This humourous essay [PDF] on modern computer security, I thought would be an interesting read for SN; here's an excerpt.
Security research is the continual process of discovering that your spaceship is a deathtrap. However, as John F. Kennedy once said, "SCREW IT WE'RE GOING TO THE MOON." I cannot live my life in fear because someone named PhreakusMaximus at DefConHat 2014 showed that you can induce peanut allergies at a distance using an SMS message and a lock of your victim's hair. If that's how it is, I accept it and move on. Thinking about security is like thinking about where to ride your motorcycle: the safe places are no fun, and the fun places are not safe. I shall ride wherever my spirit takes me, and I shall find my Gigantic Martian Insect Party, and I will, uh, probably be rent asunder by huge cryptozoological mandibles, but I will die like Thomas Jefferson: free, defiant, and without a security label.
[Also Covered By]: Schneier on Security
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday August 30 2015, @09:04PM
My point is, you'd have to be a really clever security-oriented programmer to think of this, if you were asked to implement RSA. You'd have to understand the underlying integer maths.
But also a really bad programmer to not include even a single comment as to why that code existed.
Non trivial, obscure, and unexplained code is always suspect.
I've sent even senior programmers back to their desk with red marked listings for that kind of stuff.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.