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Gamebreaker

By Gamebreaker
in The Tailgate

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ixcuincle

ixcuincle

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Generally speaking it job interviews require a lot of trivia questions about **** nobody cares about. Some jobs even make you take tests. It is literally jeopardy. You are largely asked random knowledge questions about various types of technologies. It's impossible to know everything about spring, hibernate, Java, sql, Mongo dB, soa, etc

Edited by ixcuincle
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PokerPacker

PokerPacker

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Serious question, wouldn't using a tor browser (correct term?) make you more of a target for law enforcement these days?

I'd imagine it's a mix of yes and no. 'Yes' in that they'll be more curious about data passing through tor, but also 'no' in that they'll have trouble actually linking it to you.

My understanding of tor is that your data will be encrypted while it bounces around tor until it hits an exit gate. At this point, the data will be decrypted and sent out into the internet; if the government controls that particular exit gate, they will be able to read the data packets being sent out, but will not be able to trace their origin. If you send encrypted data over the tor network, then the data that the exit gate sends out will be encrypted, so if it were a government controlled gate, they still couldn't read the data without dedicating massive resources to cracking the key, leaving your activity both anonymous and secure.

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Renegade7

Renegade7

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Job has me studying for MCSA for server 2012 R2, been working on 70-410 since late August and doing study questions now.

Come to acceptance that as much as I want to focus on cybersecurity, I keep feeling like I have to wait my turn and this is all part of working my way to it. Been really tough maintaining balance in my life while I'm in a field where I'm basically a late starter and dealing with people coming up taking the same CompTIA certs I have now while they were in high school (I didn't even finish high school).

I've met people who cheat their way through these things and I cannot bring myself to do it (feel it will hurt me more then help having the certs and not actually having the skills or knowledge people expect me to have after passing). Anyone have experience with these types? I definitely love IT more then I care for the industry itself at this point, but I imagine anyone that loves computers enough will put up with the dark side of it, most like any other industry.

Edit: As for Tor, I've been waiting for the Astoria browser to come out of a while now. True some of the exit nodes are crooked or even outright monitored now, though you can limit the nodes you use. Kind of just gotta treat it like another layer of security at this point if you are going to use it, not a fix it all.

Edited by Renegade7
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chipwhich

chipwhich

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Job has me studying for MCSA for server 2012 R2, been working on 70-410 since late August and doing study questions now.

Come to acceptance that as much as I want to focus on cybersecurity, I keep feeling like I have to wait my turn and this is all part of working my way to it. Been really tough maintaining balance in my life while I'm in a field where I'm basically a late starter and dealing with people coming up taking the same CompTIA certs I have now while they were in high school (I didn't even finish high school).

I've met people who cheat their way through these things and I cannot bring myself to do it (feel it will hurt me more then help having the certs and not actually having the skills or knowledge people expect me to have after passing). Anyone have experience with these types? I definitely love IT more then I care for the industry itself at this point, but I imagine anyone that loves computers enough will put up with the dark side of it, most like any other industry.

 

Typically speaking, the people I hire that have the most certifications are the most worthless when it comes to technologies.  There are very few certifications that have any value.  For the certs that are Q&A you can buy the answers online for next to nothing.  When I get a resume with a ton of certs on it, I generally shy away from the candidate.  Most of my best technologists probably have 1 or less certifications.  If they have one it was usually required by some dopey manager at another company.

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Gamebreaker

Gamebreaker

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People who work in the Gov or are a contractor for the Gov usually have to get certifications to fulfill a contract requirement. Just what the job requires. Sometimes you'll already be hired, working for the contractor, and everyone on contract will need to take a boot camp to be certified to fulfill a requirement. I turned down a position with a prominent contractor in the DMV area, but within the job offer was a promise that I would earn an IA cert for cybersecurity. I wouldn't write off anyone who has a lot of certifications, but I also wouldn't instantly make them a better candidate than someone with just one or two. The best way to tell whether a candidate really knows their stuff is to test them through a method of your choosing during the interview. 

 

Renegade, like you I joined the IT industry late in life. I got my Bachelors in Sport Management, but changed careers back in 2012. I have a Network+ and CCNA certifications because the job required it. I want to transition to cybersecurity within the next two years, but it looks like I'll need to get an IA cert to be a strong candidate in this area. If you're serious about getting into that field, you'll need to self-study and earn these certifications to get a chance at a job. CPT(Certified Penetration Tester), CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker), and probably the hardest, yet most useful OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional). Don't bother with the CISSP, it has been devalued in recent years and doesn't really focus on what you need to learn. 

 

My biggest gripe with certifications are the cheaters. You would think someone who downloads a test dump of 600+ questions should be capable of learning the material the right way. 

