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Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by munin on Sunday June 25, 2017 @05:23PM (#14632271)
I agree with you.

Here are some of my thoughts at 15 years:

1. Get sleep and exercise. Stop drinking soda, just stop it. Drink water, coffee, tea, and scotch.

1a. During undergrad, I would get into a trap where I would think I was too busy with schoolwork some night to exercise. Later, I changed my thinking and realized I was too busy to NOT exercise. My grades improved.

2. Work 40 hours a week. Don't be a hero. You're going to burn out.

3. Keep your mind open, but don't accept what others say uncritically. Investigate and evaluate all new information, time permitting. Don't think you know everything, also, don't think anyone else does either.

4. Be a good programmer.

5. Learn some advanced mathematics and cryptography. Don't listen to the people that say "I've never had to use that." Learn about something until you're unsure and uncomfortable- like exercising until you feel it, that means you're learning something.

6. Make your resume more about stories you can tell and less about tools you can use.

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by kaishiro on Sunday June 25, 2017 @08:26PM (#14633055)
"Make your resume more about stories you can tell and less about tools you can use."

This is great advice, but I've never been able to describe it so succinctly.

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by nickpsecurity on Sunday June 25, 2017 @10:24PM (#14633604)
I agree. Well put. Reminds me of functional resume approach of describing what one did vs where they worked. I've always preferred it.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by photojosh on Monday June 26, 2017 @08:20PM (#14641567)
I read Chris Lattner's online CV [1] (probably via HN), he of Apple/LLVM/Tesla fame and a technical engineer I regard rather highly.

It's an excellent example of story-driven resumes.

[1] http://nondot.org/sabre/Resume.html

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by branchless on Sunday June 25, 2017 @06:18PM (#14632522)
> That leads me to this: to be great in this industry ( or great for this industry), I believe that InfoSec/NetSec has to become a lifestyle,not just a job. I easily work 80+ hours a week

Who is working 80+ a week long term? It throws into question every other statement on the page.

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by koolba on Sunday June 25, 2017 @06:29PM (#14632572)
I've been working 80+ hours per week for nearly 20 years. I wholeheartedly enjoy what I do but I don't just work on one thing though. It's a combination of direct work, research, and FOSS.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by branchless on Sunday June 25, 2017 @06:33PM (#14632590)
Wow. Well I guess there you are. I cannot imagine this! And I work well over 40 hours a week, last few weeks have been near 80. But as a rule, no way. Guess it takes all kinds.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by nthcolumn on Sunday June 25, 2017 @07:31PM (#14632833)
He is including time spent on here :P
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by eeZah7Ux on Monday June 26, 2017 @03:19AM (#14634722)
He is including all time spent learning stuff and so on. 40h work + 40h learning/reading HN/doing hobby projects is pretty common.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by Odin78 on Monday June 26, 2017 @05:56AM (#14635460)
Is it really? That's 16 hours of work 5 days a week. If you sleep for 8h you don't do anything but work or learn for all of your waking hours.

A more reasonable person would probably put a fair amount of learning time on the weekend, but even then you leave very little time for a social life, physical exercise, eating, relaxing.. things that most healthy people, if not everyone, requires.

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by eeZah7Ux on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @06:51AM (#14653061)
Working 40 hours per week and sleeping 8 hours at night leaves you 72 hours of free time a week so you still have time for other activities.

Also, learning and hobby projects can include social aspects.

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by ameister14 on Monday June 26, 2017 @03:05PM (#14639349)
It's not just about being able to keep that up, either - it's less efficient to work 80 hours consistently and you end up with a large number of hours worked that you get a negative return on because they contribute to burnout without increasing the amount of work you get done by much at all.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by nerdponx on Sunday June 25, 2017 @08:53PM (#14633165)
Most of this applies equally well to data science, natural science, or social science with "statistics, probability, and machine learning" swapped in for "cryptography".
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by dredmorbius on Sunday June 25, 2017 @10:25PM (#14633608)
Pretty much any technical creative field.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by arvinsim on Monday June 26, 2017 @05:18AM (#14635278)
> Learn some advanced mathematics and cryptography.

There is too much of mathematics to learn all of them. To make maximize, I think I need to focus on some subjects that would be cost-effective. What woulds would this be?

Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by baby on Monday June 26, 2017 @10:39AM (#14637129)
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by lou1306 on Monday June 26, 2017 @10:52AM (#14637229)
Sorry, could anyone enlighten me on the "Avoid ElGamal" part? I thought it was pretty secure. Is it due to bad efficiency?
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by dozzie on Monday June 26, 2017 @11:03AM (#14637335)
I would guess the author wanted to say "avoid cryptosystems that work over Z_n ring", especially that you will use ElGamal when signing or encrypting over elliptic curves.
Re:Shared thoughts after 6 years in Pentesting by baby on Monday June 26, 2017 @12:28PM (#14638001)
It is fine, but a good reason to avoid FFDH, RSA and other algorithms over multiplicative groups is that you need longer parameters compared to ECC.