This isn't Russian assassins. They kill specific notable people, not functionaries. Nor is this about not being able to talk about work. Working in these fields becomes your life. You talk about it all day. They don't want to talk about it more, certainly not at home.

This is about over-qualification in a narrow field. These are people for whom there is only the one job. Then ... something happens that threatens that existence. Think of a young airline pilot being diagnosed with an eye problem. His flying days are over. His entire experience is meaningless to any other jobs and he must start from scratch: a 40yo with no qualification beyond highschool.

Dig into these people and I think you will find something related to their security clearances. Something bad, or something totally innocent, that threatened their clearance. They are faced with a professional reset, something that will impact them and their family in a negative and permanent way.

From the article: Sergeant Kevin Stallings ... He took his own life the month before he’d have turned 37. ... grew up in a military family ... enlisted in the Air Force right out of a Virginia high school ... earned a degree in intelligence analysis

So he had no qualifications outside of intelligence. He had little to no perception of any life outside his field. So anything threatening that job, real or imagined, would be instantly existential.

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qaq 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Only one job ? Worked with a ton of ex NSA and CIA people in a large cybersec company.

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sandworm101 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

Cybersec is not intelligence. The people suiciding in the article seem to be from intelligence rather than cyber. The fields are often conflated but they are different communities. One feeds data to the other.

Clearances are under more scrutiny for intelligence operators than cyber because, generally, the cyber people should not have access to finalized intelligence, the assessments and recommendations passed to decision makers. Cyber people also only work in cyber and know nothing about other sensor areas (ie human spy programs).

	▲	qaq 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		there was pretty large intelligence side that did attribution and investigative type work into orgs money movements etc. some of those people def came from non tech backgrounds.

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breppp an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That's an interesting theory and I am not saying you are entirely incorrect, but I'd imagine that the vast personnel of cyber-adjacent roles in the US Military have better civilian prospects in tech than a Air Force pilot with an eye problem.

	▲	sandworm101 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Well, I did say airline pilot. An AirForce pilot is still a military officer and can find work inside or outside the military as a team leader. A modern airline pilot is an infamously hyper-specialized job where all they do is operate the aircraft. They don't even do real flight planning anymore as that is a separate airline trade.