Edited by Gamebreaker
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chipwhich

chipwhich

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People who work in the Gov or are a contractor for the Gov usually have to get certifications to fulfill a contract requirement. Just what the job requires. Sometimes you'll already be hired, working for the contractor, and everyone on contract will need to take a boot camp to be certified to fulfill a requirement. I turned down a position with a prominent contractor in the DMV area, but within the job offer was a promise that I would earn an IA cert for cybersecurity. I wouldn't write off anyone who has a lot of certifications, but I also wouldn't instantly make them a better candidate than someone with just one or two. The best way to tell whether a candidate really knows their stuff is to test them through a method of your choosing during the interview. 

 

Renegade, like you I joined the IT industry late in life. I got my Bachelors in Sport Management, but changed careers back in 2012. I have a Network+ and CCNA certifications because the job required it. I want to transition to cybersecurity within the next two years, but it looks like I'll need to get an IA cert to be a strong candidate in this area. If you're serious about getting into that field, you'll need to self-study and earn these certifications to get a chance at a job. CPT(Certified Penetration Tester), CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker), and probably the hardest, yet most useful OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional). Don't bother with the CISSP, it has been devalued in recent years and doesn't really focus on what you need to learn. 

 

My biggest gripe with certifications are the cheaters. You would think someone who downloads a test dump of 600+ questions should be capable of learning the material the right way. 

 

I own a government contracting company.  That's all I do.  DoD 8570 had a big bush to get people certified to work on contracts.  It was and is an absolute waste.  People working on the contracts passed around "study guides" which basically were questions and answers for every possible question on the exam.  I was still working contracts at the time, I was required to get a security + certification.  I still laugh at one of the questions on that exam.  It asked what a vampire tap was.  LOL  I haven't seen a vampire tap in ages.  It's sad that some of these requirements get forced onto contractors.  The CISSP may be devalued but some contracts require it.  The managers from the big contractors were all doing whatever it took to help each person get their cert.  They didn't want to lose that revenue.

 

My point was, if you see people with a lot of certs, typically they aren't the best of breed.  I know which certs are required for gov contracts and which are not.  I had to get other certifications in my youth by my bosses.  I worked as a consultant for a database vendor.  They required all of their consultants be certified.  Certification never meant any of the consultants could actual perform in a customer environment, it just tagged them as certified.

 

There are a couple of certs I do think are good.  I make my entry level java developers get the first 2 java certs.  I make my linux admins get red hat certified.

For under $100 I can get the CPT(Certified Penetration Tester), CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) and download them, study, and get those certs.  If you get certified answering multiple choice questions....well what's that worth.

 

On another topic, as someone who had a home computer before most people, who knew what industry he wanted to be in his entire life, it's a tough industry to keep up as you age.  It's probably the one technical career that is a disservice to you as you age.  If you want to remain hands on technical, the kids coming out of college are all trained in the latest and greatest stuff, stuff you don't hear about as fast as the youngster.  It's easy to age out over time, which is why I ended up starting a company.

Edited by chipwhich
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Gamebreaker

Gamebreaker

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I understand there are people who just get certs and have never done the actual work required to really be an expert or professional in the field. I've worked with a couple, and you can tell right away once they start working.  All I'm saying is if you are forced to get a cert by your job because the contract requires it, that doesn't mean you don't know how to do the job. You are right that you can pay for study guides to pass the CEH and CPT, but this is why I also mentioned the OSCP, if you don't know what you're doing than you'll fail. 

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Zguy28

Zguy28

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Typically speaking, the people I hire that have the most certifications are the most worthless when it comes to technologies.  There are very few certifications that have any value.  For the certs that are Q&A you can buy the answers online for next to nothing.  When I get a resume with a ton of certs on it, I generally shy away from the candidate.  Most of my best technologists probably have 1 or less certifications.  If they have one it was usually required by some dopey manager at another company.

I would say more times than not, that is the case. Probably except for the CCIE and maybe VCP. Those are a lot harder than CCNA or Microsoft

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tshile

tshile

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Anybody replacing NTFS with the newer ReFS? We've started using it in our SQL servers. One downside (that doesn't affect SQL) is that you can't run deduplication.

 

 

I'm looking at doing it with my exchange 2016 roll outs, but haven't had the time to properly research.... there is definitely a part of me that is not willing to roll out a critical system on a new file system.... maybe in like 2-3 years...

 

on a side note:

it feels like everyone around me just flies by the seat of their pants all the time. the notion of planning is non existent.

 

then they wonder why things never go smoothly and they're constantly stuck in weird situations with no way out without having someone else bail them out.

 

over and over and over. with certain people you can just call project failure before the project is even approved.

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