I believe in luck, but I do not feel it comes about purely as a result of random chance. I believe you can make you own luck (or dramatically skew the odds in your favor) by your actions.
I dropped out of college and immersed myself in the technology world after 17 years of professional foodservice (which I did enjoy, and did quite well in) and through lots of reading, practical hands on experience, and enormous amounts of networking I managed to rise to CIO of a mid-sized private company (actually 2 companies owned by the same person), and then left to start my own business. I now consult for multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies and earn far more than many of my friends who finished college (but not all of them).
I did not waste a lot of time going out drinking, boating, and golfing during this time. I went to tech conferences (many of them are free to attend) and met many people and pursued the relationship. I joined standards and regulatory groups (i.e. NIST groups) and listened in, and then contributed. I networked my ass off, and got lucky a lot more often than others I knew.
Despite how you interpreted what I said, and all logic aside, I meant that all it takes is drive. That is why complete idiots can (and do) become affluent. Intelligence coupled with drive will usually get you there quicker.
Intelligence without drive is usually a recipe for financial disaster. I know more than a few super intelligent lazy ass people who sit around getting stoned and can speak very intelligenly about just about any topic under the sun, but are forced to live off Ramen and Koolaid because they lack the drive.
I dropped out of college, worked as a chef for 17 years, started using a computer in 1998, and was the CIO of 2 companies (owned by the same person) by 2005. I did it because I was willing to work my ass off when the guys with degrees decided to jack their dicks for a living.
I was making 6 figures and then left to start my own company, and I still make 6 figures.
Someone once told me this, and it is true. It takes 2 things to be a success. One is intelligence, and the other is drive. Someone with a lot of intelligence and no drive will find it very hard to succeed. Someone with a lot of intelligence and a lot of drive will find it fairly easy to succeed. Someone with a lot of drive and little intelligence WILL SUCCEED.
All things being equal, execution is what it takes to win.
Pharmaceutical companies are currently dealing with trying to implement ePedigree, which is supposed to stop the flow of counterfeit drugs (currently about a $35 Billion/year problem).
I have literally had insiders tell me that security is not even on the table in considering what needs to be done to implement ePedigree. They are concentrating on things like cost of RFID tags, speeds of readers, databases, etc.
While these are indeed valid considerations, I have pointed out on numerous occasions that they are dealing with a huge criminal force who have armed themselves with some very good hackers and who can easily afford to pay these same hackers to break the ePedigree systems. I have shown them how easily some of the RFID tags they have chosen can be cloned, and pointed out several weaknesses along the entire chain, and they simply stare at me with blank looks on their faces and tell me that they are sure their IT department will deal with the security issues if any should come up.
The sad reality is that the ePedigree is mandated by the government, and there is no security requirement, so they are simply looking to implement this very costly system at a bare minimum. What they do not know (and perhaps do not care to know) is that the weak security in the implementation will actually create a worse situation than currently exists for these companies, will actually make it EASIER for counterfeiters to get their products into the market, and will create new subversive business models.
Security exploitations are driven by motivation. Some are motivated by curiosity, some by vindictiveness, and others by greed. Greed is perhaps the biggest motivator of all.
Hopefully I will not have to deliver the "I told you so."
Some of you may feel this is not "newsworthy", but this illustrates a very important point.
Lets look at the whole voting machine mess. The machines were CERTIFIED by the States they
were used in. That means that the certifying body agreed that they met all requirements. Yet, once hackers found all of the security flaws in the system, the voting machine manufacturers were "lynched" in the court of public opinion.
Lets look at the whole financial mess we are in. The Federal Government is paid by taxpayers to oversee our economy. They failed miserably at this task, and now are trying to saddle taxpayers with the burden of fixing the mess.
Ultimately, our Government and the Governments of other nations approved this RFID Passport System...a system which was, at least in part, intended to address security concerns. Now that it is coming out that this too is a failure DUE TO A LACK OF OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL, who is going to be blamed this time? Security experts have nearly exhausted themselves trying to get the message out about a lack of security in RFID Passports (and other RFID systems), but are all but ignored.
Ultimately, we are all getting what we deserve, because we are simply allowing those we have put in charge of assuring our well being to fail over and over again, and we simply foist the blame on everyone else but those we have employed to prevent these messes from happening.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE !!!!
The iPhone is the salvation of all mankind!!! My cousin Cletus was blind with a clubfoot and the moment I touched my iPhone to his forehead he went into convulsions, and a phone call came in and the convulsions stopped, and then they started again after I hung up the phone!!! After the convulsions ended, he started dancing to the tune of Inna Gotta Davida, by Iron Butterfly (the DRM free version) on my iPhone, and his clubfoot was gone. He was also able to see his illegitimate children for the first time on the crisp and bright screen of the iPhone, and he even managed to type YHNFDHERROU on the keyboard without any training at all!!!!! He then ran across the street and bit the neighbor in the leg.
A very good friend of mine has done some high end encryption coding for some major tech companies over the last few years, and has become somewhat in demand for his work. He was recently approached by a major computer manufacturer (lets call them Nell), and asked to create a security method to prevent counterfeit laptop batteries from being used in their laptops (perhaps due to recent bad press about batteries catching on fire). They also told him that it had to be very inexpensive, as they did not want to raise their cost for laptop batteries above the level it was now. He then asked them if they wanted it to be secure or cheap, and told them that truly secure was not going to be cheap. They then repeated what they had told him. This went back and forth for a while until he told them that what they really wanted was for my friend to sign off on his "secure" method, regardless of whether it was secure or not, so they could redirect blame to his organization when the cheap security method was easily defeated, and give the appearance that "Nell" cares about security.
This lost him the bid.
