Re: Contract Rates & CISSP or not

[Crispin Cowan <crispin () wirex com>]

Darren Reed wrote:

> One would hope that this would perhaps deter the snake oil security folk
> from polluting the waters but there are guarantees in this world besides
> death and taxes.
"Death, Taxes, and Imperfect Software: Surviving the Inevitable". 
Crispin Cowan, Calton Pu, and Heather Hinton. Presented at the  New 
Security Paradigms Workshop 1998 
<http://www-hsc.usc.edu/%7Eessin/nspw98.html> . Postscript 
<http://www.cse.ogi.edu/%7Ecrispin/bugtol.ps.gz> 130 KB, PDF 
<http://www.cse.ogi.edu/%7Ecrispin/bugtol.pdf> 92 KB.  :-)

> A different take on the CISSP issue is this: if people with the same
> experience quote for the same job and the person with the CISSP gives
> a somewhat higher quote (lets say $10/hr more), is the recruiter going
> to go for the CISSP qualified person or the other?  I guess the question
> I'm asking here is does the CISSP equate to X$/hr extra when it comes to
> the consulting gig and if so, for what value of X ?
Personally, I use CISSP as a filter for who *not* to hire, as in "if 
they have a CISSP, I don't hire them". Rationalle: we do advanced R&D, 
so I'm shopping for brilliance, not competence & willingness to do 
drugery with dilligence. The CISSP (hopefully :-) assures a minimum 
level of competence, but IMHO the social filter of those who seek such 
certification makes them unlikely to be a brilliant innovater.

My position used to be much stronger: that certificates are for poseurs, 
give me a real degree or a Bugtraq pedigree, or don't bother. But I've 
mellowed in my old age :-)

In summary, I still look at CISSP's (and other certificates that don't 
start with "Bachelor's" or similar) as a negative mark, which I'm 
willing to overlook if the other factors are strong. I certainly will 
not pay extra for it.

Crispin

--
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html


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