What do I do for a living?

[foxgrrl]

A question I am frequently asked is: What do you do for a living?

I'll usually say something like I'm a malware analyst. — although that's an incomplete answer. And they'll say What's malware? And I'll try to explain it to them, but they're too impatient for more than a one sentence explanation. And so I say stuff about hacking and computer viruses and spam, in about two or three sentences, which don't penetrate their skull. (Since they didn't really want to know the answer, they were just making small talk.) And in frustration I'll say something like I break into computers for a living. And then they're like Oh! But that's not really what I do either. And If you've ever seen my CV, you'll note that I do a lot of different, hard-to-explain things. Like Reverse engineering, exploit development, vulnerability analysis, tool development, and even some QA work (tracking down the root cause of the really hard bugs).

The only really succinct response I've come up with is that I stare at the 1's and 0's, and explain what's going on in English. (Or that I'm just really smart at people.)

Comments

[alcira.livejournal.com]

Drewkitty? Are you that Drewkitty?

WOW!

I tell people I'm a jaded philosopher who has finally discovered what she wants out of life. I hesitate to fill out my high school's persistent requests to get an update. The reunion may happen this year. Bf says he regretted going because of all the bullshit that got thrown about passed off as the truth. Hm...

I could always say I'm a hu-man be-ing when they ask me what I do but I haven't had enough jobs to define myself by any one title. Foxgrrl. We live in the same town. I must see you sometime. ::folds hands in martial artsy preparation glance::