This happened few hours ago.

Client: I received an email which says that I won 1 million dollars. They gave me a link in the email, when I entered my credit card details nothing happened.
Me: Wait what? You entered your credit card details.
Client: Yes
Me: That was a scam, you didn’t win anything. They stole your credit details. Contact your bank ASAP and let them know about this.
Client: You guys are handling our email servers, why can’t you guys keep it safe. What type of security do you guys provide.
Me: Wait what? We host your website application not email.
Client: Damn it. My son said the same thing, but I didn’t listen to him. Anyways Cheers.

Lads, I will be real with you: some of you show absolute contempt to the actual academic study of the field.

In a previous rant from another ranter it was thrown up and about the question for finding a binary search implementation.

Asking a senior in the field of software engineering and computer science such question should be a simple answer, specifically depending on the type of job application in question. Specially if you are applying as a SENIOR.

I am tired of this strange self-learner mentality that those that have a degree or a deep grasp of these fundamental concepts are somewhat beneath you because you learned to push out a website using the New Boston tutorials on youtube. FOR every field THAT MATTERS a license or degree is hold in high regards.
"Oh I didn't go to school, shit is for suckers, but I learned how to chop people up and kinda fix it from some tutorials on youtube" <---- try that for a medical position.

"Nah it's cool, I can fix your breaks, learned how to do it by reading blogs on the internet" <--- maintenance shop

"Sure can write the controller processing code for that boing plane! Just got done with a low level tutorial on some websites! what can go wrong!"

(The same goes for military devices which in the past have actually killed mfkers in the U.S)

Just recently a series of people were sent to jail because of a bug in software. Industries NEED to make sure a mfker has aaaall of the bells and whistles needed for running and creating software.

During my masters degree, it fucking FASCINATED me how many mfkers were absolutely completely NEW to the concept of testing code, some of them with years in the field.

And I know what you are thinking "fuck you, I am fucking awesome" <--- I AM SURE YOU BLOODY WELL ARE but we live in a planet with billions of people and millions of them have fallen through the cracks into software related positions as well as complete degrees, the degree at LEAST has a SPECTACULAR barrier of entry during that intro to Algos and DS that a lot of bitches fail.

NOTE: NOT knowing the ABSTRACTIONS over the tools that we use WILL eventually bite you in the ASS because you do not fucking KNOW how these are implemented internally.

Why do you think compiler designers, kernel designers and embedded developers make the BANK they made? Because they don't know memory efficient ways of deploying a product with minimal overhead without proper data structures and algorithmic thinking? NOT EVERYTHING IS SHITTY WEB DEVELOPMENT

SO, if a mfker talks shit about a so called SENIOR for not knowing that the first mamase mamasa bloody simple as shit algorithm THROWN at you in the first 10 pages of an algo and ds book, then y'all should be offended at the mkfer saying that he is a SENIOR, because these SENIORS are the same mfkers that try to at one point in time teach other people.
These SENIORS are the same mfkers that left me a FUCKING HORRIBLE AND USELESS MESS OF SPAGHETTI CODE

Specially to most PHP developers (my main area) y'all would have been well motherfucking served in learning how not to forLoop the fuck out of tables consisting of over 50k interconnected records, WHAT THE FUCK

"LeaRniNG tHiS iS noT neeDed!!" yes IT fucking IS

being able to code a binary search (in that example) from scratch lets me know fucking EXACTLY how well your thought process is when facing a hard challenge, knowing the basemotherfucking case of a LinkedList will damn well make you understand WHAT is going on with your abstractions as to not fucking violate memory constraints, this-shit-is-important.

So, will your royal majesties at least for the sake of completeness look into a couple of very well made youtube or book tutorials concerning the topic?

