I know quite a few computer security people (gratuitous self linking). A degree is not important. It will however allow you to move about more freely, as getting visas and work permits becomes easier. What is important is doing real useful research. To do that you're going to need to work hard and study. Here are my suggestions for some things to work on.

1) Learn how to reverse engineer. Learn how to use IDA. Read everything Halvar, FX, Gera, The Gruq, and other... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 5:02 PM on February 12, 2007

Have you thought about working with a recruiter. Some of the better ones will help you with stuff like this. I've had good experiences with Corporate Recruiters but I don't think they do your industry.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 9:08 PM on February 9, 2007

I know one of the founders of FatPort. He isn't involved with them any more, but he may be able to give you some relevant data. Email me (in my profile) and I'll pass you along.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 2:35 AM on February 9, 2007

You might want to check out enquisite. It's an ASP model, rather than software you install youself, but it should do what you want. Oh, and it's free. (disclaimer, I only know about them because I'm going to be working with them)
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 2:30 AM on February 9, 2007

This is one of the problems for which a regular expression really is suited, no matter what your language of choice.

That said, depending on the size of your dataset, regular expressions, especially the perl engine (and the pcre) might not be a good choice due to the fact that the engine as it exists by default wants to drop your entire string into a scalar before parsing it node by node (yes, this is a bit stupid, but it is very efficient unless someone asks for... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 9:22 PM on January 9, 2007

A manhattan is my normal drink of choice when out on the town. I usually demand it 'up' because bartenders who serve it to you in a rocks glass tend to make it a little dirtier than I think should be tolerated in a class establishment.

If I'm feeling a bit more pretentious I ask for an old fashioned. Properly made, an old fashioned should be made with two shots of rye (not bourbon) over rocks with a dash (don't fill the fucking glass) of soda. It must be served in a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 7:30 PM on January 5, 2007

Meh, I was writing a bunch of code for a few days, so I didn't leave my apartment (or sleep). By the time I found out, we were already 3 days into the boil water advisory. Hasn't killed me yet.

Not that I'm a scientician or anything, but the water in Vancouver is chlorinated. Apparently the issue is that when it gets full of crap, the chlorination isn't very effective. The issue with washing your food, is that you have to rinse it. If you rinse it, then if the water... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 4:33 PM on November 21, 2006

As I may have mentioned on previous Tokyo related questions, I'm an organizer for a conference in Tokyo. We recently updated our travel page. You might find some of that useful, especially the
Tokyo vegetarian guide.

Last year we had several vegetarians and a couple of vegans in our party, and with a bit of planning it wasn't too big of a deal.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 8:25 PM on November 18, 2006

You might want to try a free trial of MailChannels' Traffic Control product. It does traffic shaping for SMTP, which should reduce the amount of spam you see, as well as reducing the load on your content filter so you can tune it to be more agressive.

(Disclosure, I sit on the board of MailChannels and came up with some of the technology involved. Obviously I think it's awesome but you should really find out for yourself)
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 1:40 AM on November 10, 2006

Dan Kaminsky wrote a nice paper on this at MD5 considered harmful someday. It might be worth a read through if you want to understand the implications of MD5 being "broken."
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 5:17 AM on November 7, 2006

I've been an early stage employee at a few startups, and I've founded a couple of startups myself. I've also raised money for a startup I founded, and I'm currently in the process of founding another. So hopefully this isn't male answer syndrome talking. Here's what I learned:

You need a partner who is technical if your business is technical and you are not. Your partner must believe in the idea enough to work for equity. There are a couple of reasons for this, but... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 7:35 PM on November 5, 2006

A few years after I had moved out and got my first job, I gave my then 16 year old sister an electric guitar and amp for Christmas. My parents were not amused, but I thought it was funny. Also good, getting any teenager something that either explodes, or fires a projectile. I gave my little brother a deringer flare gun one Christmas.

Other great gifts - my brother, who is now a vet, got an inflatable love sheep for his last birthday. I didn't tell him about it, so he... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 3:08 AM on November 3, 2006

I really recommend The Tokyustay in Shibuya. A single is JPY 9400 a night for a short stay. It's got 100M ethernet (just plug in and it works), a small kitchenette, a washer and dryer, and is just down dogenzaka from hatchiko, which is a really major station. Depending on when you go next month, you may have trouble finding space as we are likely to fill it up at the end of November.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 7:00 PM on October 23, 2006

Every popular CMS/blogging system having exploits would seem to be a pretty valid argument for rolling your own. Unless of course, you don't think your team can do any better. But then again, I'm kinda biased against php that way too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 2:59 AM on October 19, 2006

HSBC will let you do a yen wire transfer. They will also let you get a yen account if you're going to need to do this often. Any bank which does SWIFT should also be able to do the same (you might want to specifically ask about SWIFT).
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 5:06 PM on October 16, 2006

Blah, all this talk of consequences. Lame. What you want is this dnsiff. I personally find changing hotmail.com to be hotmale.com to be a rather amusing use for this. Plus since it's not work related, it's not like they can bitch. Also it's completely safe/non destructive. You will need to be on either the same network segment, or the same network segment of the dns server for it to work.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 6:12 PM on October 12, 2006

John E. Stith is kind of similar. 'Redshift Rendevous' in particular is about explaining Relativity in the guise of a story.

James P. Hogan might be considered similarly a hard SF author who illustrates big ideas in the guise of stories. 'The Two Faces of Tomorrow' comes to mind immediately as does 'Code of the Lifemaker.'

David Gerrold could certainly count as well, 'When Harlie Was One' is an SF classic filled with some great ideas, but it... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 3:02 AM on October 12, 2006

This is a bit of a self link (disclosure - I sit on the board), but MailChannels has a product that solves this problem by using traffic shaping (so it doesn't care about the content). If the traffic looks spammy, then that IP only gets allocated a tiny bit of bandwidth, which seems to cut down on spam by about 80% before it even hits your content filter, and specifically deals with this sort of stuff that traditional content filtering can't. They have a free trial program, so it won't cost... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 7:10 PM on October 11, 2006

BTW, a little birdie told me that Gmail is actually just Sophos PureMessage rebranded...
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 7:11 PM on October 11, 2006

I do a conference in Tokyo every year, which entails staying in Shibuya for several weeks and doing a lot of drinking and partying. Depending on how much you eat (remember that japanese portions will seem tiny to you) you should expect to spend about USD $15.00 on lunch and about USD $30.00 on dinner. Breakfast is usually included with your hotel. That may seem a bit expensive, but that's assuming you're usually out at group meals with people who want to eat 'nice' food. If you don't mind... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mock at 9:35 PM on October 10, 2006 marked best answer