Hackerman's Hacking Tutorials
The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known
by its causes. - Avicenna
About Me! Cheat Sheet My Clone How This Website is Built The Other Guy from Wham! Search
Who am I?
APR 17, 2019 - 4 MINUTE READ - COMMENTS - NOT SECURITY CLONE AUTOMATION
I am Parsia, a security
The Dark Side of "Manual Work is a engineer at Electronic Arts.
Bug" I write about application
security, reverse engineering,
Go, cryptography, and
(obviously) videogames.
This is a revisit of Manual Work is a Bug during my ramp up at my new job. I will discuss my
experience doing some automation at my previous job and the ip side to the utopia painted Click on About Me! to know
by the article. more.
Collections
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Thick Client Proxying
Go/Golang
Blockchain/Distributed
Ledgers
Automation
Reverse Engineering
Crypto(graphy)
CTFs/Writeups
WinAppDbg
AWSome.pw - S3 bucket
squatting - my very legit
branded vulnerability
Your technical debt
Why The Revisit?
Time, It Needs Time, To Win Back Your Love Again
But Automation Gives You Time
Should Everyone Automate?
What Did We Learn Here Today?
Why The Revisit?
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I discovered the article last year. I love it. You can read my initial observations in Re ections
on "Manual Work is a Bug".
Recently, I left my job after almost six years (70 months to be exact). By the end, I had
automated some of my weekly routines and had this huge knowledge on the internal network
called Parsia-Clone (it dwarfs my external one). We had this running joke that the clone will
become sentient one day and do my job.
I realized I have forgotten why I made some important decisions and why I was doing things a
certain way.
Most importantly, I had forgotten the pains. I was in the happy phase of the process where my
automation had given me free time. About one day every two weeks (sometimes every week) I
sat down, documented what I had learned and performed maintenance.
With a clean slate:
I can do some things better this time.
I can adapt my routine to our processes here.
I can think about why I made some decisions.
I have time to do stuff.
Time, It Needs Time, To Win Back Your Love Again
Having time. That's kind of important. And that is my biggest issue with the original article. It
tells the tale of two sysadmins. Both are busy, intelligent and can write code.
Let me tell you about two systems administrators I know. Both were overloaded, busy IT
engineers.
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But they do things differently
The successful person had the same pressures but somehow managed to write a lot of code.
Stop! Hammertime!
Both sysadmins are overworked and under pressure but one (let's call them The Automator)
manages to write a lot of code/documentation.
How does The Automator nd the time?
Can they even manage to nish assigned work?
Remember both sysadmins are already overloaded.
Writing documentation/steps/code takes time. A lot of time. Especially when you are just
starting and getting into the mindset. Even format and medium is a huge timesink. Hint: Your
corporation probably has something like Con uence.
The time has to come from somewhere.
Work time: You are likely overloaded, you do other stuff instead of your job.
Personal time: RIP work/life balance.
So The Automator most likely:
Got red because they wrote documentation instead of closing tickets.
Burned out because they worked after hours.
I was the second person. I worked long hours and almost burned out. People with family and
obligations cannot do this and let's be honest, no one should.
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Even the mythical Russian build engineer had this problem.
The myth started in bash.im. Read the translation at jitbit. It's about this legendary Russian
build engineer who had scripts for everything. For example, one:
sends a text message "late at work" to his wife (apparently). [...] The job res if there are active
SSH-sessions on the server after 9pm with his login.
Seems like even automation legends overwork. Our ideal person is someone who has
automated his excuses for working long hours. SAD!
But Automation Gives You Time
Sure it does, it's most likely a net bene t in the long run. Automation will give you some free
time to do more automation (well, hopefully).
But The Automator probably had no life for a while (assuming not red).
Should Everyone Automate?
Each person needs to gure out if it's worth the time and energy.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Can things be automated?
This is important, not everything can/needs to be automated.
Do you have the extra time?
Do you like doing it?
It shouldn't be a hassle and a second job.
What do you get out of it?
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Does corporate care?
Does it help you and other people?
There's also the option of automating your job but not sharing it. See the following urban
legends:
Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I’ve automated my job?
Finally red after 6 years - reddit
What Did We Learn Here Today?
The original article is nice but it glossed over a very important part of the process and let's say
its Achilles' heel.
Starting and continuing automation has a very signi cant time investment. This time has to
come from somewhere. Either you get it through your corporation (congrats, you and me are
some of the very few lucky ones) or it comes out of your time.
Posted by Parsia • Apr 17, 2019
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2 Comments Parsiya
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Robert Hill • 6 months ago • edited
Very insightful, Parsiya. I've shared this around at my new gig as well as with some friends!
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Parsia Parsia > Robert Hill • 6 months ago
Thanks Robert. I am glad you liked it. Congrats on the new gig.
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