csrf CSRF: Cross-Site Request Forgeries - Basic Security Part 3 NB: This is the third post in a series of posts on web application security. The quintessential example of a CSRF (sometimes pronounced “sea-surf”) is a bank that naively does transfers over a
django XSS: Cross-Site Scripting - Basic Security Part 2 NB: This is the second post in a series of posts on web application security. XSS covers a number of various attacks, but the common thread is that someone gets to execute code
django Password Storage - Basic Security Part 1 NB-1: This is the first post in a series of posts on web application security. NB-2: Fred wrote a great post on password storage. You should read it. I’m assuming we’re
django Best Basic Security Practices (Especially with Django) Or: Locking Your Doors This goes along with a talk I gave at Django-NYC in July 2012, but is meant to stand on its own. It is the first in a series of
django Putting My Slides Where My Mouth Is I’m giving a talk tonight at GetGlue on web app security, particularly with Django. Over the next several days—starting tonight—parts of that talk will be posted here as blog posts
High MySQL CPU Load Today? Quick Fix If you started seeing a load spike in MySQLd (or apparently Java) processes this morning, it may be the fault of yesterday’s leap second. Apparently due to tides slowing the rotation of
meetup Calling all Mozilla Community Members in New York! Are you a Mozillian? Are you an add-on author or web developer or an avid Firefox user? Do you think of yourself as part of the Mozilla Community, and are you in or
Code Where are James' Slides? I give a lot—well, I give some—talks, but I never give the slides out. And, as far as I can remember, no one has ever asked for them. I know people,
Code Why Django Sucks, Except When It Doesn't Ken Reitz is a smart man. Very smart. Smarter than me. He’s responsible for some of the best, most widely-used Python libraries out there. So when he talks, I listen. And recently,
That's What He... is Sorry For Two recent blog posts have called me on my bullshit and I owe everyone an apology. First, Jessamyn Smith wrote about Fighting Sexist Jokes the Geeky Way, and then Katie Cunningham—whom, though
Developing a Culture of Testing I say this all the time, but Mozilla’s webdev group has grown a lot over the past few years, and I don’t just mean in size. We’ve become better engineers,
Better A week or so ago, I needed to say that I wasn’t OK. Thanks to everyone who offered support and kind words, and especially my cousin Jono who drank beer and talked
Not OK I’m not doing OK right now. Why is that so hard to admit? It’s nothing big, it’s just a hundred small things and they all happened at the same time
mozilla Performance is a Feature What do I mean when I say “performance is a feature?” For a long time, I got this wrong. When I explained myself, I’d say that performance was as important as any
apple Thank You, Steve Thank you, Steve. I didn’t really realize until today exactly what I owe to Steve Jobs’ vision and dedication. So much of my life and career has been influenced and guided by
developers So You Want Me to Hire You I vacillated quite a bit on the title of this post. It is, after all, not me that is hiring you. Nor do I have the power to hire folks at will: it’
continuous deployment Acronyms you should know: MTTD and MTTR If you’re a SUMO contributor, there are two acronyms you will start to hear more often from us developers: MTTD and MTTR. They mean “mean time to detect” and “mean time to
Say hi to Scottbot UPDATE: Scottbot has been removed from GitHub and will not be coming back. Find out why. After talking about it with Fred for a couple of weeks, I sat down this morning and
damnproud Pride and Joy: Firefox 4 is Out! Since it was officially released around 7 hours ago, Firefox 4 has been downloaded nearly 2.4 million times. I feel many things today. I’m deeply proud and humbled to be a
api The Thing About Twitter The thing that bothers me most about Twitter’s API announcement is that very few of the most useful features of Twitter were actually their ideas. Hashtags. Retweets. Location. Search. Lists. Conversation view.
continuous deployment A brief SumoDev update A little while ago, I said that I thought we got a B in Q1, but we could move up to an A with a little more work. (This is my favorite grading
mozilla Weekly Update for 11/3/11 Been a busy week! Helped run down an issue with our ads on Reddit. Updated django-multidb-router. - Learned a little about ContextDecorator and how to do that in Python 2.6. Shipped SUMO
mozilla Weekly Update 04/03/2011 OK, in line with my 2011 goals and because I’m sick of not remembering what I did last week, I’m restarting the weekly update posts. I hope you like hearing about
django O Hai Django AdminPlus Last night, as happens sometimes, I was wishing it was possible to add some of our custom admin views to the Django admin’s index page. It’s kind of a pain to
kitsune SUMO in Q2 At the end of 2010, I issued a challenge to my team: deploy support.mozilla.com continuously by the end of 2011. So, as we move into the last part of Q1, how
