Category Archives: Engineering
It’s Official: Platform Engineers Earn More Than You – The New Stack
In the rapidly evolving world of technology, hiring strategies can make or break you when it comes to staying competitive especially with the ongoing war on talent. So were super excited for our big reveal.
A new champion has emerged in the field of engineering salaries: platform engineers. According to the latest findings in Humanitecs State of Platform Engineering Report Vol 2, this relatively new entrant is already making big waves, outpacing its DevOps counterparts in earnings. This revelation not only highlights the increasing value of platform engineering, it also sets the stage for a deeper look into its growing prominence in the tech industry.
Recently named a Top Strategic Technology Trend by Gartner for both 2023 and 2024, platform engineering sits at the peak of Gartners Hype Cycle. For many organizations, its transitioned from an emerging trend to a new standard. This recognition comes not only from Gartner but also from CNCF, Google, Microsoft and many others. And it underscores the critical importance and snowballing influence of platform engineering in shaping the future of technology.
Platform engineerings rise is largely shaped by its approach. Its the perfect blend of software development, operations, product management (platform as a product) and infrastructure. But this multifaceted discipline is not just about technical know-how; its about driving standardization and automation to enhance overall productivity and efficiency in software delivery processes. As platform engineering continues to gain momentum, companies are rethinking their approach to software development and operations.
The Platform Engineering 2023 survey, which primarily targets the United States and Europe, shines a spotlight on the current technology pay gap. In the US, platform engineers enjoy a staggering 42.5% salary advantage, averaging an additional $65,439 over their DevOps counterparts. Europe sees a similar trend (to a lesser extent), with platform engineers earning 18.64% more. Thats equivalent to an extra $15,871 annually.
Note: Data aggregated is based on the description of what respondents say they work on. Platform engineering was aggregated from platform engineering and developer experience. DevOps was aggregated from infrastructure, DevOps setup and ops.
This significant salary difference could be due to the demanding nature of platform engineering. Unlike traditional ops and DevOps roles, platform engineering demands a broader and often more specialized skill set. These professionals are not just bridging gaps between software development and ops. Nor do they simply solve team or individual problems. Much more than that, their work impacts the entire organization, innovating and shaping the platforms that, if built well, lead to shorter time to market by unblocking developer and ops bottlenecks.
Awareness of this salary gap has far-reaching implications for the tech industry. For one, it may influence the career trajectories of aspiring engineers, nudging them towards specializing in platform engineering. It may also get companies thinking about the need to reassess their hiring strategies and salary structures to attract and retain the very best talent.
This trend also signals a potential shift in employment dynamics within the tech sector. As the demand for platform engineering expertise grows, roles could realign, with more focus on finding skills that cover wider technological breadth and depth.
Our report findings highlight the ever-growing importance of the platform engineer role. The fact that theyre leading the way in terms of earnings is a trend every engineering organization should sit up and pay attention to. Not only does it reflect their potential to impact the entire business and cut time to market, but, for some organizations, it signals the need to seriously rethink recruitment strategies and secure the right people with the right skills and stay ahead of the curve.
Explore Humanitecs full report for more insights into the state of platform engineering.
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It's Official: Platform Engineers Earn More Than You - The New Stack
The engineer who helped India to reach the Moon – Nature.com
This story is part of Natures 10, an annual list compiled by Natures editors exploring key developments in science and the individuals who contributed to them.
We have achieved our goal flawlessly, said Kalpana Kalahasti, a few minutes after Indias space agency safely landed its first probe on the Moon on 23 August, part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. This will remain the most memorable and happiest moment for all of us.
Natures 10: read the 2023 list
The successful mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) put the country in a small group that has managed to set a craft down on the lunar surface. Only the Soviet Union, the United States and China have also achieved the feat. And as associate project director of Chandrayaan-3, Kalahasti played a crucial part in ensuring its success.
Chandrayaan-3 carried with it the hopes and fears of a nation when it lifted off on 14 July. Indias previous attempt to reach the lunar surface, the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019, ended in failure when the lander crashed. Three other Moon missions had similar fates: the 2019 loss of the Beresheet lander built by Israeli company SpaceIL, and this year the crashes of HAKUTO-R Mission 1 from the Japanese company ispace and Russias Luna 25 lander.
