Can confirm this. I teach a programming class and about two years ago my brain exploded when I was helping a student debug a problem said “o, you tried to reference the file but it’s actually up one directory and inside another one so you’ll need to include the full (relative) path”
The blank look of “what the hell are you talking about” threw me for a loop. So, then we talked about file systems for awhile…
I’ve done support for sysadmins and I’ve run into a lot of them who don’t understand the concept of relative or absolute paths. A couple weeks ago I had to explain how password hashing works to people working for a huge aerospace company.
I think most people learn to use computers like they learn to use a car, in that they understand the rituals they need to perform to get it to do the thing they want. They lack understanding of what’s going on under the hood so when something goes wrong they can’t fall back on knowledge and figure out what went wrong, they have to learn an entirely new routine to fix it instead of learning the principles and thinking critically.
I’ve worked as a sysadmin for 4 years and was recently offered a position as IT security consultant, and I don’t know how password hashing works. (Don’t worry, I rejected the position)
Thank you for not becoming yet another turtle on a post.
Plus it wasn’t even how the hashing works, just explaining how a system can check if a password is correct without decrypting the password. They’re getting millions of my tax dollars to build this IT system for the military and they don’t even understand that one-way hashes exist.
Can confirm this. I teach a programming class and about two years ago my brain exploded when I was helping a student debug a problem said “o, you tried to reference the file but it’s actually up one directory and inside another one so you’ll need to include the full (relative) path”
The blank look of “what the hell are you talking about” threw me for a loop. So, then we talked about file systems for awhile…
I’ve done support for sysadmins and I’ve run into a lot of them who don’t understand the concept of relative or absolute paths. A couple weeks ago I had to explain how password hashing works to people working for a huge aerospace company.
I think most people learn to use computers like they learn to use a car, in that they understand the rituals they need to perform to get it to do the thing they want. They lack understanding of what’s going on under the hood so when something goes wrong they can’t fall back on knowledge and figure out what went wrong, they have to learn an entirely new routine to fix it instead of learning the principles and thinking critically.
Adeptus Mechanicus Intensifies
I’ve been catching myself calling it the activation rune instead of the power button.
I’ve worked as a sysadmin for 4 years and was recently offered a position as IT security consultant, and I don’t know how password hashing works. (Don’t worry, I rejected the position)
Thank you for not becoming yet another turtle on a post.
Plus it wasn’t even how the hashing works, just explaining how a system can check if a password is correct without decrypting the password. They’re getting millions of my tax dollars to build this IT system for the military and they don’t even understand that one-way hashes exist.