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Interesting Read From the Guardian

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    Interesting Read From the Guardian

    Former IT salesman: 'In part I blame the American mindset that took hold' | Joris Luyendijk | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

    I don't know how skewed the guy's opinion is of the whole Finance industry (and especially the IT within it) but an interesting read none the less
    Originally posted by Stevie Wonder Boy
    I can't see any way to do it can you please advise?

    I want my account deleted and all of my information removed, I want to invoke my right to be forgotten.

    #2
    It is a good read, and I've witnessed very similar situations. The salesman is pretty much key along with some pretty effective marketing aimed at half baked IT Security officers .

    I don't agree that you have to keep quiet when you see things are going wrong, or could be catastrophic. I like to think that's a permie trait; as a contractor I have a record to protect and nothing to gain from sitting silent and getting canned when it goes wrong.

    Comment


      #3
      But does the public sector have a better track record?

      Having seen some old mainframe code that dated back to the 60's doesn't convince me that it used to be better either.

      I think this is part of the typical "have a moan" that you hear from every generation that the world is going to pot. I think the angle from this particular article is that we should dump capitalism, and appeals to the "pinko" commentators underneath.

      My experience in banks is that they're no worse than anyone else. Even industries with a supposed high quality standards, which basically means they document their cr*p but it's still cr*p-
      I'm alright Jack

      Comment


        #4
        I don't know, but it's not all crap out there, I've worked at some client sites that could be used as shining examples of perfectly implemented , cost effective IT solutions.

        Some of them have even been pure Microsoft shops, with humming applications, dbs and systems monitoring .

        Interestingly, none of these sites were UK or US based, where I've constantly seen environments that are messy. Maybe just my experience.

        Comment


          #5
          Interesting read that and pretty much sums up what I have encountered in various places.

          Comment


            #6
            My experience in banks is that they usually have redundancy that developers are not aware of because they only know their bit. One bank I was working at had a spare trading room. Had the bank been nuked then then a moth-balled trading room could have been switched on and up and running in miinutes. I only know about that one because I had to work on it. I think all but the smallest banks wouldn't have duplicated their systems and thought about things the person in the article hadn't thought of like fire, or a break in, and could certainly deal with a hamfisted adminstrator.
            I'm alright Jack

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Scoobos View Post
              Some of them have even been pure Microsoft shops, with humming applications, dbs and systems monitoring.
              Exactly. If that system had been one I was monitoring back in the day, I would have noticed that it had gone offline prettty sharpish.

              Oh, and the backups would have been tested!
              Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Sysman View Post
                the backups would have been tested!


                I was once 'invited' to 'shut up or leave' a rather large bank just for asking that question.
                And what exactly is wrong with an "ad hominem" argument? Dodgy Agent, 16-5-2014

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Mich the Tester View Post


                  I was once 'invited' to 'shut up or leave' a rather large bank just for asking that question.
                  Words fail me...
                  Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Sysman View Post
                    Words fail me...
                    Yep, words failed me at the time but I still invoiced the bastards.
                    And what exactly is wrong with an "ad hominem" argument? Dodgy Agent, 16-5-2014

                    Comment

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