You can code an entire website, fine as shit, you will get tested by my ass in terms of security and best practices, run these questions now, and it very motherfucking well be as efficient as I think it should be(I HIRE, NOT YOU, or your fucking blog posts concerning how much MY degree was not needed, oh and btw, MY degree is what made sure I was able to make SUCH decissions)

This will make a loooooooot of mfkers salty, don't worry, I will still accept you as an interview candidate, but if you think you are good enough without a degree, or better than me (has happened, told that to my face by a candidate) then get fucking ready to receive a question concerning: BASIC FUCKING COMPUTER SCIENCE TOPICS

* gays away into the night

I literally cringed today when my neighbor wanted help installing an app, she didn't tell me it was her banking app... And the thing I needed to help with was logging in... So she told me her bank details...

Even though I said (multiple times) it was dangerous to do so, and that she can't just trust people with this kind of information...

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO GOD DAMN STUPID WHEN IT COMES TO SECURITY!

Me: So what you are doing in the IT field?
Him: I am hacking bank websites.
Me: OK, that's cool. It is good in free time. What is your actual job?
Him: I am seriously hacking the bank Web site!
Me: Trust me, if you seriously doing that you will never ever mentioned it...
Him: No, I am doing it legally... The bank hiring me to try to hack the website...
Me: OK, you mean that you are cyber security tester?
Him: That is almost the same...
Me: So you are tester?
Him: I am hacking bank's websites...
Me:....

Chase Bank Burning by Alex Schaefer

"This is a "plein air" painting which means I set up my easel right across the street of this Chase bank in my city and painted it like it had caught fire. The police questioned me on the spot. Three weeks later Homeland Security was knocking on the door to my home. The question they kept asking me was "Do you hate these banks?" I can honestly say yes."

So my marketing dept request us to perform a SQL injection to someone's bank account. I refuse to do it.

1. Most bank no longer use Relational Database , they use something like NoSQL Database.

2. Even if the bank Use Relational Database system, I assume their security must be high, validating my session maybe...

3. I am not going to do shit like this for illegal purposes, well this task sounds super illegal to me

4. Hacking is not a part of my job description. I was hired to be a Senior Fullstack Mobile App Developer.

This is screwed up !

I have bank accounts with 5 different banks.
I HAVE TO use 4-5 different government websites.

Every fucking place: you cannot use these "~-/;^"(some others too) symbols in your password.

Are you freaking fucking kidding me!! And all of them have a limit of 12or15 characters.

If this wasn't mind numbingly stupid enough, they fucking go ahead and force you to change password every fucking month or two.

THIS IS NOT SECURITY. YOU SHOULDN'T FORCE SOMEONE TO LIMIT THERE PASSWORDS TO:
- CERTAIN CHARACTERS
- A 15 CHARACTER SIZE LIMIT
- THRN OVERTHAT, FORCE TO CHANGE PASSWPRDS PERIODICALLY.

ALL THE 5 MAJOR FUCKING BANKS IN INDIA.

FUUUUUCCCCKKKKK YOUU 🖕

I think we're going two sides:

For one, more and more technology is being developed/engineered which is even more and more and more intrusive as for personal privacy, I'm genuinely worried how this'll go as privacy isn't just a about not exposing certain things like passwords/bank account details and so on, it's also about being an individual who has their own thoughts, opinions and so on. If we keep taking that away more and more often, society will change and go towards the Orwell scenario (we're on our way there right now). We can change this as software/design/server engineers but that's up to us and I sadly don't see that happening quickly, also due to the 'nothing to hide' bullshit.

Second one is that were going more and more towards open source.
This is a good thing as this:
- gives freedom to devs around the world to improve software and/or modify it to suit their needs.
- gives people the opportunity to look through the source code of softwares in order to verify it as for backdoors and find security vulnerabilities which otherwise can remain hidden for the general public while spying agencies have way more resources to go vulnerability hunting.

For the people who think this isn't a good idea (even more open source), without it we'd be completely fucked as for moving forward/security/privacy. (I can give examples if wanted).

I think the hardest thing about being a programmer in college with a security emphasis is when I approach a business for a penetration test or for a vulnerability analysis (your pick) is that they almost always say, "you are pretty young don't you think?"

