Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
Search - "defence"
-
Attack is the best defence! I read my emails in the morning and figure out whether there's some action for me. When I go and get my second coffee, I drop by the PM's office and have a short chat with him.
Where I am in the projects, whether there's stuff from other tasks or unexpected actions, how long that might take, whether schedules are still OK, whether I need him to take care of some customer communication, these things. Usually less than 5 minutes.
The kicker is that he mostly doesn't interrupt me because I instead interrupt him - unless he is highly busy, in which case he just says "sorry, later", same as I would do.
It's a win-win because I can schedule the interruptions while he enjoys that he doesn't have to ask around.5 -
My dad's a silicone guy, my little brother is a java-dev, my mom works for the NHS.
I'm a web and mobile dev.
So... My dad and little bro think I do WordPress and my mom thinks she should earn more than me.
In her defence I'm an NHS patient and I also think her and anyone else in the health industry should earn more than me.8 -
Had a final year project defence today in university. There were about 15 CS teachers in the room.
Our project was "Crypto Currency". After all the presentation was finish.
Teachers: so what is this blockchain?
** explained all about it and how it works with marker in a whiteboard **
While most of the projects were rejected and they have asked several cross questions to other friends, they didnt even ask any question to us and said our project is accepted.
Turns out teachers were taught by a student today, feels so good 😎 😂4 -
So... remember my first rants about my network at my last ship?
https://devrant.com/rants/2076759/...
https://devrant.com/rants/2076890/...
https://devrant.com/rants/2077084/...
Well... I had to visit them for an unrelated matter and found out that they are to pass general inspection the next week. Among the inspectors is a member of the cyber defence team. I took a quick look at the network, finding the things I'd expect:
- No updates passed to the server or installed since I left
- No antivirus updates since I left
- All certificates were expired
- Most services were shut down or unused
- All security policies were shut down
- Passwords (without expiration now) were written on post-it and stuck on screens
- ... and more!
I told the XO (the same idiot that complained about them CONSTANTLY) and he just shrugged me off and told me to """fix""" it. In one fucking afternoon.
I. SHIT. YOU. NOT.
The new admin there is a low ranking person who hasn't the faintest idea of how this works, and isn't willing to learn, either. They just dumped the duty on him, and he seems not to care. The cyber security inspector is going to have a field day. Or get grey hairs.
I told the XO that I needed at least a week to get them into working order (I have to re-set up my virtual Windows 2012 R2 server, download 2 years' worth of updates, repair 2 years of neglect etc.). The answer was what I expected:
"You know computers, you can do your magic and get it done in an afternoon."
Thank god I got transferred and don't have to answer to that idiot any more. Now, popcorn time, as I watch the fireworks.
Yes, I am a vengeful guy. I have told them, twice now, of what would happen. They didn't listen. At least now, with an official report on their heads, they just might.3 -
I hate buying new laptops. HATE IT. The manufacturers are always trying to do something that makes it more complicated to buy a laptop confidently.
Why not name all of the laptops with numbers? Make them really hard to differentiate. Then offer the same model number across multiple years so it is difficult to determine which year the laptop is from.
Oh. And let’s make sure every laptop has a major flaw in the form factor.
Let’a add a numpad that squishes the keyboard to the left in a weird way. Lets do something to the trackpad to make it awkward to use. Maybe the keyboard should have a weird configuration. Maybe we can put 4 spare characters of various colours on the symbol key caps. How about a battery only lasts a few hours. May we add specialized hardware so you are stuck with windows. Maybe we can make it super thick and heavy. Lets have a screen with terrible viewing angles. Since this laptop has no major flaws we should overprice it. No repairs or upgrades on this one because we filled the computer with glue. Lets double the amount of useless media keys.
It is like manufacturers are trying to design laptops like RPG game character classes. The fighter has no magic or stealth. The magician is weak and gets fatigued. The rogue is very stealthy but has poor defence and attack. The cleric can use magic but only to heal so it is useless in battle. The ranger is good at distance but has poor defence and no magic.
