[attrition] Indian Media: Get Over Your Fascination With 'Whiz Kids'

[security curmudgeon]

http://attrition.org/security/rants/indian_whiz_kids.html

Indian Media: Get Over Your Fascination With 'Whiz Kids'
Sun Aug 19 16:52:13 CDT 2012
jericho

Introduction

India is a proud country, with a wealth of cultural history and tradition 
that is simply fascinating. Considered by some to be the oldest living 
civilization, the historical diversity and significance of their culture 
cannot be measured. Today's India is substantially different however, 
especially to the rest of the modern world looking in. Americans see it as 
the land of poorly outsourced tech support, Bollywood, and chicken tikka 
masala. In the realm of computer security, India is seen as a hot bed of 
plagiarism and charlatans.

One of the greatest contributing factors to that is how the Indian media 
focuses on technology. Over the last decade, they seem to have developed a 
sick obsession with supposed "whiz kids" and alleged geniuses that will 
save us from the security nightmare that plagues us. Unfortunately, each 
of these whiz kids is really no more special than the previous, except 
perhaps a bit younger. Many of the touted experts published a book in 
their teens, but the same media doesn't write about the plagiarism that is 
found in most of them.

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