Ummmm not sure what that has to do with it. If it would make you feel better I have claimed bug bounties from an antivirus company, a bank, several local businesses in my area and I do this for work at my 9-5.

And this week I got this, "I think I would like someone older so we can define the goals better."

Oh so rules of engagement, yeah of course I understand that and that's something we would discuss and draw up a contract for...

"Well we really need someone more skilled."

---- End of story ----

I don't understand, you haven't asked about certifications or schooling and you glanced at my resume for exactly 5 seconds what the hell do you want? Me to double my age over night?

Worst security issue : being able to make a money transfer with no auth and changing freely the bank account in the POST params...

Dev excuse : "I didn't know my job was also to take care about security."

So here's the story about a big Fuck up by a TRAI chief in India

He posted an open challenge on twitter:
"Here's my 12 digit Aadhar card (social security no for Indians) number. Show me if you can do any harm to me. "

And Twitter obliged, a French hacker aliased @fs0c131y (Elliot Alderson) took the challenge and he started posting his phone number, email, and other personal stuff on twitter.

Still the official thinks he's safe and no harm has been done to him! He openly says, "Even if you get my bank account no what can you do?"

I am beyond speechless. My Bank forces me to use a password that consists of EXACTLY 8 characters, and at least one small character, one big and one number. Oh, and it should not be identical to the last 5 passwords.

What's the best part about this?
THEY HAVE A FUCKING METER TO MEASURE YOUR PASSWORD STRENGTH. FUCKING HYPOCRITES!

Not even a 2 factor makes via sms can make me feel save when you have such a big pile of shit behind it

Recently started at a new job. Things were going fine, getting along with everyone, everything seems good and running smoothly, a few odd things here and there but for the most part fine.

Then I decided to take a look at our (public facing) website... What's this? Outdated plugins from 2013? Okay, that's an easy fix I guess? All of these are free and the way we're using them wouldn't require a lot of refactoring...

Apparently not. Apparently, we can't even update them ourselves, we have to request that an external company does it (which we pay, by the way, SHITELOADS of money to). A week goes past, and we finally get a response.

No, we won't update it, you'll have to pay for it. Doesn't matter that there's a CVE list a bloody mile long and straight up no input validation in several areas, doesn't matter that tens of thousands of users are at risk, pay us or it stays broken. Boggles the fuckin' mind.

I dug into it a bit more than I probably should have (didn't break no laws though I'm not a complete dumbass, I just work for em) and it turns out it's not just us getting fucked over, it's literally EVERYONE using their service which is the vast majority of people within the industry in my country. It also turns out that the entirety of our region is running off a single bloody IP which if you do a quick search on shodan for, you guessed it, also has a CVE list pop up a fuckin' mile long. Don't get me started on password security (there is none). I hate this, there's fucking nothing I can do and everyone else is just fine sitting on their hands because "nobody would target us because we're not a bank!!", as if it bloody matters and as if peoples names, addresses, phone numbers and assuming someone got into our actual database, which wouldn't be a fuckin' stretch of the imagination let me tell you, far more personal details, that these aren't enticing to anyone.

What would you do in my situation?
What can I even do?
I don't want to piss anyone senior off but honestly, I'm thinkin' they might deserve it. I mean yeah there's nothing we can do but at least make a fuss 'cause they ain't gunna listen to my green ass.

Security rant ahead, you have been warned!
As part of a scholarship application, our government requires a scan/copy of the applicant's credit card. Since the IBAN is now on the back, you have to send both sides.
The back is also where the CVC (security code) is. Any bank will strictly tell you NOT TO EVER SHARE IT - not even with them!
To make things even more fun, you now have the option to send this over email which is, of course, NOT ENCRYPTED!!!!!
I'm basically sending all the info needed to steal all my money over an unencrypted connection to an underpaid secretary, who will print it out and leave it on their desk for anyone with decent binoculars to see.
These people are fucking insane!!!!

I just had my cell phone cloned yesterday. End of the day, my phone lost signal suddenly. I thought it was a problem with my chip, so I decided to check that on a store and buy a new one next day.

