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Having worked at a university at one point I can understand how shitty security is at virtually all universities. But Stanford claims to turn out brilliant tech

Having worked at a university at one point I can understand how shitty security is at virtually all universities. But Stanford claims to turn out brilliant technologists (in addition to these overpaid MBAs) yet apparently doesn't hire any.

extra88 9y ago
> shitty security is at virtually all universities. Shitty compared to whom? Who are the examplars of information security universities aren't matching? Academia security doesn't look so bad compared to governmental or corporate security. Security involves trade-offs and some of universities' lower security is a conscious choice to not impair academic freedom or collaboration. > apparently doesn't hire any. If their graduates are as good as claimed, the University can't afford them. And many wouldn't want to work there because most of the University's problems are not interesting.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  I’ve done some consulting with higher education, but am not an expert in the vertical. My opinion, based on my observation at a half dozen campuses is that academic computing is ok, but the central services type stuff (payroll, admissions, accounting, HR) is often underfunded and struggling to meet mushrooming compliance requirements. Compared to a similar sized organization in another sector, they aren’t as good as a bank, .gov revenue department or insurance company. But they are better than a municipal government, k-12, or retail.
  - bpowell 9y ago
    I work in the central IT department at a university that has around 20,000 students. You are a 100% correct that we are very underfunded and understaffed. I'm the lead and only full time programmer for the entire portal system. We make due by hiring students to help off load the work for us full timers. Our security team is relatively new. When I first started back in 2013 we didn't really have one. So if you had a few programmers that didn't understand security, many things got through. We do a much better job now, but I can see how other universities can really struggle.
mcguire 9y ago
Your comment reminded me of UTAustin. The university IT group explicitly didn't hire CS grads (from anywhere) but preferred to train their own. Also, a weird fondness for the NATURAL language.
ForHackernews 9y ago
All security is a disaster everywhere. In case you weren't paying attention, Apple (arguably the world's wealthiest company and widely lauded as a security-conscious firm) just shipped their operating system with a blank root password.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  Also just today https://medium.com/matthias-gliwka/microsoft-leaks-tls-private-key-for-cloud-erp-product-10b56f7d648 https://medium.com/matthias-gliwka/microsoft-leaks-tls-priva...

extra88 9y ago

> shitty security is at virtually all universities. Shitty compared to whom? Who are the examplars of information security universities aren't matching? Academia security doesn't look so bad compared to governmental or corporate security. Security involves trade-offs and some of universities' lower security is a conscious choice to not impair academic freedom or collaboration. > apparently doesn't hire any. If their graduates are as good as claimed, the University can't afford them. And many wouldn't want to work there because most of the University's problems are not interesting.

Spooky23 9y ago
I’ve done some consulting with higher education, but am not an expert in the vertical. My opinion, based on my observation at a half dozen campuses is that academic computing is ok, but the central services type stuff (payroll, admissions, accounting, HR) is often underfunded and struggling to meet mushrooming compliance requirements. Compared to a similar sized organization in another sector, they aren’t as good as a bank, .gov revenue department or insurance company. But they are better than a municipal government, k-12, or retail.
- bpowell 9y ago
  I work in the central IT department at a university that has around 20,000 students. You are a 100% correct that we are very underfunded and understaffed. I'm the lead and only full time programmer for the entire portal system. We make due by hiring students to help off load the work for us full timers. Our security team is relatively new. When I first started back in 2013 we didn't really have one. So if you had a few programmers that didn't understand security, many things got through. We do a much better job now, but I can see how other universities can really struggle.

mcguire 9y ago

Your comment reminded me of UTAustin. The university IT group explicitly didn't hire CS grads (from anywhere) but preferred to train their own. Also, a weird fondness for the NATURAL language.

ForHackernews 9y ago

All security is a disaster everywhere. In case you weren't paying attention, Apple (arguably the world's wealthiest company and widely lauded as a security-conscious firm) just shipped their operating system with a blank root password.

ForHackernews 9y ago
Also just today https://medium.com/matthias-gliwka/microsoft-leaks-tls-private-key-for-cloud-erp-product-10b56f7d648 https://medium.com/matthias-gliwka/microsoft-leaks-tls-priva...