Walking a mile...

Working with computers on the defensive end of the spectrum does have its moments when you succeed in making the life of the attackers ever so slightly more difficult through the implementation of a new safeguard or by identifying and correcting weaknesses throughout a network. Playing on the defensive end also comes with its fair share of fail when your best efforts aren't good enough.

On the attacking end, probing, discovering and leveraging exposures in systems also provides its fair share of victory and defeat. However, I'm starting to discover that both sides of the industry can become a little stagnant if you don't take it upon yourself to liven it up from time to time.

For some, the spice will flow if they decide to take a deeper dive and blaze a new trail in a specific field of research where they push the boundaries of defensive or offensive tactics. Others decide that IT and playing these silly games are no longer how they want to spend their lives and leave their laptops and stress behind and pursue a different career.

Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to have had the chance to dabble in many different areas within the IT and security fields and have come to enjoy the wealth of new learning experiences that are out there waiting to be had. I can make no claim as to being particularly proficient in any one specific area but each time I get to tackle a new area I always gain an appreciation for those of us who spend our career working to develop a specialty and push those boundaries.

The security industry can be harsh. There's never a shortage of people out there looking for the next thing to criticize whether it's management who "have no clue and never listen to us", a security company who finds themselves under close public scrutiny for getting "pwned" or the developers who "don't have the slightest clue how to prevent "

Think we'd all be a lot better off if we spent a little less time complaining and a little more time walking a mile...

My next mile:
Over the past number of years I have done minimal coding during the course of my work. The closest I have managed to come is a rudimentary ability to cobble together a piece of quasi functional code in whichever scripting language is closest at hand. The intention of which is to provide automation of tasks that would otherwise become very monotonous.

Until the next shiny object distracts me, I've decided to start the process of learning how to develop applications for a mobile platform. My goal isn't to attack any of these apps but to gain an appreciation for the development community whose successes actual provide businesses value and whose failures keep giving all the negative dipshits in our community something to complain about.