Today, after I recover my chip and number, I started to see the mess. Someone used my number to send message to all my contacts on whatsapp, asking for money. Also, I had some contact info changed on the bank broker, which is really serious. I do not know what else is compromised, and I'm truly worried about it.

Someone has some good tips for improving security while using cellphones?

who here has worked for a bank?

without naming names? what was the scariest thing they did, like, bad code, bad security, etc, that you had to fix

always wanted to be a fly on the wall of the devs office for a bank...

“Fullstack dev morphs into a security expert”

We have a simple user registration system. Get the user details, generate an OTP, save in Oracle, email the OTP. The SMTP host is configured to send emails only to people who have an existing @a_very_famous_bank.com email address.

As a part of an enhancement request, the other day, we were trying to register a non-bank email address. As expected, it failed.

Manager: Meeting... meeting... meeting

Me: (Explained the problem)

Fullstack dev: so the thing is.. it’s like.. (doesn’t falter to open with these lines)...what I can do is...I can send you an HTTP security header in the HTTP request. It’ll work!

Me: (I hope an adult giraffe fucks you in your belly button)

More to come!

So... did I mention I sometimes hate banks?

But I'll start at the beginning.

In the beginning, the big bang created the universe and evolution created humans, penguins, polar bea... oh well, fuck it, a couple million years fast forward...

Your trusted, local flightless bird walks into a bank to open an account. This, on its own, was a mistake, but opening an online bank account as a minor (which I was before I turned 18, because that was how things worked) was not that easy at the time.

So, yours truly of course signs a contract, binding me to follow the BSI Grundschutz (A basic security standard in Germany, it's not a law, but part of some contracts. It contains basic security advice like "don't run unknown software, install antivirus/firewall, use strong passwords", so it's just a basic prototype for a security policy).

The copy provided with my contract states a minimum password length of 8 (somewhat reasonable if you don't limit yourself to alphanumeric, include the entire UTF 8 standard and so on).

The bank's online banking password length is limited to 5 characters. So... fuck the contract, huh?

Calling support, they claimed that it is a "technical neccessity" (I never state my job when calling a support line. The more skilled people on the other hand notice it sooner or later, the others - why bother telling them) and that it is "stored encrypted". Why they use a nonstandard way of storing and encrypting it and making it that easy to brute-force it... no idea.

However, after three login attempts, the account is blocked, so a brute force attack turns into a DOS attack.

And since the only way to unblock it is to physically appear in a branch, you just would need to hit a couple thousand accounts in a neighbourhood (not a lot if you use bots and know a thing or two about the syntax of IBAN numbers) and fill up all the branches with lots of potential hostages for your planned heist or terrorist attack. Quite useful.

So, after getting nowhere with the support - After suggesting to change my username to something cryptic and insisting that their homegrown, 2FA would prevent attacks. Unless someone would login (which worked without 2FA because the 2FA only is used when moving money), report the card missing, request a new one to a different address and log in with that. Which, you know, is quite likely to happen and be blamed on the customer.

So... I went to cancel my account there - seeing as I could not fulfill my contract as a customer. I've signed to use a minimum password length of 8. I can only use a password length of 5.

Contract void. Sometimes, I love dealing with idiots.

And these people are in charge of billions of money, stock and assets. I think I'll move to... idk, Antarctica?

Security Horror Story:

A password authenticator which is case-insensitive and all special characters are treated as the same value. As a bonus, all passwords are truncated to 4 characters.

Fuck your clients, right...? A small town bank I’m doing some security work for; I had them create me a test account. I received an email with my password; are you fucking serious...?

I'm working at this company where I have to update their app both for Android and iOS and it was originally coded by what seems to be one guy, that has written some of the worse code I've seen (I've seen pretty bad code when I was at uni), there is so much uncommented code, commented code with no real reason on why it's commented, variables that are one or two letters, Lots and Lots of magical numbers for things like images! And for the first few weeks working on the iOS app I was also still learning objective-c and had to look at his code for reference, I cringed so much.

