Three bald heads, six curious eye-pairs, head to head; I'm standing, holding a black marker, leaning against the whiteboard edge.
It wasn't a typical interview setting, very much shifted. There was no revolving chair for me to sit on, and brag about my credentials. I was on my feet throughout the hour, scribbling on the whiteboard, erasing out the parts after going through thorough assesment on every set of obscure sketch I would draw.
"Are you a hacker?" One of the balds enquires
No Sir...!!" I frawned.
"Do you hack Stuffs though?" The other one in the same 'Collision Domain' adds. I guess he forgot the CSMA/CD concept, or at least wasn't abiding.
"Yes, I do --" I replied, then sighed momentarily; simply because I had no add-on to iconize my justification with any plugins.
"Do you do that for Phun?" The first Nerd with deeper curiosity asked:
I looked right on his green eyes and replied: "Not for Phun...I live for it, I go to bed with it, I wake up with it. But I don't intentionally harm anyone, I'm a white hat..!!"
He smirked, the rest two looked at each other.
That was the afternoon of my job interview at a security intelligence company.

Glad to meet you, I am TJ; I am PJ; I go by Nomad! Those were the names of them three! My meaningful Nepalese name that my parents came up with after days of consultations didn't quite fit that transition. I looked forward to naming myself like one of them too..finding some charm on such aliases!

To be Continued .....

Post Script (PS): I'm a tech person, not a writer. I wrote it to kill my boredom at work today; apologies to the ones to which my blabbering didn't make sense.

~@~

interesting stuff.

keep it coming.

If only everyone 'ld come up with such interesting stuff, when they get bored @ work, I wish - each day 'ld stock one good scripter's day with boredom!!

SAAJHA, u r not just a tech-person but a good pen pusher, too!! Keep it coming!!

TJ had a colorful Python tattoo on one of his arms.
PJ's left ear, the one that was accessibly visible to me had at least half dozen piercings, each holding dual rings.
All I recall about Nomad is despite his bald head, his face was filled with hair, except for his four sensory organs, which of course wouldn't want any firewall; and sure enough his forehead wasn't concealed either.I don't remember much about him, probably because all he had was one question for me; and the only time I had to look at him was while replying.

Over the interview, I once mentioned how I was an ardent open source freak, and a Linux Zealot.That was when Nomad gathered all his guts to ask me the single question throughout that hour long session -- "How do you secure Linux environment in a corporate world?"
I didn't expect that quiet guy throwing such an insanely vast question on me in one sentence.
"Ummm,..well I consider linux as a rather stable Operating System than the Windows, and have loaded couple of my PCs with one of its distros. I play around with linux shell, and use it for nmapping and snorting, but never thought about the process of securing it in a corporate world." I answered.

I felt sorry that I couldn't shoot him back with a relevant answer, but I guess he felt even worse. He promply clarified.. "I'm sorry, I wasn't sure how much you knew about Linux...!!"
I simply love this 'I wasn't sure' phrase these far westerners frequently use.I think it's a rather graceful way of conveying one's agreement on something that wasn't agreed upon earlier.

To be Continued...

Post Script: Thnx sun_shine and the_illusionist for your words

~@~

Technology is not my field of interest but language and the craft of writing is!

If I may, sire, there is boundless energy in your writing--you've gained a fan!

Sajha,
What happened next? I am eagerly waiting for the next episode.
"I am not sure" if i could jot down such flawless piece in doldrums.

your meticulous explanation of the events had me in awe saajha. reminded me of my own experiences...keep it coming....i see a new talent in the making here. :). so, linux savvy huh? oh, how i wished to master the administration but alas! i still struggle with shell programming...


LooTe
P.S. i think i have talked with you somewhere...may be in chat ? your nick sounds familiar..i am sorry if i am mistaken but that chatting was sweet and unforgetful :).

A nice translation of the event through words!
You claim yourself a non-writer, but we say you have a gift of expressing through words!

An instant wisher waiting to hear more! :)

"You run a ping sweep, find some alive hosts through ICMP, sort them out, hit port

scanning, fingerprint in stealth mode, find the running OS, Nessus it or break it with

Denial of Service; Zombie more machines and Distribute the DoS for a server..bombard it

with blind packets, shut the server down...voila!! Do you call yourself a hacker?"

Boy, was that a spinning flow!!

I already found myself flying; got a hint that I was trusted among lucid vigilants, and I'd

bet that's got to be the reason TJ poured all that over me. Had I not been at least a

little Proximal to meeting the layer of their expectation, they wouldn't bother asking me

all that...or, I don't know, I have been deceived by my instinct quite a few times!!

"Absolutely Not! It's an art; and unless you know the inside outs of it, you are a lamer.."

I gently scratched my chin and replied.I could feel the blood flow right from head to my

toes, and backward -- probably because my level of comfort skyrocketed along with my

assumptions, and that satisfaction was fostering a gesture.

Giving myself a short pause, I attempted to get a deeper grasp of the cold conditioned

breeze blowing right over me;in the meantime PJ demanded that I prove my knowledge

of seven OSI layers and the major protocols associated with each of them. I started

drawing boxes and clouds with non-photoshop CS2 trained hand -- all of a sudden TJ

stood and headed out.

Thought I was answering fine..!

Didn't realize I brought in some boring,irrelevant,innocous vibe there.

Both PJ and Nomad looked away from me to traceroute TJ's way, I halted..


To be Continued ...

Thank you everyone (SITARA,vantage point,lootekukur,flip_flop, and the ones I thanked earlier) for your inestimable encouragement.

SITARA:
I handed myself a book called 'ABCs of TCP/IP few years ago, and that's when I began my 'tech journey' of life. Now that after years of clinging and flinging on it, I guess I have mastered that part; but the art of writing mocks at me, throws me right on the lap of ABCs stage.
I'd like to crawl through it, but I get backed up leaving myself an admirer of that craft,
can't yet foresee the jubilance and triumphance of being a succesful writer. But your pep up undoubtedly emboldened my attempt: Thank You!

looteKukur:
Yes you are right, we did talk once! That was a while ago, and I still remember.. you
contemplated my personality with some questions and concluded that I was a 'good man' or something of that sort. We got along well~~!

flip_flop and Vantage Point:
It's an hour long event. Should I keep on prolonging?

~@~