Recruiting solution: Invest in U.S. workers; Explaining WPA2; Gartner forecasts trouble with rootkits, ID theft; IT worker shortage
Show IT pros the money
Regarding Linda Musthaler’s column, “Recruiting solution: Invest in U.S. workers”: The solution: raise the salaries of IT professionals. How much more? You’ll know it’s enough when you get long lines at campus career fairs to find out about IT professions.
Students aren’t stupid. They see the investment bankers, finance, marketing, engineers, lawyers and medical professionals with such higher standards of living — big houses in nice neighborhood, flashy cars, fancy vacations, nice clothes, their children’s college education assured, etc. Meanwhile, they hear and see overworked and highly stressed IT people with average standards of living, or having brittle job security (“Oh, so you have driven CARS before, but you have never driven a FORD?! Sorry we are looking for someone who has three years experience driving FORDS.”) So, students pursue other fields. It’s as simple as that. Once students see the rewards, they will work towards it, even overcoming the deficiencies in the education system.
But there is also a glass ceiling in business, where there is a reluctance to pay IT people anything close to management people. That is an old-school mentality and reeks of traditionalism, elitism and ignorance. It used to be that a business couldn’t compete effectively without proper IT, but now most mainstream businesses can’t operate at all without proper IT — yet many managers treat IT as a bunch of car mechanics. Why pursue a profession in which the rewards don’t match up to the investment (requirements) of time, continuous training/learning and personal sacrifice?
Terry Michaels
Montreal, Quebec
Explaining WPA2
Regarding “Explaining WPA2”: This was a very nice overall summary of the differences. Here are a two more areas I would have liked the article to address: 1) Why would a wireless client allow WPA-AES if AES isn’t supported till WPA2? and 2) Why would a client even need to support WPA if WPA2 means backwards support for all the features in WPA?
One time I was very happy having the picture in my head that (in a overly simplified way) WPA = TKIP and WPA2 = TKIP-or-AES. I thought I had it understood…until I looked at my Microsoft Windows’ wireless client configuration GUI and saw I could have WPA with CCMP/AES. I saw the same thing with my Intel’s wireless client configuration GUI. Huh?! Then I even saw that my older version of Intel’s wireless client software even supported WPA with WEP. “What gives?” I asked myself. I had to do more digging.
I am not alone. Good articles like yours still permit incomplete understanding of WPA and WPA2 differences. What a reader thinks he has learned from the article will conflict with his real-world experience. However, if you will inform readers of this article that WPA and WPA2/RSN are not strictly compatible because of a difference in an Information Element (IE), you will go a long way in addressing areas 1 and 2 above.
Also it would be nice if you explained the story behind why clients have WPA with CCMP/AES support (and sometimes even WPA with WEP support). You could explain how (as one Wi-Fi Alliance engineer wrote in a forum) CCMP was in WPA, but not tested. Even I don’t know that whole story. But I do know that both CCMP and WEP are functionally supported in WPA by using the WPA IE. If you were able to reveal a little history surrounding that story, now you would have a really interesting article. I have yet to see any article clarifies areas 1 and 2. They always stop where your article stops.
Kenneth Coombes
Senior network engineer
NEC Unified Solutions
Irving, Texas
Old news
Regarding “Gartner forecasts trouble with rootkits, ID theft”: There is nothing newsworthy in the piece. The fact that cyber attacks are financially motivated is old news, as is the blending of virus, spyware and rootkit technologies. It’s no longer 14-year-old hackers who want to get over on you by “owning” your computer. It’s business, and the programmers are professionals. That hasn’t been news for years.
The idea that 20% to 50% of companies will become infected with spyware in the next two years can only be said by someone with his head in the sand. In my consulting work, I find that 100% of Internet-connected computers are infected today, depending on one’s definition of spyware. Over 75% are infected by anyone’s definition.
Social engineering isn’t news; it’s been going on since the 1980s. Viruses and rootkits also aren’t news.
I’d have much rather seen the time, space, and thought put into an article on how companies can protect themselves, or a better explanation to those who still haven’t understood what the stakes are.
Mike Avery
Owner
Gunnison Network Consulting
Gunnison, Colo.
You get what you pay for
Regarding “Help wanted”: I’m a senior systems administrator with a programming and infrastructure background (mainframe, midrange and PC). I have several certifications, am president of a peer-to-peer IT group and sit on the board of a technology council. I just do not see the jobs that these CIOs are saying they have. The job openings I have seen – well, the companies do not want to pay. They want the talent and they want it cheap. I’ve witnessed the outsourcing of work and positions to overseas companies and seen the failures that result. These CIOs should advertise their positions, be willing to pay, and trust that a qualified American technology professional will adjust to the position and produce. I understand the current trend is to produce something to the business units every three months, but I don’t see that happening with H1-B visa candidates. There is a definite difference in the business philosophy overseas and in the U.S. If these CIOs want to deliver service to their business units, they need to offer some decent salaries and be willing to let the highly skilled American technologist take the job.
A great example is the so-called shortage of mainframe systems programmers. One would think the salaries would be skyrocketing. But I see the positions going unfilled, waiting to be outsourced (or to go to a H1-B visa holder) in lieu of paying an American a higher wage to learn on the job, or use skills that he has for that job.
David DeWall
Senior systems administrator
Erie Indemnity Co.
Erie, Pa.
Every time I read an article about the shortage of skilled IT workers in which C-level executives and companies claim they can’t find IT employees with business skills, I want to scream. I hold a degree in business and a master’s degree in management. I was a successful entrepreneur before entering IT. I’ve been in IT for almost nine years and have enough IT certifications to cover a large wall, including a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Yet when the phone rings or an e-mail arrives, the company or recruiter only wants to know about my technical skills.
Shortly after earning my CISSP, I met with a recruiter for a prestigious IT recruiting firm here in Atlanta. After looking at my resume, the recruiter commented that he had never seen anyone with both IT and business backgrounds. After concentrating entirely on my technical skills during the meeting, he ended with the statement, “I have no idea how to market you.” I have not heard from him or his firm since.
Jon Banks
Powder Springs, Ga.
I’m pleased to see that a representative of the Society for Information Management (SIM) recommends hiring entry-level IT people. I just read a SIM-sponsored research report that says that many companies eschew entry-level people because they only offer skills that are easily obtained from outsourcers. For example, why do you need to keep an in-house help desk? Go pay for that service from someone else. The problem is, this removes an opportunity to bring in new people who need to learn your business from the bottom up. Without these folks coming into the company today, five years from now you will not have the “seasoned” worker you really need.
Linda Musthaler
Principal analyst
Essential Solutions
Houston
