 4y ago
    - whalesalad 4y ago
      Your above response was very judgmental and not kind. My goal with the question was not to shame the lifestyle, and I don’t think that type of discussion is relevant here.
      - Pigalowda 4y ago
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    - TakeBlaster16 4y ago
      I understand wanting to protect real-life children, but I'll never understand why we need to protect drawings of fictional bears
  - some_furry 4y ago
    Despite what the other commentators on this thread seem to want to believe without evidence, I'm not at all attracted to children, and I'm offended that someone would drop such a gross accusation in a HN thread.
    - Pigalowda 4y ago
      Be offended and then clarify - why are so many furries in the infosec field? Do you have a speculative answer? By the way a person using a dark market to get drugs and then meeting up with other consenting adults to “cosplay” as animals may very well be an illegal and potentially humiliating event for a person. Maybe just growing up with the subculture created an early need in a person to hide/obfuscate and therefore motivates entry into infosec. I don’t know - that’s why I’m speculating. Going straight to the child angle is too narrow/myopic.
      - some_furry 4y ago
        > why are so many furries in the infosec field? Do you have a speculative answer? Honestly, the answer has already been posted several times. It has nothing to do with the incorrect associations you have in your mind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32778682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32778682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779917 > By the way a person using a dark market to get drugs and then meeting up with other consenting adults to “cosplay” as animals may very well be an illegal and potentially humiliating event for a person. I have no idea what this means, considering: 1. I don't use dark markets 2. I don't use drugs 3. Being a furry isn't "animal 'cosplay'" in the sense your comment implies > Maybe just growing up with the subculture created an early need in a person to hide/obfuscate and therefore motivates entry into infosec. Roughly 80% of furries are LGBTQ+. https://furscience.com/research-findings/sex-relationships-pornography/5-1-orientation/ https://furscience.com/research-findings/sex-relationships-p... An early Internet tradition, started by Something Awful, was to use "anti-furry" as a dog-whistle for anti-LGBTQ+. https://soatok.medium.com/if-you-hate-furries-youre-anti-lgbt-cce35a948a57 https://soatok.medium.com/if-you-hate-furries-youre-anti-lgb... This also motivated a lot of LGBTQ+ and furry people to need to learn security just to exist online. What you're gesturing towards is actually self defense against shitty people. > I don’t know - that’s why I’m speculating. Going straight to the child angle is too narrow/myopic. It's probably better to ask questions than to speculate incorrectly, especially when it's a nontechnical matter.
Kye 4y ago
Possibly the same reason there's an overlap of queer people and furries: motivation to learn, a need for well-paid work to get out of hostile families and geographies, a need for an accepting community while you're working toward getting out.
- cochne 4y ago
  I think you might have wrote furries instead of infosec/software?
  - Kye 4y ago
    The furry/infosec/queer Venn diagram isn't a perfect circle, but the overlap is significant and growing with greater acceptance showing in surveys.
    - malfist 4y ago
      Maybe in your social circles it is. If you move outside of the social circle of furries you'll find that they're just a small fraction of the queer population, just as they are only a small fraction of the non-queer population. We might be more accepting of furries than our non-queer counterparts, but that doesn't make us furries ourselves. Claiming furry and queer is anywhere close to a a perfect circle venn diagram is way off base.
      - Kye 4y ago
        I don't know what to do with a response that's completely unbound from anything I said in the thing it's replying to. I didn't say: * all queer people are furry. Most A are B is not all B are A. * that the Venn diagram is anywhere near a perfect circle. In fact, I said that's not the case. HN's guideline on reading things charitably could have saved both of us some annoyance here. Try again. It's absurd to think I could mean the things you thought I meant.
        burnished 4y ago
poszlem 4y ago
Well, before it was a cool identity to have, geeks used to go into computing often in order to escape what they perceived as reality that was hostile to them. I guess if you think you are an animal (even if ironically) you would also be more keen to stay in the virtual world. And infosec is one of those fields where hiding behind an avatar or a nickname is still somewhat accepted.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
I hope I don't get flagged for this but neurodiversity is wide in the furry community.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  You're correct and shouldn't be downvoted for it. Diversity in general is pretty wide in the fandom. We have a much higher percentage of LGBTQ+ people here, because we do accept those people. Furries on the whole are accepting and welcoming. For people who have faced discrimination in one form or another, the fandom is a place where one can belong and simply be who they are.
  - lynndotpy 4y ago
    I only heard this anecdotally, but I understand that "alternative" folks and lifestyles were intentionally curated in the early years.
deepdriver 4y ago
People who spend inordinate amounts of time indoors on the computer have more time in which to develop computer skills.
egypturnash 4y ago
There’s a path from “hanging out on a role playing server” to “running the server” to “hey I can fill this Unix admin job” that has only gotten easier as more furries take it, then look to their friends when their company has positions that need filling. This furry-to-IT pipeline has been running since the beginning of the World Wide Web as a thing people put money into.

