Big Tech 13

If I had to pick my dream job…it’d be mine. My job would be my dream job. It’s actually, truly, verifiably the best job in the world. Don’t quote me, because I’m sure J.J. Abrams is having a great time right now riding a solid gold surfboard over piles of both his millions and the printed-out critic reviews telling him of his own greatness, but I think mine is pretty good.

See, I’m a hacker. One of the good ones. In fact, I make viruses for a job. Lots of people around Melbourne do web design courses, and what with online shopping swelling to the point where it looks like every retailer might be chucking all their wares onto the internet, privacy has never been more important. Web design and implementation is a popular course option, but it’s my job to make sure they’ve really covered the nitty-gritty. Their websites need to be safe, secure and pleasant for people to use…and nothing is unpleasant quite like having your credit card details stolen when you’re trying to do your dear old mum a solid and buy her that expensive teapot that she always wanted. Just think of your mum! How disappointed will she be when she not only doesn’t get that wonderful teapot, but she has to deal with the vicarious stress of you calling up the card company, cancelling everything, cursing the internet overlords for allowing this to happen…

You get the picture. So my job is to create all kinds of fun little viruses, packed full of nasty surprises, to test the students and their web design skills. Security is their number one priority. You can have an ugly website, but as long as you’re selling something people want, you can get by. Not so if people stay away due to being hacked repeatedly. Sometimes I’ll go the whole hog and make a devastating Trojan that gives me control over their PC. That’s how they know they’ve failed. It’s tough, but a web development course isn’t a picnic. You have to know your stuff.

-Reuben

I have to tell you, the people running this course don’t mess around. I’ve failed the final assessment about four times, and they let you retake it as many times as you like because it’s got this reputation for being brutal. I was pretty down about it at first, but then I learned that six times was about average. To which I say ‘what?’ but still. They want people to be the best, I guess?

See, it’s a web development course, one of Melbourne’s finest so I hear. The final assessment is to make a commerce website that actually sells things, so we have to get stock and everything. There are tons of things we need to implement, such as a system of ratings (I’ve gone for the good old star system), comments, reviews, Pineapple Pay, email response, SO much stuff, and it has to be absolutely secure. Not blind spots, no letting people log in and order the same thing twice in different tabs and only paying for one of them…and no hacks that let people steal credit card numbers. That one was written in red on the brief, so I’m guessing it’s pretty important. And yet…the most difficult. The people assessing your site use every feature and they all have to have at least some functionality. Then they buy something, and get this: they actually make a virus that attacks your site in some way. You have to have proper features in place to prevent it, and you can’t just pay for some software to do it for you. Yep, that’s where our software development comes in: it actually has to be custom-designed software, from the ground up. Madness, sheer madness.

Every time I’ve submitted my website (we sell Chinese antiques! No, really!) I’ve done really well, up until whoever’s making the viruses throws that at me. Two of my customers have had their details stolen, while another had a Trojan installed on his/her computer. The other virus just brought down the entire site. So basically, it’s my web development course assessment, but also online warfare. Just wait until I unleash website Mk V, with impregnable defences. Probably.

-Mark