Canonical Under Attack

gnabgib•about 3 hours ago

Discussion yesterday (194 points, 63 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47972213

Related: Pro-Iran crew turns DDoS into shakedown as Ubuntu.com stays down (80 points, 78 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47975729

cynicalsecurity•about 1 hour ago

I remember seeing Ubuntu hiring recently, like a half a year ago or a year ago.

Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo".

Well, well, well, who would have thought "maths geniuses" are really bad at DDoS protection and running infra in real life. And academic marks / IT degree mean nothing in real IT work.

Think twice next time you hire people, Canonical. People without a degree, but with extensive experience you rejected might have prevented this situation in the first place.

I'm not connected with this DDoS attack in any way, just in case, but I remember their arrogant hiring attitude and now it's amusing to see the outcome of it.

dmoy•about 1 hour ago

> Their requirements was ridiculously outdated, like "we want maths geniuses with great marks, send us your marks or gtfo".

Man that like barely scratches the surface of the surrealness of canonical's hiring process

rbanffy•1 minute ago

I don’t remember it as particularly surreal. They did a remote programming interview over Zoom (in 2014 or so) and it was a really interesting problem - to make a PRNG for a specific range of integers using two other PRNGs. Their solution had a branch and mine was branchless and decently random. It was, at least then, a very personalistic company, centred around Shuttleworth, but his influence didn’t usually extend more than two org levels, and different parts of it behaved as different companies.

Diti•about 1 hour ago

I remember reading an article describing Canonical’s predatory hiring practices, but I can’t find it any more. Do you have sources?

benjojo12•40 minutes ago

https://dustri.org/b/my-experience-with-canonicals-interview... is one example

kinow•27 minutes ago

Yeah, I considered applying once, but saw others online saying their process was long and outdated. In my case, I applied anyway, but during the screen call I asked if I would have to use Ubuntu even if I didn't use, and also their new (at that time) Juju for all tasks, even if that wasn't the best tool for the job. The position was related to automation of services. They told me I would to use both Ubuntu and Juju, and I couldn't use other tools if those two worked, which I understand, but I thought being stuck using Juju probably wouldn't help my career after a few years.

jbm•22 minutes ago

This is surprising. Has Canonical built something recently that requires "math geniuses with top grades at school"?

The last time I remember using any of their software was Unity. I'm not a Unity hater, but where is the headcount going?

noosphr•19 minutes ago

This is quite reasonable compared to the rest of the process.

I thought I was catfished by North Korea when after the third round of requirements was sent.

ohnei•11 minutes ago

I find this take a bit silly. There are perhaps a dozen companies that could put as complex a surface out as Ubuntu has and actually expect to defend against any sort of sustained interest from a nation state. Canonical absolutely could have made better decisions in the design of many things for this situation but doing that as a corporation that isn't under attack is extremely hard when no one wants long delays for theoreticals.

Canonical Under Attack

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