Is Change Coming?

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Is Change Coming?

  • Is Change Coming? I certainly hope so. I honestly hope it's real, honest-to-goodness change in the area of security. The "get it done fast and work security into the picture later" just doesn't cut it. There are more security problems and more types of attack than I've ever seen and they aren't getting any less as time goes on. The repercussions of them are getting worse and the scope is increasing. Companies make announcements because they're forced to, but don't put the work in up front to prevent them. I'll never forget the quote "we sell hammers" that came out after a hack where the executives ignored the warnings.

    I think companies are being required to take security more seriously and suffer financial penalties when things go wrong. However, I don't think it's top-of-mind when designing or writing a system. So many of the holes that exist could have been prevented by good design. The IT industry, as a whole, has a bit of a black eye when it comes to security, even though we have limited power to change the situation.

    I honestly hope that executives start taking security more seriously and it is conveyed to the people doing the work. I know I've personally seen a great many changes over the past couple of years. I'm not saying anyone can attain perfection, but we should all strive for it, settling for excellence.

  • Has change ever gone away?

    I work in an environment with a heavy dependence on contract resource. How do you transfer the domain knowledge to the contract resource in order for their elevated cost to be justifiable? How do you transfer the knowledge of what they build to be supportable?

    How can we avoid getting into a negative feedback loop where we bring in external temporary expertise to cover gaps in capability and then fail to develop our permanent staff to fill those gaps?

    There are serious organisational challenges to be addressed in a skills-as-a-service model. In the same way that the business has no appetite for security, data governance, addressing technical debt etc I don't see them addressing those challenges

  • .. One of the primary reference data points in the article is that 34% of US workers engage in freelance work. There's a reference to a study that says 41million people engage in some sort of freelance work..

    My question would be what is "freelance work" and is this a growing trend? Freelancing could be DBA who is a also semi-professional photographer and occasionally (like a couple or three of times a year) lands a weekend wedding gig. I'm sure this statistics also includes homemakers who's only source of income is occasional freelancing as a blogger. This has zero relevence regarding any trend for organizations to shift toward a telecommuting IT department.

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • I'm going to be a bit picky about my English here:

    "This will prevent a challenge to traditional IT groups that expect everyone to be working in close proximity with the same equipment, under the same security domain, and more. "

    'prevent' or 'present'?

  • mhynds (12/29/2015)


    I'm going to be a bit picky about my English here:

    "This will prevent a challenge to traditional IT groups that expect everyone to be working in close proximity with the same equipment, under the same security domain, and more. "

    'prevent' or 'present'?

    Ahh, present. Missed that in proofing.

  • Eric M Russell (12/28/2015)


    .. One of the primary reference data points in the article is that 34% of US workers engage in freelance work. There's a reference to a study that says 41million people engage in some sort of freelance work..

    My question would be what is "freelance work" and is this a growing trend? Freelancing could be DBA who is a also semi-professional photographer and occasionally (like a couple or three of times a year) lands a weekend wedding gig. I'm sure this statistics also includes homemakers who's only source of income is occasional freelancing as a blogger. This has zero relevance regarding any trend for organizations to shift toward a telecommuting IT department.

    Except, the stats will be used by some to push change, and others may not realize that this does include the DBA working as a musician.

    I agree with you in that it's a misleading statistic overall. We should get statistics that are more limited to our industry(ies)

  • This has been a long time coming and I see more and more acceptance of remote work, albeit sometimes on a temporary basis, even at the more staid of places.

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

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