The only notebooks sold that are trying to make balanced character classes are MacBooks. Those cost a premium and aren’t reparable.17 -
WELL GEE, IF I KNEW WHAT MY ACCOUNT USERNAME WAS, I WOULD JUST SIGN IN YOU ASSHOLE. -.-
On top of that, they use these fucking anchent capchas that are fucking case sensitive and annoying as hell..
In their defence, I was trying to automate their website (one of those get paid to click sites) in an atempt to get some money, but still!6 -
Not a coworker, but this guy who I went to uni with and was a real life saver when I was really down. (we played minecraft together)
... So, he is a real genius. One of those guys who I legit couldn't keep up with. His brain works, he doesn't bullshit his way through, he's not pretentious, he is legit a down to earth rare genius. Yet, he doesn't use his talents enough, he likes to work or go home to play minecraft. And he doesn't politically care enough, so I am almost sure that he will end up getting stuck in the defence force.
We're still friends. And I try my hardest to not be nosy and nag at him that he can do better. I mean, he is happy the way he is, and he is not ambitious. But the memory of him is a reminder that not everyone who gets somewhere is the best and brightest.34 -
I am really getting sick of recruiters contacting me with "great opportunities" then when I ask questions about the post they just give me the answers they think I want to hear. I know when you're lying because if you knew the answer you would have led with that. At least say you'll find out more and then give me a follow up response.
Recruiter: Would it be possible for you to deliver hacking training?
Me: You mean pentesting?
R: Yes, that.
Me: Well, what will it be used for? Breaking into peoples networks and spying on them?
R: Yes, they'll want it to be able to spy on people.
Me: Well, that's unethical, I'm only interested in defensive security practices.
R: Yes, they'll only want it for ethical reasons like defence and against bad guys.
Me: *dirtiest look I could muster*
I mean there's gullible and then there's what ever it is you think I am.2 -
Yesterday I spend around half an hour 'debugging' why a screen wasn't working. Checking cable connection, drivers and so on. Then the system admin pointed out that the extension power cable box was turned off... In my defence, I only slept for 4 hours that night..2
-
I'm 2 months into my first dev job. Today, I was working on upgrading one of our products to React 18. Had a feeling my UI changes weren't being pushed to AWS so I wanted to test that. Changed all labels from ".. filter users..." to "shmilter shusers". Committed, then nearly pushed those changes for a PR. There are multiple lines of defence and only a 5% chance that no one would spot it but as soon as I realized that there's a small possibility that our customers would suddenly see "shmilter shusers" on their instances, I had an absolute fit. Maybe it's a "you had to be there" kind of thing but I don't remember the last time I laughed this hard.5
-
So when our campus expo happened, I immediately went to the apps I critiqued last time when I was a a panel judge in the IT dep’s oral defence. Fair enough, this happened:
- The app I failed (the tilting avoid boxes shit app) actually got optimized and got the first time user tutorial I was looking for. I was short of relieved of them listening and kept going despite me failing them (props to the girl btw)
- Second app was the same as before but added my recommendations, nonetheless still a good app
I am nothing short of amazed they actually listened to me so I think that’s a win for my part1 -
A follow up for this rant : https://devrant.com/rants/1429631/...
its morning and i have been awoke all night, but i am so happy and feel like crying seeing you people's response. :''''') Thank-You for helping a young birdie like me from getting exploit.
In Summery, I am successfully out of this trickery, but with cowardice, a little exploited and being continuously nagged by my friend as a 'fool'.
Although i would be honest, i did took a time to take my decision and got carried away by his words.
After a few hours of creating a group, he scheduled a conference call , and asked me to submit the flow by which my junior devs will work.
At that time i was still unclear about weather to work or not and had just took a break from studies. So thought of checking the progress and after a few minutes, came up with a work-flow, dropped in the group and muted it.
