Why Digital Security?

Today I received the following email:

Hi Richard,

(Sorry for my bad English, i speak French...)

I'm one of your blog readers and i have just a little question about your (Ex) job, Consultant in IT security...

I'm very interested by IT security and i want to get a degree in this. In France, we have to write "motivation letter" to show why we are interested by the diploma. That's why i write to you to know a few things that you do in your job, what is interesting and what is boring ??

I figured I would say a few words here and then let all of you blog readers post your ideas too.

• Likes:




• Constant learning


• Defending victims from attackers -- some kind of desire for justice


• Community that values learning (but not necessarily education -- there's a difference)


• Working with new technology


• Financially rewarding for those with valuable skills




• Dislikes:




• Constantly changing landscape requires specialization and potential loss of big picture


• Most attackers remain at large, meaning as a whole "security" never improves


• Learning is being increasingly rated by the string of letters after one's name


• Family system administration, especially for user applications on Windows that I have never seen; "But you work with computers!"


• Charlatans, especially with letters and/or security clearances, rotating around the Beltway making lots of money without delivering value beyond a "filled billet"

What do you think?