Finding More Than One Worm in the Apple:
If you see something, say something.
In February Apple revealed and fixed an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) vulnerability that had gone undiscovered since the release of iOS 6.0 in September 2012. It left users vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks thanks to a short circuit in the SSL/TLS (Transport Layer Security) handshake algorithm introduced by the duplication of a goto statement. Since the discovery of this very serious bug, many people have written about potential causes. A close inspection of the code, however, reveals not only how a unit test could have been written to catch the bug, but also how to refactor the existing code to make the algorithm testable - as well as more clues to the nature of the error and the environment that produced it.
Who Must You Trust?:
You must have some trust if you want to get anything done.
In his novel The Diamond Age, author Neal Stephenson describes a constructed society (called a phyle) based on extreme trust in one’s fellow members. Part of the membership requirements is that, from time to time, each member is called upon to undertake certain tasks to reinforce that trust. For example, a phyle member might be told to go to a particular location at the top of a cliff at a specific time, where he will find bungee cords with ankle harnesses attached. The other ends of the cords trail off into the bushes. At the appointed time he is to fasten the harnesses to his ankles and jump off the cliff. He has to trust that the unseen fellow phyle member who was assigned the job of securing the other end of the bungee to a stout tree actually did his job; otherwise, he will plummet to his death. A third member secretly watches to make sure the first two don’t communicate in any way, relying only on trust to keep tragedy at bay. Whom you trust, what you trust them with, and how much you trust them are at the center of the Internet today, as well as every other aspect of your technological life.
Automated QA Testing at EA: Driven by Events:
A discussion with Michael Donat, Jafar Husain, and Terry Coatta
To millions of game geeks, the position of QA (quality assurance) tester at Electronic Arts must seem like a dream job. But from the company’s perspective, the overhead associated with QA can look downright frightening, particularly in an era of massively multiplayer games.