I take pride in my commented code, I take pride in writing description for methods and having my variables at the top of a class and explain exactly why it's a constant. I'm also only just a recent graduate.

This guy that worked out this app is a senior developer, now working on security software for a bank, how is he even allowed to code?

this just happened a few seconds ago and I am just laughing at the pathetic site that is Facebook. xD
4 years ago:
So I was quite a noobie gamer/hacker(sort of) back then and i had a habit of having multiple gmail/fb accounts, just for gaming, like accounts through which i can log in all at once in the same poker room, so 4/5 players in the game are me, or just some multiple accounts for clash of clans for donations.
I had 7-8 accounts back then. one had a name that translated to "may the dead remain in peace "@yahoomail.com . it was linked to fb using same initials. after sometime only this and 2 of my main accs were all i cared about.even today when i feel like playing, i sometimes use those accs.

2 years ago.
My dad is a simple man and was quite naive to modern techs and used to hang around with physical button nokia phones.But we had a business change, my father was now in a partnership in a restaurant where his daily work included a lot of sitting job and and casual working. So he bought a smartphone for some time pass.
He now wanted to download apps and me to teach him.I tried a lot to get him his own acc, but he couldn't remember his login credentials.
so at the end i added one of my own fake ID's(maythedead...) so he could install from playstore, watch vids on youtube and whatever.

The Actual Adventure starts now
Today, 1 hour ago:
I had completely forgot about this incident, since my parents are now quite modern in terms of tech.
But today out of nowhere i recieved an email that someone has JUST CHAINGED MY FB PASSWORD FOR ONE OF MY FAKE ACCS!?!??
what the hell, i know it was just a useless acc and i never even check my fb from any acc these days, but if someone could login into that acc, its not very difficult to track my main accs, id's, etc so i immediately opened this fb security portal and that's where the stupidity starts:

1)To recover your account they FUCKIN ASKS FOR A PHYSICAL ID. yeah, no email, no security question you have to scan your driving license or passport to get back to your account.And where would I get a license for some person named "may the dead remain in peace"? i simply went back.
2) tried another hack that i thought that will work.Closed fb help page, opened fb again , tried to login with my old credentials, it says" old password has been changed,please enter new password", i click forget password and they send an otp. i thought yes i won, because the number and recover mail id was mine only so i received it.
when i added the otp, i was first sent to a password change page (woohoo, i really won! :)) but then it sends me again to the same fuckin physical id verification page.FFFFFFFFFuck

3)I was sad and terrified that i got hacked.But 10 mins later a mail comes ,"Your Facebook password was reset using the email address on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 8:24pm (UTC+05:30)."
I tried clicking the links attached, hoping that the password i changed(point<2>) has actually done something to account.NADA, the account still needs a physical license to open:/

4) lost, i just login to my main account and lookup for my lost fake account. the fun part:my account has the display pic of my father?!!?!
So apparently, my father wanted to try facebook, he used the fake account i gave him to create one, fb showed him that this id already has an fb account attached to it and he accidently changed my password.MY FATHER WAS THE HACKER THE WHOLE TIME xD.
but response from fb?" well sir, if you want your virtually shitty account back , you first will have to provide us with all details of your bank transactions or your voter id card, maybe trump will like it"

Well, I have a friend working on a major bank in my city. Yesterday we went for a coffee when he told me that the wifi connection that the costumers can use is the same as the network they work in. Like, are you fucking me? Do they know what security means? Jesus Wallace, wake up!
And they have a fucking "web security guy" working there. Doing what? Installing ccleaner on pcs? This shit gets me mad. And that's why I don't trust banks.

*making payment online*

Website: Your bank wants to verify something. Redirecting to their page

Me: fair enough

Bank: we are increasing security by sending you a security code via text...
*bank redirects me before I can finish reading*

Website: payment successful

Tf kinda security is that???

was applying to college when i saw “enter social security number (optional)”

yes ok, i’d also love to give you my bank account information, address, and birth certificate. anything you need!!!

