Obama looking for security expert
June 1, 2008
Hot off the heals of the XSS silliness between the Obama and Clinton camps, the my.barackobama.com site is looking for a network security expert to wants to…
…play a key role in a historic political campaign and help elect Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.
Ok, no mention of security in that opening paragraph, but it does go on to list some very specific skills candidates should have. All pretty normal things to ask for network security person to have, but very little mention in web security skills, which I think is clearly required - by far more attacks are via the web now than the old “network-based” attacks.
Well, first off I’m surprised that sometime like this wasn’t in the team that setup the site in the first place. Second, although it says candidates have to commit until November, I wonder if anyone interested would be able to parlay this into a technology role in the new administration if he get’s both the democratic nod (looks even more likely after today), and the election in November. Most of the electioneering sites from previous runs are still there if you want to search for them (the way back machine is good to get a look at what the sites were like then), but they are all brochure-ware sites for the individuals and probably don’t get near the same amount of traffic as they once did. It would be interesting to see what happens to my.barackobama.com though as it’s one of the first to really connect with people successfully through this technology (although not “the” first to get and internet ground-swell - I believe that Dean did a good job with that, and probably not the “best” as Ron Paul supporters are using the web as their main outlet).
Anyway, the main reason for posting this is to show how web security is so very “needed” now, and becoming mainstream. There’s lots of very good people out there, along with some very poor unfortunately. I just home they end up with a really good person that will fix the really stupid, obvious issues the site had before (and shouldn’t have ever been able to go “live” with these anyway). If you feel that you have the “chops” for this kind of job, go ahead and apply - if I were younger and in the Boston area, and looking for something that might push my career forward, it’s something that I would strongly consider.
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