At night i thought of checking my personal messages , and that guy had PMed me that team is not working, check on their progress. This got me pissed and i diverted the topic by asking when he would be mailing my letter of joining.
His fucking reply to this was :"After the project gets completed!"
(One more Example of his attempts to be manipulative coming up, but along with my cowardice ) :/
WTF? with a team like this and their leader being 'me'( who still calls him noob after 2 internships and 10 months android exp), this project would have taken at least one month and i was not even counting myself in the coding part(The Exams).
So just to clarify what would be the precise date by which he is expecting the task, to which he said "27th"(i.e, tomorrow!)
I didn't responded. And rather checked about the details of the guy( knew that the company was start-up, but start-ups does sound hopeful, if they are doing it right) .A quick social media search gave me the results that he is a fuckin 25 year old guy who just did a masters and started this company. there was no mention of investors anywhere but his company's linkedin profile showed up and with "11-50" members.
After half an hour i told him that am not in this anymore, left the group and went back to study.(He wanted to ask for reasons, but i denied by saying a change of mind ,personal problems, etc)
Well the reality is over but here comes the cowardice part:
1)Our team was working on a private repo hosted on my account and i voluntarily asked him to take back the ownership, just to come out of this safely w/o pissing him off.
2)The "test" he took of me was the wireframe given by their client and which was the actual project we 5 were working on. So, as a "test", i created 15 activities of their client's app and have willingly transferred it to them.
3) in my defence, i only did it because (i) i feared this small start-up could harm my reputation on open platforms like linkedin and (ii)the things i developed were so easy that i don't mind giving them. they were just ui, designed a lot quickly but except that, they were nothing(even a button needs a code in the backend to perform something and i had not done it) . moreover, the guys working under me had changed a lot of things, so i felt bad for them and dropped the idea of damaging it.
Right now am just out of sleep, null of thoughts and just wondering weather am a good person, a safe player or just a stupid, easily manipulated fool
But Once again My deepest regard from my heart for @RustyCookie , @geaz ,@tarstrong ,and @YouAreAPIRate for a positive advice.
My love for devrant is growing everyday <3 <3 <3 <35 -
Unnamed hacking game - "terminal" graphics
-Multiplayer. Last man standing.
-Like a tower-defence game but technical
You work for a company that has outsourced their technical department to Bykazistan, a country with good internet and bad laws. On one hand, labor is very cheap! There are no pesky laws protecting workers, so you don't need to pay them what they're worth. Phew. However, there are also no laws against cyber crime. But for a start-up like you, the risk is worth the reward!
...which would be great! If you were the only company with that idea. As it turns out, you aren't. All of your competitors also recently outsourced to Bykazistan, and that could be an issue.
You would be afraid, but you are a hardened businessman. You are familiar with the cut-throat nature of the business world and where others see risk, you see opportunity. Let the games begin.
Your mission is to protect your ciritical assets at all costs, eliminate your opponents, and make ciritical financial decisions - all while maintaining your uptime!
Build a botnet and attack your competition to decrease their uptime and disable their attacks. Port scan your opponents to learn more about their network, but beware of honeypots! Initiate devastating social engineering attacks - and train your employees against them! Brute-force their credentials, and strengthen your own.
Make sure to keep your software patched...5 -
Me:
* Builds Project and Hosts it *
* thinking * : * ' I don't really need to push to Master, I'll just push it to the deployed branch *
Me: * tests project from host *
Me: * sees a bug, fixes it and rebuilds the project, hosts it and pushes code to deployed branch *
4Hrs Later:
Colleague: Dude did you see the Typos you made? Fix them!
Me: In my defence, I wrote this at 4am in the morning, did not sleep for 2 days.
Colleague: Don't Care, fix it.