I started to work in the CreditCard / Bank business a year ago.
Now they stopped the hole server migration project, so I leave again. They could have had it all. Server 2016, SQL 2016, Citrix, Surface Books and so on.
But no, the new shitty projects are more important than security or on what technology the system is build on.

Seems like the FTP Server will run on Windows 2003 forever...

🤦Is it too early to make the hack of the year nominations?

Update on the bank I’m working for: their security is shit and the way they manage customer data and credentials is sickening. On top of it all, there’s about 10 windows XP computers still online not to mention the ATM is running Windows XP. What the flying fuck.

My project manager one time called me while I was waiting in the bank. He told me that the latest changes in the project I was working on were not deployed to production and they were having a meeting to demo those changes to the client later that day.

I had my laptop with me but it wasn't charged. I asked the security guys if I could use the socket used to power up the cleaning/sweeping machines and they didn't mind.

So it was me sitting on the floor in the bank hall using a side socket to power up my laptop holding my cellphone so I can use the hotspot and get internet connection deploying yesterday's changes to a production server.

Eventually, the client didn't attend the meeting that day!

Hang on... If online banks ask you for the n'th, m'th and p'th character of your password, they must be storing it on plaintext! WTF? I don't even understand why they do that in the first place.

Just found out today via Reddit that Wells Fargo, American Express (not personally confirmed), and Chase login passwords are NOT case sensitive!

I would check your bank too!

Multi User, One Account, and other shit

I'm gonna rant about something as a user, and someone who makes stupid web stuff.

My bank has been updating their web banking over time and they decided that every individual on an account, should have their own login. They really want to push this on their users, I suspect specifically folks like me and my wife who share one login for the joint accounts we have at the bank together.

Why share one login, because it's the only sure fire way I know that I and my wife can see all the same shit no doubt about it.

The banks never tell you what you can see or can't with joint accounts, I doubt it is even documented on their end, but in every damn case something is hidden or different in some weird way.

Messages to the bank people? If I send it, my wife often can't. I get that for security reasons that's a thing, but it makes no sense for a joint account.

ANY difference to me breaks online banking ENTIRELY. Joint accounts are supposed to be... well one account that is the same.

Other banks we used where we had different logins for the joint account, each login actually had separate bill pay accounts per user. So if I went to bill pay and scheduled something to be paid, my wife had no idea, same if she did.

Right fucking there, banking is just broken entirely!

So no Mr. Bank, fuck you we're both logging in via the same login.

Fast forward to N00bPancakes making a thing.

So my employer has a customer (Direct Customer). Direct Customer wants a thing that makes communication with their customer (Indirect Customer) easier.

The worst thing about making something for your customer's customer is that Direct Customer always imagines that Indirect Customer is gonna be super ninja power users....

But no, that's not the case... in fact almost nobody is a power user, and absolutely nobody WANTS to be a power users.

Worse yet in my case the only reason this tool exists is because Direct Customer and Indirect Customer can't communicate well enough anyway... that should tell you something about the amount of effort Indirect Customer is willing to expend.

So with that tool, this situation constantly comes up:

Direct Customer thinks it would be great if every user from Indirect Company had some sort of custom messaging, views, and etc in of Cool Communication Tool. The reason is because that's what Direct Customer loves about Ultra Complex Primary Tool that they use ....

Then I have to fight the constant fight of:

NOBODY WANTS TO BE A POWER USER, NOBODY EVEN WANTS TO DO MUCH OF ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET THAT ISN'T SCREAMING AT OTHER PEOPLE OR POST MEMES OR WATCH SHITTY VIDEOS. THE MOMENT ANYONE AT INDIRECT COMPANY LOGS IN AND SEES ANY INFO THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM THEIR COWORKER THEY'LL SHIT THEMSELVES, FLOOD EVERYONE WITH 'OH GAWD SOME NON SPECIFIED THING IS WRONG' AND RESPOND TO EMAILS LIKE A JELLYFISH DROPPED OFF IN NEW MEXICO... AND NOTHING WILL GET DONE!!!

