I want to juxtapose two classes of people in the security industry on the defender side of security engineering for products. The first are the Security as Identity people. This goes back to the security-as-counterculture attitude, glamorized in Hackers and dating back to phone phreaking. It reflects Thompson’s “Workism”, where work is not just a way to earn a living, but a way to build a sense of identity, purpose, and community. In the case of security, this identity tends to be built around being different, seeing things other people do not, and being clever in an edgy and misunderstood way. Someone who is beyond merely a security professional, but has the persona of a Hacker. Stylish outsiders smarter than the system. Detectives finding insights others miss.