Me: *Creates Hotfix Branch from Master*
* INSTALLS DEPENDANCIES AND FINDS OUT A NEW VERSION IS OUT AND UPDATES THAT AS WELL *
* Runs Project and finds out it's not the hosted version. *
* Merges Deployed Brunch to Hotfix Brunch and this happens *
Error Message: Unexpected token
620 Merge Conflicts
🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️2 -
Whyyyyyyy do people go back on their word and stab you in the back just to make themselves look better?
Mate, I’ve got a paper trail of your request, detailing EXACTLY what you asked for. Don’t make me use it against you to prove you’re wrong and I’m right... guess I better start collecting emails to use as self defence 😩😔3 -
Privacy peeps, what's your opinion on usage of surveillance for national defence, domestic security, etc. ?
I'm just curious, most privacy-minded people I know generally trip up when confronted with stuff like "yeah, but if surveillance was a thing then that blast which killed 20 people yesterday could have been averted."
I've heard quite a few opinions on both sides, what's yours?18 -
I conducted my first "technical" interview today. Let's just say the chap needs to brush up on his terminology...
Q: What's a class and an object? And what's the difference between each?
A: Ummm... Errr... The one holds static information and the other can change its values.
OK, in his defence, he was nervous and English isn't his first language either, but then brush up on your terminology at the very least so that you can speak the lingo when asked questions about programming.1 -
A message to designers and developers:
please please please stop being so touchy about your designs/software. The final work is meant to be used/enjoyed by end users, customers, clients, young people, old people, disabled people, short attention span people, irrational people, patient people etc. So if they say it's not good enough accept it go back and make it simpler (not necessarily better but simpler) and move on!!
Stop going into defence mode and start throwing your toys out the pram or giving people the silent treatment.
Sorry just been on the receiving end and boy is childish.1 -
How the fuck did my company decide a single toilet stall is enough? Are they really this cheap? Why must I go to the bathroom three times before I can actually use it? Why do they think one is enough for 100 male employees? In their defence, they do have urinals, but I'm not comfortable using them.
So many questions and I STILL NEED TO GO!4 -
Spent the day working on a concept for a Survival, Twin Stick Shooter, Tower Defence game. not sure if it will work yet, but everyone I have ran my Concept by really likes it.
-
So here's a random idea: DDoS defence swarm.
Install the daemon on your server, and every time your server gets DDoS'd, all members of the swarm will mobilise to defend you, but the catch is that your server will have to help other members of the swarm too.
The defensive technique in question can be one of many:
1. Automated IP blocking/reporting with a blacklist in distributed form.
2. Other swarm members counterattack and cooperatively DDoS the offending addresses.
3. Flood the ISP with automated emails to force them to pay attention to the problem.
...or a combination of all of the above.
The only issue I can see with this is abuse potential. A clever person can trick the swarm into DDoSing innocents.15 -
I like how one of my programming lecturers had never even heard of JSON before I asked whether I can use it in the assignment. In her defence (I guess), it wasn't a web dev class, but still how did she never come across JSON in her entire life?3
-
I just got mindustry (which is currently on sale for $3) and it's a great tower defence, resource production, machine builder, tech tree researcher, sort of game! Really really worth the $3 and will probably appeal to a lot of people here.7
-
My company just released its website today. Previously, it just used its parent company's site.
Now, the problem is that it sucks big time. Awful design, pixelated stock photos, bad navigation, and broken grammar.
In the company's defence, it's not a web shop. It employs zero web devs. The site was built by an external company.
But if you are like me, you visit company websites before you apply for a job, and in this case, it would bed a big red flag.
Or maybe the hard-core embedded devs they are looking to employ wouldn't notice? Maybe they are all stuck in the year 2000 as well? I used to be a web developer so maybe my criteria are broken?3 -
@PonySlayStation people are hating your fifth sibling based on their looks. Got anything to say in defence?2
-
So I had got a company called me a week ago and scheduled an interview via Google Meet which was supposed to happen yesterday in the afternoon. I checked multiple times and was convinced that they didn't send me any invitation or any sort of URL to me as they told me they will send me on the day I will be interviewed.
