IT BS thread

You can only get a security clearance through getting a job that requires a security clearance. It's almost a catch-22. We often hire new folks who've never held one before, and the big thing we check for is whether they can get a security clearance. To that end, they'd check:
- Do you have a past criminal record?
- Do you have a history of drug abuse?
- Do you have financial ties to a foreign country?
- Do you have uncontrolled financial problems?
- Are you a potential blackmail target?
- Can you pass a polygraph?*

It all depends on the agency. Federal Gov't will probably want a Moderate Public Trust background investigation, whereas DoD does national security investigations (secret, top secret, SCI, etc.).


*Most likely WON'T be polygraphed unless you're hired for an NSA or DIA codeword position, and those tend to only go to those people with active TS/SCIs already.

 

I don't know what kind of sub contractors Google Fiber hires, but I am far from impressed. So far, it's literally been 22 months trying to get this fucking line installed. Installer FINALLY shows up today, and in the span of 30 seconds cuts my sprinkler lines and my neighbor's fiber.

A separate dude came out to fix my sprinklers.

Yet another dude is out there now splicing my neighbor's line.

No word on when I might possibly be getting my gig.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck me.

 

So I've got a another bald spot from pulling my hair out on my home network upgrade, can I just say duplicate IP's are fun. For this crowd my network is pretty simple. With a VMware server hosting multiple websites, a pfSense router controlling it all, it is a bit more complex than my grandma's. When finished pfSense will route the traffic between the WAN, LAN, and DMZ networks. My ISP's router is set to 192.168.0.1, so I used 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.2.1 for the LAN and DMZ networks. I stood up a bunch of Linux VM's on the different networks to test that network traffic goes where it should and doesn't go where it should not. Easy enough, but as expected things weren't working right.

In a test of going from the DMZ to the LAN, pinging 192.168.1.1 (LAN network) should not generate a reply. However 1.1 responded every time and step 3 of the debugging rules said "that shouldn't happen." I spent way too long staring at firewall rules, feeling more and more like an idiot every second. Finally, I shutdown the pfSense server and tried again. Damn if 1.1 wasn't still replying to the pings, WTF?! Now I've at least moved to step 4, why does that happen.

I searched my network and found a WIFI router configured with the 1.1 network and went to step #6 "how did that ever work?" But, whatever. In a few minutes I'd changed the IP address and patted myself on the back for finding the problem. I pinged 1.1 one more time just to be sure and guess who replied? 1.1

In my head I'm completely stuck on #3 "that shouldn't happen." There's no 192.168.1.x network in my house. Finally I remembered to run a traceroute on 1.1 and guess what? My ISP is routing 192.168.1.x traffic through their router to some device on their side. Really? In my understanding of networking there are reserved, private networks, like say 192.168/16 that aren't normally routed back to the ISP. How 3 duplicate IP's on the same network ever worked I have no clue.

 

I didn't think that was possible, but I've never used a router provided by my ISP.

 

I've been using the ISP's router since I moved in, because other priorities. I've poked around its settings, but it isn't anywhere near what I need. I had this setup at my old house and it will be a good day when the ISP's router is turned off for good.

 

I have so many keybindings for things, I had to write a small script to show them to me at any time. $mykeys <some_program>

 

I've crossed over to the dark side and am using Doom Emacs. Its got that built in. Saves my bacon regularly.

 

Just took a Staff Engineer job at ServiceNow. So if any of you use our products and have any complaints, feel free to raise them to me and I'll see if I can help address them.

 

You're fucking shitting me.

 

Stolen from @Wulf



Reminds me of some of the crap I have seen while looking for a job so far.

 

Yikes... Since Kubernetes 1.0 was released in 2015, that job posting would scare me..

 

That was written by HR. I had them do something similar with one of my job postings. When I told them we would have a hard time finding someone with 5 years of experience with a 3 year old language, they were all "our hiring standards require 5 years experience for that pay grade."

They also were frustrated by the lack of candidates given the low wages they were offering. "We pay well for the industry." I tried to explain that IT people work in the IT industry, not . You are competing with every company in the city for IT people. (I was so glad we got bought out and that HR group was show the door.)

 

Good or bad?

 

We’ve had some go-rounds regarding SNOW, all political. As a tool it works, I suppose, but we didn’t see the need to replace the solution we had (that did everything we needed) with one that didn’t.

It’s been a sore subject.

 

We heavily use it, on our internal CAB meeting as we speak. I'm leading the implementation of the APM module, among other things that will feed into the CMDB. I have no issues with the tool really, more our internal lack of understanding of how to configure and use it. We actually have SNOW reps on our daily SCRUM calls, so I feel we get decent support.

 

THAT is piece we’re looking pissed about - CMDB! We’ve had the thing 2 years and they are just now working on getting that working right.

 

What doesn't work exactly? Know which release you're on?

 

No, because it’s all cloud and we lost visibility into it. Full disclosure, I hate cloud. Cloud anything. I’m a security guy, and I prefer my data to be on my servers behind my walls and locks and guns.

Our issue has been with our variety of inventory systems (too many to count) feeding in, along with eDiscovery platforms, syncing up and getting data added accurately. We literally had just gotten everything working in 2015 with SDM, then the SNOW decision happened in 2018.

Our issues with SNOW really are political - we’re one of the largest single organizations in the country - and we’re still struggling with tearing down silos that go back to the 1970s.

Massive organizational change is hard, especially when leadership has “challenges.”