Re: RE: present day admin skills

["R. DuFresne" <dufresne () sysinfo com>]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Darren Reed wrote:

> In some email I received from R. DuFresne, sie wrote:
> > Darren,
> >
> > theres a kid in Indai that just achineved a milestone in the CISSP camp,
> > being the youngest ever to get the certification, and already having the
> > required 3 years experince on the job, he was either 14 or 16 I believe,
> > and if I do recall correctly was 14.  So folks are I guess in some places
> > in fact paying for this skilled workforce!
>
> So his parents haven't been sending him to school.  It would appear to be
> a case of forsaking a regular education for one which earns money, yes ?
> The article never went into much detail about the conflict between the
> person being a high school student and having 3 years of work experience
> since they were 13.  If you're at school for the normal hours of a week,
> there isn't much room left for doing a 40hr week (or at least not if you
> want to stay healthy).  Either that or the CISSP people aren't too strict
> on what "3 years experience" means.  To me it means working a 40 hr week,
> 9-5, for 3 years (modulo holidays, etc).

As you mention the article was pretty brief, I do not know the particulars
that concern you here, never really gave them a thought being this was not
related to the states, where I'm located.  I do know the article mentioned
the additional scrutiny that the certifying board in his homeland paid due
to the kids not having even a valid 'drivers' license.  Then again I do
not know the laws in India either of qualifications  for driving licenses.
for all I know, they might not even have such a certification we know as a
"license to drive".


> There are all sorts of problems in the Asian region (including India, it
> would seem) with "child labour".  On one extreme you have 12yr old girls
> working streets, on the other you have 17yr old boys getting their CISSP.
> Somewhere inbetween you have lots of kids doing many other things, which,
> if those countries enforced rules about child labour, etc, wouldn't last
> a second.

And here in the states there are all kind of issues of a similar nature
with the quality of education children receive as well as the amount of
food they get to sustain themselves and develop properly.  And what about
imagrants<sp?>?  I guess exploiting adults is somewhat different then
exploiting children, yet, it's exploitation none the less...


> I can see why the CISSP was prompted to make an ethics investigation of
> its own - it wouldn't want to be seen to be supporting children being
> exploited for cheap labour like this (or at least I'd hope not) or by
> giving this problem their rubber stamp of approval when they hand over
> the certificate.


I guess that is one take on this, mine was that they wanted to make sure
their damaged 'qualifications' process was not fully tarnished to make it
undefendable to those that are hiring and depending upon that broken
process and set of standards.  I really saw nothing in the article to
strike me that it was any matter of a concern about child labor practices,
honest!

> Maybe you don't think of this as a problem, but if your job became
> threatened by a 16yr old who had a CISSP and was only going to charge
> $5/hr (lives at home with parents, low living costs, etc), how would
> you react to the situation as a whole ?  What if you increase it to say
> $30 or $40/hr and then find out the parents are staying at home while
> the kid supports the entire family ?  He's got a CISSP, of course, so
> he must be ok and the picture is all rosey just because of that.

This kids is no threat to me, for one he's not here in my job market.
Secondly, I have not really met a CISSP that I feel threatens me in any
serious interview process for a job.  There are folks here on the
security lists I would feel at a disadvantage to have to compete with in a
heads on qualifications for that position matchup that have no
certifications, though, they do not in fact make me feel at all threatened
either.  And this might merely be a difference of how we, you and I, 
define and interpret the term threaten, but, it could in fact be something
else all together.  I'm really not the kind of person that think I'm
always right, nor am I the kind of person that thinks I know it all, I'm
as human as the rest and proudly admit it.  there's lots I do not know,
and some of it I wish I did, and there's many a mistake I've made and take
responsibility for as well as bear the quilt of.

But, really when I read an article like the one we are discussing, my mind
starts to spin and thoughts begins to flow, so please let me try and
ramble out what take I got on this as I read the article.

I read and thought gee, only 13-14 passed the gigantic test folks have
discussed so many times for a CISSP, letters that appear on letterhead and
in sigs like a person displays Dr. on many a parking space.  And it
started to give me ideas and concepts relating to the many discussion in
the sec lists about the validity and importance of certifications.  then
at one point the developmental psych life of mine long ago said:  Well
afterall kids are better tuned to learning and testing, at least as how I
relate to is in my past as a child once <I was ya know> and the kids I know
now and have known before.  Afterall some of the tests we commonly refer
to as I.Q. test and indeed the PSAT's are just as hefty, at least in the
perspective of the education they are designed to quantify...

That was my take on it when I read the article.


Thanks,

Ron DuFresne
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        admin & senior consultant:  sysinfo.com
                  http://sysinfo.com

"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
                -- Johnny Hart

testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!


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