Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 402 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#361

Post by red-iron-pine »

debo_ wrote: post #66
zamadatix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the people you're paying to find weaknesses in the security system are assuredly never going to find a way to access internal data then how did you conclude you needed a pen tester in the first place? I mean, it's probably the right conclusion but only precisely because they'd find a way to access things they shouldn't be able to.

It's relatively common to have pen testers attack a cloned environment w/ sanitized data. This is especially true in cases where your policies (or those you've agreed to from customers) require you to present evidence that you are having a pen test done every X years.

access to live data for testing is also a compliance question -- as in, don't do it, and why are you doing it?

why are you not using cloned or dummy data?

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#362

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #355
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, but in this specific case it kinda sucks for you. We shouldn’t be making a system that penalizes offenders for life without explicit sentencing for such. Whether that information is useful to your business is relatively irrelevant to me because denying people proper employment does a lot more harm to them than the harm done to the people in businesses like yours by not penalizing them.

But you don't get it. you think the government is required to play God in every aspect of the economy, clearly.

So true, that really is exactly what I’m saying by saying you shouldn’t be allowed to dig up whether someone has been convicted of a crime in the past when hiring them. If that‘s playing god, then slap a robe on me and call me father buddy. I mean the state is the one providing you with all that juicy hiring information in the first place. Perhaps this gives you an unfair advantage in the free market, and I’m just a concerned libertarian.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#363

Post by eli »

0xDEADFED5 wrote: post #288
eli wrote: post #95

Sounds like you're in California. I'd start by making sure you know your rights under their "Ban the Box" laws. In general I don't think an employer can ask about or consider a prior conviction until after they've made a conditional offer.

the law is meaningless. it just means they rescind the offer after doing background check.

It doesn't just mean that, actually.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#364

Post by foooobaba »

publicprivacy wrote: post #12

Thank you all for your perspective, and suggestions. I was on a bad psychedelic trip, accompanied with some other issues at the time and ending up making threatening statements to a very high level official, but no battery occurred whatsoever. Thank goodness, or I would probably not be writing this message

You should try to petition your state governor office to get the felony removed. It is a long time consuming process and will likely need help from a lawyer, but I have friends that have successfully gotten their felony removed after several years of diligently trying again, and of course good behavior in the mean time. It may never happen, but might as well give it a shot, it can’t hurt.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#365

Post by 946789987649 »

Simon_ORourke wrote: post #351
tommychillfiger wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally someone who sees honesty as a virtue and have always been fairly open, at work and in my private life. I'm curious if you can expand on this a bit - i.e., why is it a disadvantage and what sort of pitfalls can it lead to? I've been in analytics for a few years now, and it seems like it has mostly been an advantage for me, but it's certainly possible I just don't know what I don't know.

Example - about 2005 I was a junior dev thinking I was about to make the cut to senior within the year, in a medium sized IT company. Let it slip accidentally to my boss that I used to install servers in racks in a previous role. Ended up being shoved into a "lateral move" into the systems engineering team because they couldn't hire quickly enough. Fast forward another six months and I get laid off after a migration…

This seems incredibly broad, and could just as easily have gone amazingly for you as it did go badly.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#366

Post by calvinmorrison »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #362
calvinmorrison wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't get it. you think the government is required to play God in every aspect of the economy, clearly.

So true, that really is exactly what I’m saying by saying you shouldn’t be allowed to dig up whether someone has been convicted of a crime in the past when hiring them. If that‘s playing god, then slap a robe on me and call me father buddy. I mean the state is the one providing you with all that juicy hiring information in the first place. Perhaps this gives you an unfair advantage in the free market, and I’m just a…

that's right! Time to auction off Yosemite and put a roller coaster over Old Faithful

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#367

Post by justsomeoldguy »

phpisthebest wrote: post #337
autoexec wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his hands were tied. there were three, assault with a firearm, great bodily injury, and domestic violence. because a gun had been involved. minimum mandatory sentencing. no concurrent, must be consecutive. Situations like yours are what people who get off on "tough on crime" policies and push for harsher punishments for "bad guys" never stop to think about. We need judges to be able to consider an individual's uniq…

100% agree but you have to remember that the mandatory minimums are a reaction to other types of judges that go very soft on violent offenders that end up reoffending and causing more violence and more victims and there are clear evidence that this person was going to reoffend again oftentimes having already offended multiple times and committed multiple crimes against multiple victims and are given fourth fifth sixt…

it all boils down to this: does more time make people offend less? does simply adding more time reduce recidivism rates? no, it does not.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2022/re...

"In 2015, for example, an analysis by Swiss researchers looked at 14 studies that compared what happened when criminals were put behind bars to what happened when they were given some other sentence, such as probation or electronic monitoring, that allowed them to stay out of jail or prison. The researchers found that crime rates were just as high for people who’d spent time behind bars as for those who hadn’t."

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#368

Post by justsomeoldguy »

schizo89 wrote: post #115
justsomeoldguy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it really sucks. If I had known I'd lose my jobs the way I did each time, I would never have applied to begin with. it was really traumatic each time, and very sudden. it PTSD'd me, not that I have any shortage of that. But just the way everyone gets when you go from "everyone knows you and respects you and likes you" and suddenly it's ... uhh ohh. everyone being quiet. is this... again? yes. yes it was. and I just c…

Lol what are you talking about? If you have something to eat and a working pc and stable internet connection you can make the way. That's a hard lessons learnt in startup years. It's the same

I'm not sure what you mean by "make the way" and your working pc and stable internet connection seem to trivialize the pressures and very real limitations someone has while on parole and then subsequently after getting off parole.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#369

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #366
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true, that really is exactly what I’m saying by saying you shouldn’t be allowed to dig up whether someone has been convicted of a crime in the past when hiring them. If that‘s playing god, then slap a robe on me and call me father buddy. I mean the state is the one providing you with all that juicy hiring information in the first place. Perhaps this gives you an unfair advantage in the free market, and I’m just a…

that's right! Time to auction off Yosemite and put a roller coaster over Old Faithful

Hell yeah we gotta get that bitch workin for us! The hell did nature ever do for america?

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#370

Post by throwaway2037 »

voxic11 wrote: post #360
justsomeoldguy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds reasonable, but I can't tell you how combative it is if you're applying for a job in a state that forbids them from asking if you have any felonies, and there it is on the job application, staring you in the face. so what are you going to do, tell them no? you won't get the job. tell the truth? you won't get the job. sue them? good luck. you'll need it and that does not get you the job and the settlement, if y…

You don't need to sue, you should file a complaint with your states department of labor or whomever is charged with enforcing your states labor laws, they will sue for you if they think you have a case. Also in every state I have seen with a similar law the law specifically says you are allowed to lie if you are asked that question anyways and the employer is not allowed to run a background check on you before they o…

> If you are asked about your record, your answer cannot be used against you.

Let's be real: This is basically impossible to enforce. This is exactly the same a gender and national heritiage (ethnicity) discrimination. It happens all the time -- there are so many mentions of it on this board. And very, very rarely is anything done about it. There are so many "weak sauce" excuses that companies can give to explain why they will not hire a candidate.

That said: I like your advice: Lie, then report when you are unfairly rejected. This is the way.

Post reply on HN