God damn it people.

Also side rant while I'm busy fighting the good fight to keep shit simple and etc:

People bitch about how horrible the modern web is and then bitch at web devs like we're rulers of the internet or something.... What really pisses me off about that is other devs who do that.... like bro, do you make policy at your company? You decide not to sell some info or whatever shit your company sells? Like fuck off with your 'man I miss html' because you got scared by some shitty JS error and ran back to your language of choice and just poked your head out of the the basement and got scared... and you shit on another developer about that? Fuck you.

I am going to rant about this being the exam week, it being hot as hell, and us having had a messed up semester study-wise... And I still managed to do good-ish in subjects somehow... Good as in, relatively good. I am no 4.0 GPA person by any means and could never be one if I studied only (if that's even realistic at all). Recently I applied to a job at Andersen Lab for a Trainee position. Got turned down because I lack experience. A TRAINEE POSITION. I could retake the interview but I feel weird with how I got rated a whole level lower than my IELTS score and two levels lower than my score at Epam (which is the more recent one!) and the questions were mostly so easy I could answer while half asleep. Just yeah. Also, while I understand the whole knowledge required thing... I don't get the need for THREE whole interviews only to then proceed to turn me down. I am continuously applying and still seeing no results. If I'm "lucky", I guess, I will get training from a bank. And then get employed there... Mentally doing very bad right now, just barely wanting to MOVE. Which is basically me being this close to giving up. Today's exam is in Linux Security and I swear, this was such a waste of a good sounding subject... Imagine, I could have learnt how to set up a server at home and all that but instead we did... The more basic stuff in Linux. And for the whole semester outside of two or three cases I was the only one in attendance. Anyways, I have been feeling like I just can't program anymore and stuff... Even though we did a Python subject this semester. And in that subject I just felt like we were going way too quickly considering a lot of the students there come from non-IT or close to that background...

I may need to put effort into learning 3D Environmental art, I have this feeling I would like doing that as a job in game dev. Oh, and I also wanna design this house that I have in mind for me. It's shaped like an Amanita Muscaria and instead of the white dots it has windows that are round, as well as a spiral staircase connecting the lower and upper floors. Need to figure out how to model that in something like AutoCAD (I have a bit of experience with it and that's why I'd like to try there... But I may have to learn other programs to do it for free), but it will take me a long time to execute since I am not the most organised in how I learn...

Anyways, I will only sporadically be there, so I may not see things here. I am somewhat busy with exams and then this NGO I recently became a founding member of (and I have to say, I kinda don't wanna be there, but there are things that have to be done). Also filling the documents for a Canadian visitor's visa to go finally see the family over there and all that. But the latter will probably not happen until next year...

Finally, I am wishing you all a sound mental health and happiness. I hope you do well in whatever you are doing at the moment or are planning to. Until next time!

I'll try to pay back some smaller credit by one large credit...

Hence I need to contact the banks and get one (!) fucking frigging stupid piece of paper which lists the account number and the amount of money I need to pay back.

Sounds simple ...

Well.

One bank just answered my email request by sending me that piece of paper. Except they didn't have any validation of my identity.

Yes. They answered the request of 'I want to pay back the credit in full, can u send me the necessary documents?' (more formal of course) with confidential data without any more credibility than my email address.

YAY.

Another bank requests a telephone call for identity validation and sending back a signed form via postal service...

Another bank just needs a PDF sent via mail with an electric signature (yeah. They were aware of what that means - I was shocked and confused) or a "qualified signature matching previous documents" (translated from German).

The last one offers a WhatsApp number - send a GIF / JPG or video and we answer directly.

I need to reach a higher state than drunk.

It's not funny to know how confidential data gets mistreated by companies who should have the highest security.

A UK bank (building society) are giving away a free home security camera if you take out their home insurance product.

