<story><title>How Equifax Was Breached in 2017</title><url>https://blog.0x7d0.dev/history/how-equifax-was-breached-in-2017/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jiggawatts</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve worked with several senior people (&amp;quot;Principal Enterprise Architect&amp;quot;, etc...) who were music majors, and as a rule they were terrible at their jobs. They just... &lt;i&gt;didn&amp;#x27;t care&lt;/i&gt; about anything even vaguely related to computers. Without exception they got into their positions through nepotism, ass-kissing, or dirty politics. None got there through talent.&lt;p&gt;People who &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; computers do it as a hobby. They learn programming at a young age, they get a CS degree or a hard science degree, and then they spend their spare time on tech forums like HN.&lt;p&gt;People who &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t like&lt;/i&gt; computers play music, learn painting, or do something else. They get degrees in the arts or humanities. They spend their spare time playing music at the local pub, or whatever.&lt;p&gt;PS: One of the worst programmers I had ever met is also one of the best musicians I had ever met.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Not enough downvotes for this. I&amp;#x27;m assuming this is all BS considering you got all the details wrong. It was the CEO who got a $3 million bonus in 2016, not the CIO. Susan Mauldin, who earned a music degree in college, was the Equifax CISO, not their CIO.&lt;p&gt;The reason I&amp;#x27;m so salty about your response is when the breach happened, there were tons of news reports denigrating the CISO because she had a music degree. There may be a ton of reasons she wasn&amp;#x27;t good at her job (though it&amp;#x27;s hard to say as CISO is often a &amp;quot;sacrificial lamb&amp;quot; job anyway), and I&amp;#x27;m certainly not defending Equifax, but I take major issue with the implication that a music degree makes someone unqualified for a tech job.&lt;p&gt;First, as she was CISO, she was presumably done with college many, many years ago. Lots of people have college degrees that aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily directed to the career they end up in. More importantly, though, I&amp;#x27;ve found that there is a &lt;i&gt;direct&lt;/i&gt; correlation between highly trained musicians and great software engineers. I don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s a &amp;quot;same part of the brain&amp;quot; thing or whatever, but I&amp;#x27;m actually astounded at the sheer number of &amp;quot;best of the best&amp;quot; software engineers I&amp;#x27;ve worked with that are classically trained musicians. It&amp;#x27;s to the point that when hiring I give &amp;quot;extra points&amp;quot; if you will to musicians because, it my experience at least, the correlation is so strong.&lt;p&gt;So, frankly, you can take your &amp;quot;she had a music degree&amp;quot; shade and shove it.</text></item><item><author>RachelF</author><text>A tiny penalty.&lt;p&gt;The CIO got a $3M bonus, too. Odd thing is that she had a music degree and little experience in IT, but was an old friend of the board members.</text></item><item><author>justinclift</author><text>Didn&amp;#x27;t Equifax receive practically no penalty for it though?&lt;p&gt;So, what would be the motivation to avoid future things like this happening again?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>electrondood</author><text>Sorry, this is utter bullshit. Got into engineering late, and this mindset is just typical engineer snobbery. It&amp;#x27;s like the toxic &amp;quot;10x engineer&amp;quot; trope that also needs to die, as if taking an unconventional career path or not living and breathing open source contributions and tech blogs in your spare time means you aren&amp;#x27;t a Real EngineerTM</text></comment>
<story><title>How Equifax Was Breached in 2017</title><url>https://blog.0x7d0.dev/history/how-equifax-was-breached-in-2017/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jiggawatts</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve worked with several senior people (&amp;quot;Principal Enterprise Architect&amp;quot;, etc...) who were music majors, and as a rule they were terrible at their jobs. They just... &lt;i&gt;didn&amp;#x27;t care&lt;/i&gt; about anything even vaguely related to computers. Without exception they got into their positions through nepotism, ass-kissing, or dirty politics. None got there through talent.&lt;p&gt;People who &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; computers do it as a hobby. They learn programming at a young age, they get a CS degree or a hard science degree, and then they spend their spare time on tech forums like HN.&lt;p&gt;People who &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t like&lt;/i&gt; computers play music, learn painting, or do something else. They get degrees in the arts or humanities. They spend their spare time playing music at the local pub, or whatever.&lt;p&gt;PS: One of the worst programmers I had ever met is also one of the best musicians I had ever met.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Not enough downvotes for this. I&amp;#x27;m assuming this is all BS considering you got all the details wrong. It was the CEO who got a $3 million bonus in 2016, not the CIO. Susan Mauldin, who earned a music degree in college, was the Equifax CISO, not their CIO.&lt;p&gt;The reason I&amp;#x27;m so salty about your response is when the breach happened, there were tons of news reports denigrating the CISO because she had a music degree. There may be a ton of reasons she wasn&amp;#x27;t good at her job (though it&amp;#x27;s hard to say as CISO is often a &amp;quot;sacrificial lamb&amp;quot; job anyway), and I&amp;#x27;m certainly not defending Equifax, but I take major issue with the implication that a music degree makes someone unqualified for a tech job.&lt;p&gt;First, as she was CISO, she was presumably done with college many, many years ago. Lots of people have college degrees that aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily directed to the career they end up in. More importantly, though, I&amp;#x27;ve found that there is a &lt;i&gt;direct&lt;/i&gt; correlation between highly trained musicians and great software engineers. I don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s a &amp;quot;same part of the brain&amp;quot; thing or whatever, but I&amp;#x27;m actually astounded at the sheer number of &amp;quot;best of the best&amp;quot; software engineers I&amp;#x27;ve worked with that are classically trained musicians. It&amp;#x27;s to the point that when hiring I give &amp;quot;extra points&amp;quot; if you will to musicians because, it my experience at least, the correlation is so strong.&lt;p&gt;So, frankly, you can take your &amp;quot;she had a music degree&amp;quot; shade and shove it.</text></item><item><author>RachelF</author><text>A tiny penalty.&lt;p&gt;The CIO got a $3M bonus, too. Odd thing is that she had a music degree and little experience in IT, but was an old friend of the board members.</text></item><item><author>justinclift</author><text>Didn&amp;#x27;t Equifax receive practically no penalty for it though?&lt;p&gt;So, what would be the motivation to avoid future things like this happening again?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stef25</author><text>&amp;gt; People who like computers do it as a hobby. They learn programming at a young age, they get a CS degree or a hard science degree, and then they spend their spare time on tech forums like HN.&lt;p&gt;Well that&amp;#x27;s me and trust me, you don&amp;#x27;t want me in charge of any IT department. Maybe it&amp;#x27;s cause I also like music.</text></comment>