Mozilla Launches Student Coding Program "Winter of Security" 40
First time accepted submitter NotInHere (3654617) writes "Mozilla has introduced a new program called MWoS, or 'Mozilla Winter of Security,' to involve university students in security projects. The attending students will write code for a Mozilla security tool during (northern hemisphere) winter. Unlike GSoC, attending it involves no monetary payment, but the student's universities are expected to actively cooperate and to give the students a credit for their work.
From the article: 'MWoS is a win for all. Students get a chance to work on real-world security projects, under the guidance of an experienced security engineer. Professors get to implement cutting-edge security projects into their programs. Mozilla and the community get better security tools, which that we would not have the resources to build or improve ourselves.'"
S.m.r.t (Score:5, Insightful)
Superlative plan.
Get students doing the security work, because the real developers are way too busy screwing around with the user interface and can't be disturbed.
Re:Expecting cooperation from universities... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're from a good university you dont really need such programs
Working in a professional environment as part of your education can be a very valuable experience and shouldn't be sniffed at. I had the good fortune to do something similar when I was younger, and looking back at it now, I can really appreciate how it helped sharpen my skills and gave me greater insight into what real world software development is like.
theory vs practice. Having looked at univ programs (Score:5, Insightful)
Having looked into the security related curriculum at MIT, Princeton, etc, I'd certainly be more likely to hire a student who had hands-on experience under the guidance of a security professional. Their academic programs do not prepare a student for serious security work, in my opinion. In fact, I'd say that a student needs to take all (both) of the security-related electives just to be prepared to write internet-accessible applications.
Not only is there a huge difference between theory and actual practice, but even the theory side is quite limited for security at the top universities. The best I've found is offered by a part of the Texas A&M system, called TEEX.
When I went to work at TEEX, I expected that I'd need to find diplomatic ways of telling them that their cyber-security classes suck, because most classes in the field do suck. I was surprised to see that the TEEX material is pretty good. I can only try to help them make the visual presentation be as good as the actual material is.