Week 2: June 2nd - June 8th
Sunday:
One of the PhD students at the party at Laurie's told us about a small Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, so I went to check it out. It was actually a good service, and the people were all very nice (I got two invitations to lunch, which is always a good sign). Laura and I will probably both go back there next week. We went to Macaroni Grill for lunch, and I banged my knee on the door of my car. And it still hurts. Laura thinks I should quit whining, but she clearly doesn't understand my pain.
Monday:
Back to work. There was hardly anyone in the office today. I added some more stuff to my web page and got it working on the NCSU site. I also tried to familiarize myself with TogetherSoft and JUnit by working through some tutorials. I also skimmed the article we are reading tomorrow for the security discussion group and read some more from the Extreme Programming book.
I wanted Chick-fil-a for dinner, but Laura reminded me that Tuesday nights you can get kid's meals there for a dollar. So I decided to be economical and wait til tomorrow.Tuesday:
Today we had our security discussion group again, and we read through an article (yes, on security) by Gary McGraw. I'm going to start a section with references to the articles and books I have read, so you should be able to look at that soon. We decided that I would be working mainly on coming up with a survey on security requirements, which means, of course, that I need to do a lot of research in order to know what to ask. I read through some documentation on the Common Criteria, which is an attempt to standardize security requirements. I also read some more about XP (I'm inching my way through the book). Laurie had sushi for lunch, and she gave me a few pieces (yum). She said her kids love sushi which is surprising. I can't convince half of my friends even to try it, I can't imagine kids who ask to eat it.
Some people (who will remain nameless) have questioned the importance of my mentioning my thoughts on Chick-fil-a in this journal. Those people should feel free to stop reading at this point. Trauma: I learned that the kid's meal was only a dollar if you also purchase a combo meal, which defeats the entire purpose. Granted, this was somewhat expected, but a disappointment nonetheless.Wednesday:
I did a lot of reading. Dr. Antón recently did a survey on privacy, so I worked through that several times to get a feel for good survey questions. William said it should come up with a few different questions at some point, but I never did get that to work. I'll have to ask him about that later. I also read a paper by Dr. Antón on analyzing web site privacy goals. I read some more from the Building Secure Software book, and I also read more from the XP book.
Laura's boyfriend flew back to CA early this morning (she got up at 4:45). That is sad because he is really quite an entertaining fellow (and so supportive). But at least now I have a roommate again, and so that is fun. And I made the greatest salad for dinner. I share because it was just that wonderful.Thursday:
Let's see. (I probably shouldn't wait 4 days to make these entries... I tend to forget what I did). In the morning, I met with Laurie for a little bit and clarified what I needed to be doing. I'm supposed to be creating a survey of security related questions that can be asked at the requirements gathering phase of software development. These questions should help make security a priority in the minds of both the clients and the programmers, as well as clarifying exactly what level of security is necessary. To that end, I'm going to be reading a lot about security for the next several days so I'll have enough of a familiarity of the subject to know what to ask. She also explained a little more about XP. Talking with her was very helpful; it helped me see what I needed to be reading and what kinds of questions I needed to be coming up with. We had our weekly meeting discussing Building Secure Software, and then I read a lot the rest of the day.
That night I saw Anniversary Party for free at the NC State theater. That means 2 movies in the theater in less than a week. And I only paid $1.50 total. That's practically unheard of.Friday:
I just read all day long. I looked at a lot of the stuff on the CERT website. They have tons of information on survivability these days. I read a few articles, but survivability has more to do with systems recovering from failures than it does with software security. I did find other security related information elsewhere though, and I tentatively started some survey questions and began to structure possible categories of questions.
Laura's dad had business in NC, so he came by for the day. He took us out to dinner, which is always enjoyable. We also got to see some gorgeous pictures from their recent trip to Costa Rica.Saturday:
I actually got up at a reasonable hour (8 am) because Laura was getting up to go have breakfast with her dad at the Hampton Inn (which is very nice by the way). I ended up going to the library in the morning and taking the practise GRE Computer Science subject test. What a great way to spend a saturday morning! As soon as I was finished, I went home, packed a lunch, and met Laura at the pool. It was a beautiful cool day, and I definitely got some sun. My "tan" has a bit of a reddish tint at the moment. Three cheers for Aloe Vera. That night we went shoe shopping at the Cary mall (I didn't buy anything since I only ever wear my Chaco's... I don't even know why I bothered to bring other shoes). And I bought some of my Starbuck's ice cream, which tasted even better (if that's possible) after not eating it for two weeks. (I know I'm going a little crazy with the links, but I'm enjoying it). Oh, and I finally finished The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read it so disjointedly. Narrative books should be read in consecutive settings, not piecemeal.