I’m really fucking tired. On average, about every week I receive some message about how I’m “unskilled”, “P0’s biggest mistake”, “not technical”. And about every other month one of these messages is posted very publicly or emailed to my managers. 1/7
This is nothing new since I first was an intern. It’s damn clear that the comments are bullshit. That the people taking the time to send me these msgs or create the anonymous accounts are telling a lot more about themselves than about me. But it’s still exhausting. 2/7
If you’re getting these messages too, it’s not about you. I’ve quite literally done everything these folks asked: I’ve done novel research at every level between a die on a CPU and applications. I have the CVEs. Large volumes of my work are publicly available...and yet. 3/7
My 2nd year in the industry, a more sr engineer told me that the only people who make these comments are those who aren’t technically capable themselves. He’s right. The ones who are more skilled are doing the work & helping me grow. They share, not tear people down. 4/7
The quality & volume of work I’ve done, the mentoring, the presentations, the reviewing, the developing teaching materials...that’s all done while I also have to devote a portion of my energy processing the harassment. Even when you know it's false, you still have to process. 5/7
Side note: It’s also total bullshit that somehow technical skills == your right to be respected & how much you belong in infosec. Infosec would never get shit done if it wasn’t for people who had the management, communication, legal, etc skills. 6/7
So this is my reality, but my reality is also that I’ve had the honor to work with really really good people. I love my work & I know I’m damn good at it. And while these people spend their time creating fake accounts to send me msgs, I just keep getting better & better. 7/7