True it is...the saying that I saw on a bridge once, which read "Remember, this bridge was built by the lowest bidder." Sadly, chances are that the most popular security method is actually even less secure than none at all, since a false sense of security makes people do stupid things. I once told an associate to stop storing sensitive financial information on spreadsheets on his home PC. He said he was not concerned because he used Zone Alarm. He then had his finances compromised...through a Phishing scam.
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I believe in luck, but I do not feel it comes about purely as a result of random chance. I believe you can make you own luck (or dramatically skew the odds in your favor) by your actions.
I dropped out of college and immersed myself in the technology world after 17 years of professional foodservice (which I did enjoy, and did quite well in) and through lots of reading, practical hands on experience, and enormous amounts of networking I managed to rise to CIO of a mid-sized private company (actually 2 companies owned by the same person), and then left to start my own business. I now consult for multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies and earn far more than many of my friends who finished college (but not all of them).
I did not waste a lot of time going out drinking, boating, and golfing during this time. I went to tech conferences (many of them are free to attend) and met many people and pursued the relationship. I joined standards and regulatory groups (i.e. NIST groups) and listened in, and then contributed. I networked my ass off, and got lucky a lot more often than others I knew.
Intelligence without drive is usually a recipe for financial disaster. I know more than a few super intelligent lazy ass people who sit around getting stoned and can speak very intelligenly about just about any topic under the sun, but are forced to live off Ramen and Koolaid because they lack the drive.
I was making 6 figures and then left to start my own company, and I still make 6 figures.
Someone once told me this, and it is true. It takes 2 things to be a success. One is intelligence, and the other is drive. Someone with a lot of intelligence and no drive will find it very hard to succeed. Someone with a lot of intelligence and a lot of drive will find it fairly easy to succeed. Someone with a lot of drive and little intelligence WILL SUCCEED.
All things being equal, execution is what it takes to win.
I have literally had insiders tell me that security is not even on the table in considering what needs to be done to implement ePedigree. They are concentrating on things like cost of RFID tags, speeds of readers, databases, etc.
While these are indeed valid considerations, I have pointed out on numerous occasions that they are dealing with a huge criminal force who have armed themselves with some very good hackers and who can easily afford to pay these same hackers to break the ePedigree systems. I have shown them how easily some of the RFID tags they have chosen can be cloned, and pointed out several weaknesses along the entire chain, and they simply stare at me with blank looks on their faces and tell me that they are sure their IT department will deal with the security issues if any should come up.
The sad reality is that the ePedigree is mandated by the government, and there is no security requirement, so they are simply looking to implement this very costly system at a bare minimum. What they do not know (and perhaps do not care to know) is that the weak security in the implementation will actually create a worse situation than currently exists for these companies, will actually make it EASIER for counterfeiters to get their products into the market, and will create new subversive business models.
Security exploitations are driven by motivation. Some are motivated by curiosity, some by vindictiveness, and others by greed. Greed is perhaps the biggest motivator of all.
Hopefully I will not have to deliver the "I told you so."
Some of you may feel this is not "newsworthy", but this illustrates a very important point. Lets look at the whole voting machine mess. The machines were CERTIFIED by the States they were used in. That means that the certifying body agreed that they met all requirements. Yet, once hackers found all of the security flaws in the system, the voting machine manufacturers were "lynched" in the court of public opinion. Lets look at the whole financial mess we are in. The Federal Government is paid by taxpayers to oversee our economy. They failed miserably at this task, and now are trying to saddle taxpayers with the burden of fixing the mess. Ultimately, our Government and the Governments of other nations approved this RFID Passport System...a system which was, at least in part, intended to address security concerns. Now that it is coming out that this too is a failure DUE TO A LACK OF OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL, who is going to be blamed this time? Security experts have nearly exhausted themselves trying to get the message out about a lack of security in RFID Passports (and other RFID systems), but are all but ignored. Ultimately, we are all getting what we deserve, because we are simply allowing those we have put in charge of assuring our well being to fail over and over again, and we simply foist the blame on everyone else but those we have employed to prevent these messes from happening. WAKE UP SHEEPLE !!!!
The iPhone is the salvation of all mankind!!! My cousin Cletus was blind with a clubfoot and the moment I touched my iPhone to his forehead he went into convulsions, and a phone call came in and the convulsions stopped, and then they started again after I hung up the phone!!! After the convulsions ended, he started dancing to the tune of Inna Gotta Davida, by Iron Butterfly (the DRM free version) on my iPhone, and his clubfoot was gone. He was also able to see his illegitimate children for the first time on the crisp and bright screen of the iPhone, and he even managed to type YHNFDHERROU on the keyboard without any training at all!!!!! He then ran across the street and bit the neighbor in the leg.
A very good friend of mine has done some high end encryption coding for some major tech companies over the last few years, and has become somewhat in demand for his work. He was recently approached by a major computer manufacturer (lets call them Nell), and asked to create a security method to prevent counterfeit laptop batteries from being used in their laptops (perhaps due to recent bad press about batteries catching on fire). They also told him that it had to be very inexpensive, as they did not want to raise their cost for laptop batteries above the level it was now. He then asked them if they wanted it to be secure or cheap, and told them that truly secure was not going to be cheap. They then repeated what they had told him. This went back and forth for a while until he told them that what they really wanted was for my friend to sign off on his "secure" method, regardless of whether it was secure or not, so they could redirect blame to his organization when the cheap security method was easily defeated, and give the appearance that "Nell" cares about security. This lost him the bid. True it is...the saying that I saw on a bridge once, which read "Remember, this bridge was built by the lowest bidder." Sadly, chances are that the most popular security method is actually even less secure than none at all, since a false sense of security makes people do stupid things. I once told an associate to stop storing sensitive financial information on spreadsheets on his home PC. He said he was not concerned because he used Zone Alarm. He then had his finances compromised...through a Phishing scam.