Why is there so much overlap between infosec and furries?

throw_m239339 4y ago

Pigalowda 4y ago

_notathrowaway 4y ago
That's a very prejudiced and uncharitable way of looking at a fellow hacker. Have you got evidence to back your views?
- Pigalowda 4y ago
  - whalesalad 4y ago
    Your above response was very judgmental and not kind. My goal with the question was not to shame the lifestyle, and I don’t think that type of discussion is relevant here.
    - Pigalowda 4y ago
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  - TakeBlaster16 4y ago
    I understand wanting to protect real-life children, but I'll never understand why we need to protect drawings of fictional bears
- some_furry 4y ago
  Despite what the other commentators on this thread seem to want to believe without evidence, I'm not at all attracted to children, and I'm offended that someone would drop such a gross accusation in a HN thread.
  - Pigalowda 4y ago
    Be offended and then clarify - why are so many furries in the infosec field? Do you have a speculative answer? By the way a person using a dark market to get drugs and then meeting up with other consenting adults to “cosplay” as animals may very well be an illegal and potentially humiliating event for a person. Maybe just growing up with the subculture created an early need in a person to hide/obfuscate and therefore motivates entry into infosec. I don’t know - that’s why I’m speculating. Going straight to the child angle is too narrow/myopic.
    - some_furry 4y ago
      > why are so many furries in the infosec field? Do you have a speculative answer? Honestly, the answer has already been posted several times. It has nothing to do with the incorrect associations you have in your mind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32778682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32778682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32779917 > By the way a person using a dark market to get drugs and then meeting up with other consenting adults to “cosplay” as animals may very well be an illegal and potentially humiliating event for a person. I have no idea what this means, considering: 1. I don't use dark markets 2. I don't use drugs 3. Being a furry isn't "animal 'cosplay'" in the sense your comment implies > Maybe just growing up with the subculture created an early need in a person to hide/obfuscate and therefore motivates entry into infosec. Roughly 80% of furries are LGBTQ+. https://furscience.com/research-findings/sex-relationships-pornography/5-1-orientation/ https://furscience.com/research-findings/sex-relationships-p... An early Internet tradition, started by Something Awful, was to use "anti-furry" as a dog-whistle for anti-LGBTQ+. https://soatok.medium.com/if-you-hate-furries-youre-anti-lgbt-cce35a948a57 https://soatok.medium.com/if-you-hate-furries-youre-anti-lgb... This also motivated a lot of LGBTQ+ and furry people to need to learn security just to exist online. What you're gesturing towards is actually self defense against shitty people. > I don’t know - that’s why I’m speculating. Going straight to the child angle is too narrow/myopic. It's probably better to ask questions than to speculate incorrectly, especially when it's a nontechnical matter.

Kye 4y ago

Possibly the same reason there's an overlap of queer people and furries: motivation to learn, a need for well-paid work to get out of hostile families and geographies, a need for an accepting community while you're working toward getting out.

cochne 4y ago
I think you might have wrote furries instead of infosec/software?
- Kye 4y ago
  The furry/infosec/queer Venn diagram isn't a perfect circle, but the overlap is significant and growing with greater acceptance showing in surveys.
  - malfist 4y ago
    Maybe in your social circles it is. If you move outside of the social circle of furries you'll find that they're just a small fraction of the queer population, just as they are only a small fraction of the non-queer population. We might be more accepting of furries than our non-queer counterparts, but that doesn't make us furries ourselves. Claiming furry and queer is anywhere close to a a perfect circle venn diagram is way off base.
    - Kye 4y ago
      I don't know what to do with a response that's completely unbound from anything I said in the thing it's replying to. I didn't say: * all queer people are furry. Most A are B is not all B are A. * that the Venn diagram is anywhere near a perfect circle. In fact, I said that's not the case. HN's guideline on reading things charitably could have saved both of us some annoyance here. Try again. It's absurd to think I could mean the things you thought I meant.
      - burnished 4y ago

poszlem 4y ago

Well, before it was a cool identity to have, geeks used to go into computing often in order to escape what they perceived as reality that was hostile to them. I guess if you think you are an animal (even if ironically) you would also be more keen to stay in the virtual world. And infosec is one of those fields where hiding behind an avatar or a nickname is still somewhat accepted.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

I hope I don't get flagged for this but neurodiversity is wide in the furry community.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
You're correct and shouldn't be downvoted for it. Diversity in general is pretty wide in the fandom. We have a much higher percentage of LGBTQ+ people here, because we do accept those people. Furries on the whole are accepting and welcoming. For people who have faced discrimination in one form or another, the fandom is a place where one can belong and simply be who they are.
- lynndotpy 4y ago
  I only heard this anecdotally, but I understand that "alternative" folks and lifestyles were intentionally curated in the early years.

deepdriver 4y ago

People who spend inordinate amounts of time indoors on the computer have more time in which to develop computer skills.

egypturnash 4y ago

There’s a path from “hanging out on a role playing server” to “running the server” to “hey I can fill this Unix admin job” that has only gotten easier as more furries take it, then look to their friends when their company has positions that need filling. This furry-to-IT pipeline has been running since the beginning of the World Wide Web as a thing people put money into.