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RSS News Feed Search: CyberAttack October 04, 2018 at 07:09PM

The Times

Cyberattack: What did the Russian GRU hackers want, and why did … The Times What did the Russian agents plan to do?To infiltrate the computer systems of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in a … and more »

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomberg/

Although maths is not un-important for computer science, you don’t have to be a maths genius to be a computer scientist or a programmer. (Those people should be mathematicians! Although many turn to programming after getting their degree.) How much maths you need actually varies a lot between different universities. I personally only had to take one maths class in my first semester and only used it in my robotics class later. If I had gone for a full compsci bachelor’s degree, I would have had two maths classes. That’s not a lot, right? And it’s totally do-able if you put enough effort into them, form study groups, maybe get a tutor, etc. Even if you have to take more maths classes, it’s not impossible to pass them.

Assuming you want to go to university/college, you should probably check the entrance criteria for your (preferred) university regarding any maths qualifications you need. Some universities require applicants to have a minimum grade in maths, so check this before you miss a chance by not spending enough effort in school. But remember that even if your dream university doesn’t let you in, there are always other options!

Aside from university, there are also other ways to become a programmer. In Germany for example, you can do an apprenticeship that lasts 2-3 years. I don’t actually know how this works where you live (presumably the US?), but maybe someone can tell you if there are traineeships or something similar as well. This would be more of a practical way of learning it, in the sense that you’ll be working with real problems in an actual company instead of theoretical problems in a university environment. This kind of approach works best for people who are not suited for a more academic kind of learning.

In the end, what you need most for programming is logical thinking and the ability to examine a problem from all angles and cut it up into little, easy-to-manage pieces. Yes, sometimes you need maths for that, mostly in more research-oriented jobs, or optimisation (making algorithms faster). But honestly, all I use in my daily work is a general sense of maths (look up “complexity theory” if you want to) and a lot of learned programming skills. I don’t actually get out a piece of paper and start solving a polynomial for x (although I did that in university - one time, for optimisation). You also have to keep in mind that most jobs for developers are actually only repeating things others have done before you. Very few developers do something completely new that you have to thoroughly think through and (mathematically) prove to be valid.

So in conclusion I say: Not a maths genius? Not a problem. There’s so much more to programming.

When asked over and over why she was supporting Clinton, Steininger always had the same answer: experience. Clinton had the training and knowhow, she said, and Trump didn’t.

Trump’s presidency is “not going to affect me because I am going to die soon,” she said. “It’s my children and my grandchildren that I am concerned about. Because our country is going to be set back. That’s what Trump promised to do. A woman’s right to choose is out the window. Health insurance he’ll do away with. Same-sex marriage he is opposed to.

“We made a lot of progress in my lifetime and it looked like we’d make a lot more,“ she added. “Now, we are not.”

…

For Steininger, who has been sporting a handmade “Hillary ’16” sign on her walker since the caucus, early voting was the first milestone in her “plan,” as she called it. Beginning with her Christmas letter, she told her friends and family that she decided she had “to stay alive to vote for Hillary.”

With Clinton losing, Steininger said she isn’t sure she’d live long enough to complete that plan. And as the clock ticked past 11 p.m., then midnight and finally 1 a.m., Steininger’s hope faded and her body began folding in on itself.

“I want (Hillary) to know I did what I could and I am sorry,” she said. “There will be a woman voted president of the United States. It won’t be Hillary, but sooner or later there will be a woman voted president.”

Source: https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/hacking-airgap-computers.html

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/03/16/cracking-an-encrypted-external-hard-drive/

More info:

https://syscall.eu/blog/2018/03/12/aigo_part1/

Source: https://gizmodo.com/senator-demands-fbi-director-explain-his-encryption-bac-1822400040