Yesterday I didn't get any URL, I request the URL and asked them whether the interview is cancelled. They saw the messages I sent them but never reply. Until this noon, I receive a long message that they suggesting to put the blame on me for 'being Gen-z bad attitude worker who didn't show up in the interview and not responsible '. I was confused. Why would they make such a statement as yesterday hours before the interview I was sending them messages and emailing them continuously asking for the URL to the interview session in Google meet. I can't join the interview without the URL obviously.
In my defence, I did follow up with them just to get the link to the interview and get ghosted or silent treatments. As strange as this sound, magically their colour was revealed to me after they put the blame on me for their negligence.
Lastly, it is not a heavy chore to admit mistakes. Lucky enough for me that they revealed every plausible red flag to me before joining their team. I definitely do not want to work for a company that put the blame on me whenever they commit a mistake.1 -
I have realised this the hard way. Never ever ever delete something if it’s backed up in cloud and is not taking space in your device, just to free some space.
Obviously some bullshit is better deleted. But never overdo it. You never know when you are going to want the thing you have deleted.
I have 2 regrets. Both related to deleting things without backup. But in my defence, I forgot that they were not backed up. Brain freeze.3 -
After getting fed up of “being productive” I fooled around on GitHub and had a look at the Stuxnet virus source code which was obtained using a decompiler. Experts who reverse-engineered it found out that it was written in “object-oriented C.” While C is not an object oriented language, anything you can do with classes you can do with structs, static functions, pointers & function pointers. You can see this coding style in the Linux kernel, CPython interpreter and many other places. That was the first indication that a government agency or defence industry was responsible. Amazing stuff !6
-
Any Typo3 devs around here?
I want to know why would one go for this cms nowadays?? I had to deal with it for almost 3 years and cant figure out why it is still used :| does it really have any pros compared to other cms? words cant describe my hate for typo3 right now - and since we have more than enough of swear words on DevRant i wont go into detail :) (in my defence i dont have that much experience with cms‘s)6 -
Anyone playing screeps?
You know the Moment when you just want to check if your code is running, just 10 Minutes, and then you find yourself spending the whole night on rewriting your defence or mineral processing code? -
Me, taking a coding class in uni:
Purposely cramping everything in as few lines as possible, making the code barely readable, just to screw with the guy who had to correct this mess.
In my defence, the assignment they gave us was garbage. The task descriptions were often ambiguous or even contradictory to what actually was the case ("The InputStream will contain a string of csv data, each element starts in the next line" -> was a malformed single line string) and the automated tests they wrote to check our output where either completely unhelpful because of their meaningless error messages, or sometimes even plain wrong, telling us our output was wrong, even though it definitely wasn't. -
My first computer exposure was on a mainframe (CDC Cyber 180). My university in Kerala, India had a collaboration with the Indian defence organisation DRDO. The operating system was something called NOS/VE, though as I remember it could run some Unix version virtually. I had Fortran 77 programs to be developed as part of the course. (finite element methods). As I remember, the machine had built in routines for the same. Screen was a green on dark terminal conected to the thing. No windowing or graphics.
Today kids have more powerful machines at home (or in their pockets). The famous computing power law be praised. -
I'm seeking opinions and thoughts on my predicament.
I have 2ish paths before me.
Next year I resume my studies in Science Communication and Computer Science in particiliar a bachelor of science, I have considered then doing master in managent or computer science.
1) I am able to have a income of about 800 AUD a fortnight (this is to support me during study without requiring work) plus extra from a part time job whilst I study for about 2 years. Throughout this time I would like to skill up in a variety of fields as immensley as possible.