Seriously!? I do NOT want to install a camera, given to me by my bank, in my flat!

I had to create an account on a website. I used LastPass to generate a strong password. I entered it and got the following message:
"Password must be between 8 and 16 characters and must have special characters (? , ! & #) and numbers"
My password was 20 characters, me annoyed to generate a 16 character password. Filled it in and got the same error. That was it for me.
Who dafuq limits a password to 16 characters, that's fucking nothing. It did not accept all special characters, only the ones that were showed (like 5 or so).
And here comes the worst part...
It's a bank website! I had to create the most most most insecure password in history for it to work.

One aged person went to banker and said my son is not in country, and he asked me to withdraw money from his mutual fund account. Can you help.

Banker replied, do you have withdraw form signed. If not then can you copy his sign.

Elder guy tried it and stupid banker accepted withdraw form as well.

Jesus our security infrastructure people are stupid. They are telling us to secure a service that we don’t want accessible directly by the role “member” setup to be accessible by “member”. All because they “don’t want us changing identities in the middle of a chain of web service calls”. They are like “don’t worry, the fire wall keeps them out”.

That’s like saying “here’s the key to the bank vault, but you won’t ever get past the security guards so it’s okay that you have it.”

I swear this company is stone stupid.

So I went for a "special" interview to a company whose slogan is "experience certainty" (fresher, was hoping to get a role in cyber security/Linux sysadmin). Got shown what the "real" hiring process of an indian consultancy company is...

We were called because we cleared a rank of the coding competition which the company holds on a yearly basis, so its understood that we know how to code.
3 rounds; technical, managerial and HR...

Technical is where I knew that I was signing up for complete bullshit. The interviewer asks me to write and algo to generate a "number pyramid". Finished it in 7 minutes, 6-ish lines of (pseudo) code (which resembled python). As I explained the logic to the guy, he kept giving me this bewildered look, so I asked him what happened. He asks me about the simplest part of the logic, and proceeds to ask even dumber questions...
Ultimately I managed to get through his thick skull and answer some other nontechnical questions. He then asks if I have anything to ask him...
I ask him about what he does.
Him - " I am currently working on a project wherein the client is a big American bank as the technical lead "

Me (interest is cybersec) - "oh, then you must be knowing about the data protection and other security mechanisms (encryption, SSL, etc.)"

Him (bewildered look on face) - "no, I mostly handle the connectivity between the portal and data and the interface."

Me (disappointed) - "so, mostly DB, stuff?"

Him (smug and proud) - "yeup"

Gave him a link to my Github repo. Left the cabin. Proceeded to managerial interview (the stereotypical PM asshats)

Never did I think I'd be happy to not get a job offer...

Real conversation with my shit bank
Me: Hey, I want to change the phone number associated with my card because I no longer have access to it. (aka stolen). I can't find the option to do so on your website anymore.
Them: Yeah, for security reasons you now have to come down to the bank (which involves standing in line for anywhere between 40 minutes and 2 hours) to do that simple change.

The actual fuck.

My bank just switched from RSA SecurID to SMS-based 2-factor authentication, claiming it offers "equal security".
Is it not common knowledge that SMS 2FA is a security joke?? What the fuck guys?!?

finally found what was messing up with virtualbox. the problem? bank security module. also my computer is much faster now 😑

Working with external teams on this new project involving pretty sensitive stuff like bank transactions.

Talking about user flow and how to handle authentication, like 2-factor and stuff.

Newish guy on external team (though experienced) says they have a proposal.

Security Questions.

... like "What was you first car" security questions...

awkward silence in room...

Security experts have discovered hundreds of fake websites which are being used to spread dangerous malware for Android and Windows devices. A "vast" network of over 200 internet pages, which impersonate 27 brands such as household names like TikTok, PayPal and Snapchat, are being used to spread a vicious bug which can empty out bank accounts. These bogus websites feature the notorious ERMAC banking trojan which is capable of stealing sensitive login details for 467 online banking and cryptocurrency apps.