3 ms·
I had a similar experience, but the guy didn't get that far. We were still at university when I was approached by him. Over the course of a month we met severa
by lolc 10y ago
I had a similar experience, but the guy didn't get that far. We were still at university when I was approached by him.
Over the course of a month we met several times, with him showing me exercises and me trying to teach him the basics he needed to solve them. Because he put more effort into getting the solution from me than understanding the material. I told him he would not be able to finish and I was not willing to help him.
A year later we met and he was still in the same spot. When he asked me again to help him I asked whether he was learning. He assured me he'd just read this Java volume he was carrying. He'd memorized the
public static main argh
incantation like a religious verse and was quite proud of its recital. So I asked him what the result of
int four = 4;
four = 5;
in Java would be. He was unsure whether this was an error or whether the result would be nine.
He wasn't the only guy like that. But the count of "hackers" I've met is even worse. Most recent one told me he can hack any computer so I told him to hack the router in the corner. "So what is the IP-address of this router?" "It's your gateway, figure it out." He eventually guessed he could use whatismyip.com to point his "hacker tools" at the right target. Turned out I'd done the filtering by interface so he actually saw the SSH port open even though it's closed from the net. Trying to explain to him why I was chuckling turned out to be impossible as he had no notion of interfaces.
He ended up telling me my router is unsafe. Some tool had told him so, well, the sshd version should be hidden.
I just don't trust people much anymore about their supposed skills. What I must learn still is to strictly apply this skepticism to fields where I'm not proficient. That's much harder because the feedback loop is not immediate. Getting a second opinion has saved my health in some instances and much expense on other occasions.