Month: September 2011

Sysadmins vs. programmers

In a Slashdot thread on the topic of the Programmer’s Day, I came across this insightful comment, with which, having been both a sysadmin and a programmer, I have to somewhat agree. No disrespect to any programmers intended, but sysadmins have it tougher.  I wouldn’t go as far as to claim that Programmer’s Day is not deserved – we all work hard, but I agree that Sysadmin’s Day is deserved more.

Having been both a sysadmin and programmer, I have to honestly say that while sysadmin day is deserved, programming day isn’t. There’s just simply much more to sysadmins that are underappreciated when compared to programmers:

  • Sysadmins setup routine systems that are built by programmers (who usually get the credit).
  • Sysadmins only get (negative) attention when something goes awry.
  • There’s usually no mention of sysadmins anywhere.
  • Unless you are very technical, you probably don’t even know that sysadmins exist!

In contrast, programmers have it nice in the sense that when they do a good job, they are seen as the heroes who created the system. People go to programmers for feature requests in addition to bug reports. Their names are usually listed in an about dialog or readme file somewhere. Also, unless you are completely technically illiterate, you know that someone has to create the software.

The final bit: the infrastructure will crash and burn without sysadmins, but without programmers, it’ll just cease to advance.

Having a Programmer Day in addition to Sysadmin Day is like having an Executive Day in addition to Labor Day: unnecessary, unjustified. In both cases, the former already has the glory on a daily basis that the latter is hugely lacking.

 

Day in brief – 2011-09-13

Texas drought and wildfires

Big Picture, as always, shares some stunning pictures of a natural disaster.  This time Texas drought and wildfires are in focus.  When looking at these images, I can’t stop thinking of people who, instead of running, trying to save their lives, stopped for a moment, set their cameras, framed the image and pressed the shutter button.  I haven’t been in anything even remotely as dangerous as these situations, but even that was enough for me to know that I am not built for journalistic photography.  And I can’t even start to imagine what all those people who’s homes and businesses were in the path of fires feel like.

 

Interview with Kevin Mitnick

Slashdot runs the questions and answers with the world most famous hacker Kevin Mitnick.   While most of his adventures and opinions are well covered on the web and in the books, you might still be surprised by some of the answers.

Here is his take on the involvement of anti-virus and other security companies in the creation of viruses and other malware.

Cybersecurity Companies?
by bigredradio

Kevin, do you suspect any collusion on the part of cybersecurity companies such as Kapersky Labs or Avast! and virus creators? If there were not so many exploits in the wild, would there be a billion-dollar anti-virus industry?

KM: I don’t know about Kaspersky but I think it’s ludicrous to assert that any anti-virus company would be involved with malware creators. These are large companies and the risk of being involved in this type of unethical behavior is too great.

And here is his opinion of what the future has for us.

cybersecurity
by Anonymous

What cybersecurity threats do you see as the most dangerous to the Internet now?

Re:cybersecurity
by zero0ne

What threat do you see as the most dangerous in 2, 5 and 10 years?

KM: Malware is probably the most substantial threat. Not only because it is so prevalent and being crafted better to avoid detection, but also because a large majority of internet users are oblivious to the dangers involved with clicking unknown links, authorizing Java Applets, opening attachments from people they don’t know, and are easily fooled by average phishing attacks. People are still the weak link, and even intelligent ones make poor decisions. Case in point, the recent spearfishing attacks on Google and RSA, which proved highly effective.

Looking into the future is difficult as technology progresses so rapidly. In the next few years, as more and more corporations move towards cloud computing, these servers loaded with information are going to be the new playground for hackers. Layers of security need to be applied in any cloud-computing environment to minimize the risk.

With the recent hacks on Certificate Authorities, I would count on SSL becoming obsolete in the future and being replaced with a new, more robust secure standard, since the “web of trust” is no longer a feasible model.

With the proliferation of consumer devices coming onto the market that are internet-ready, I would expect to see more attacks at the heart of these new technologies. New devices, especially those branded by names like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, always tend to draw the attention of hackers from all over the world.

Happy Programmer Day!

Today is the 256th day of the year, which means it’s Programmer Day once again.  I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate all my colleagues around the world and wish them all quieter rooms, better tools, larger salaries, faster computers, and fewer bugs.  Let the source be with you! If you write code and 256 has a special meaning to you, I tip my hat to you and hope you’ll enjoy this little comic strip from Geek And Poke.

For those of you who are not programmers, but curious about a special meaning of 256, the explanation is really simple.  Bit a smallest unit of information, which can only take values of 0 or 1 in binary notation.  Bits are organized into bytes.  There are 8 bits in a byte.  Which means there are 2 to the power of 8 combinations of ones and zeros in a byte.  2 to the power of 8 is 256.  There are a few more meanings to the number, if you are still interested.