2) I can accept a full time junior web developer job while I study, this job is with a great government research organisation which as a first FT job looks great on a resume, it is is project based work where I get given a project and code and pretty much complete it. The job is flexible, I can mostly work where-ever I want, at home, at a cafe, travelling. With maybe a meeting once a week. The pay is about 65kAUD a year.
Both options are very attractive options with each containing there own pros and cons. With the extra money I could learn more or use it to grow a business or do more.
However without the FT job I could still earn about 1-1.5k a fortnight for alot less time.
I am still discovering what to do in life, I'm very good at public speaking and would like to experience and learn more about lots of different things. My current knowledge is very broad from engineering to CS, graphic design, authoring, trade skills, Digitial design and more.
Ideally I would like to learn how to lead people, to make the world a better place and help people. Figuring out where my strengths lay and where to apply them is difficult as I am fascinated by so many things.
I worry about taking the FT job as it might detract from my studies and lead me to pursueing mostly only web development work as well as take up time that might be better spent on extra study or in a leadership position in a uni club.
The PT job is a IT Systems Technician in the Australian Defence Force.
Which is a interesting experience within itself, different from civilian life and also I would be learning about systems that I might have less experience with.
I have such broad interests in alot of fields that I don't seem to be focussed on select things or areas like other devs I've met, Science Communication is a versitile field, one of my professors expertise is on doctor who and it's role in science engagement, she has written books on it. Others are in public policy or directed podcasts or even made games. Despite my broad interests computer science was always a gield I did well in.
Any thoughts, opinions or questions are welcome.
I have a blog/portfolio I put my work and projects up if it helps people know more about me, you can find it at curiosityplace.wordpress.com2 -
I would have wanted to bring up SICP again, with the great big warning about the evil assignment operator and state and all the troubles that ensue (just think: concurrency).
But in a way, nothing has really come up from this or my attempts to dig deeper into "everything is a file/object" (Unix, smalltalk), neither from formal languages or the Curry-Howard correspondence. - Maybe there's just nothing, no firm bottom ground to discover. Like the physicists going for their world formula, but instead of a grand, beautiful symmetry that explains everything, we face a shattered world of (incompatible) theories, that is ever so more complex and chaotic through our theories applied to it. There may not be a Platonic ideal world of ideas, but rather partial constructs explaining some particular perceptions.
Similarly the one perfect programming language to rule them all, the perfect abstraction, pattern is probably just another prepubertal fantasy to be sunk.
So maybe instead of seeking the perfect epiphany, we should go for something quite different: the nagging, brooding uneasiness that something is wrong there, that there's something to be fixed... that even negative feeling would propel us to search further, not to stay in whatever is touted as the real thing.
Such irritations I found with Pieter Hintjens' writings. For example when he actively engaged in conspiracy theories. And I'm still not sure, if he just went off the cliff or he's even right alluding that these theories are an act of sanity, a self-defence against the hidden evil mights. I just don't know. Anything. -
Why are apple so fucking back assward and stubborn when it comes to their app review process?
So, at work I made an app. It's a simple one, but it's an app.
It makes it so that the user doesn't have to enter their credentials to sign in to a system developed on our platform.
If you give it a hard oded config it will only connect to that server, if not, it fetches a list of available servers and the user has to select which they want to connect to.
I've uploaded basically the same fucking app thrice, twice with and once without a config.
Two of them when somewhat smoothly through the review, but the last one has been stuck for almost two fucking months! And guess what it's one of the ones with a config!?!
How is that in any way consistent?
They fill us with shit like "your screenshots aren't representative", so I update them.
They go "this is not an AP for the public", I tell them I give less than a steaming pile of fresh dung from a retarded donkey, the intended users are freelancers, so just fucking greenlight it.
Then they go "your screenshots aren't representative", so I tell them to pound sand or specify which screenshot is wrong or what they think is missing.
How are they so fucking inconsistent with their process? Isn't is this process that they used as of defence for their shittastic monopoly, that they don't want to call a monopoly?
I'm so fucking tired.5