The loss of Chandrayaan-2s lander was a defining moment for Kalahasti and her team members, who poured all of their efforts into bouncing back. From the day we started rebuilding our spacecraft after the Chandrayaan-2 experience, it has been breathe in, breathe out Chandrayaan-3 for the team, she said after this years landing.
One of the biggest challenges the team faced was that the total mass of and available budget for the spacecraft had to remain the same as those for Chandrayaan-2. That meant the team could not drastically redesign the lander or build in many redundancies. So Kalahasti worked with project director Palanivel Veeramuthuvel to reconfigure the Chandrayaan-2 missions orbiter and lander. ISRO reduced the mass of the orbiter to provide the lander with extra fuel, stronger legs and other improvements.
This is where Chandrayaan-2s flight was invaluable. Its many systems that did work allowed us to arrive at an optimum Chandrayaan-3 configuration, Kalahasti told Nature.
Veeramuthuvel and Kalahasti spent the bulk of Chandrayaan-3s development time devising and overseeing comprehensive tests and simulations, such as assessing the navigation systems ability to avoid hazards before touchdown on Moon-like terrain.
The goal was to have a well-documented, well-understood system. There was no compromise in demonstrating the systems performance, says Kalahasti.
The efforts paid off. But conducting so many tests and integrating their results while also planning the flight was a giant task that required coordinating a dozen ISRO centres across the country. It was as if we were building five to six different satellites together, says Kalahasti. She relied on her past experiences in project management and systems engineering, including her leading roles in the development of several ISROs Earth-observation satellites.
Her leadership role on the Moon mission was a long way from her beginnings at ISRO in 2000. She was drawn to the agency, she says, by a desire to work at a core engineering organization that would leverage her degree in electronics and communications. Her first job with the agency was as a radar engineer at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, where ISRO launches its missions.
Kalahasti is elated that the Chandrayaan-3 mission has ignited a spark among younger people in India. Apart from the missions technical aspects, I hope young professionals across India and the world get inspired by how the team meticulously emerged from failure.
The missions success has inspired confidence in other nations and companies hoping to attempt future Moon landings, says Jessy Kate Schingler, a space-policy researcher and senior adviser at the Open Lunar Foundation, a non-profit organization in San Francisco, California, that is advocating for a peaceful lunar presence. Its really nice to see India coming back for a second try on this mission soon after its first attempt, she says. Its such a hard thing to do, a Moon landing. So Chandrayaan-3, I think, is an appreciated investment the whole world will benefit from.
Kalahasti is excited about what ISRO could take on next. The agency wants to send a mission to retrieve lunar samples, as a precursor to its 2040 goal of landing a human crew on the Moon. Now that the critical aspect of demonstrating a Moon landing is done, says Kalahasti, we can move towards other capabilities.
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The engineer who helped India to reach the Moon - Nature.com
As Search Begins for Cause of Bronx Building Collapse, Engineer Says Water Main Work Could Be a Factor – THE CITY
Hours before a Morris Heights building partially collapsed in a heap onto a Bronx street, a contractor hired by the city was performing below-ground water main work across the street, THE CITY has learned.
The vendor, EIC Associates, was working across the street on the block of the collapse earlier in the day, emailed Ian Michaels, spokesperson for the city Department of Design & Construction (DDC), on Tuesday in response to questions from THE CITY.
Its not clear what triggered the collapse of the northeast corner column of the seven-story apartment building on Monday afternoon whose facade had been deemed unsafe in 2020 or whether the water main work played any role whatsoever.
But Michaels said DDC engineers inspected the site on Tuesday and believe that the collapse was not related to the (water main) construction.
DDC officials also participated on Tuesday in a meeting with the Office of Emergency Management, the Fire Department and the Department of Buildings to begin the task of figuring out what happened at 1915 Billingsley Terrace.
None of those agencies believed that the water main work contributed to the collapse, though DOB will ultimately determine the cause, Michaels said.
The buildings department has yet to issue any statements about what they believe caused the accident. On Wednesday DOB spokesperson Andrew Rudansky stated, The investigation is looking at all potential factors that might have contributed to the collapse.
In this case, that could include the stability of the ground under the column that collapsed, the condition of the column itself, and whether the crumbling facade and an ongoing effort to repair it contributed to the calamitous events of Monday.
Rudansky said DOB forensic engineers remained at the scene as the department continued interviewing all the relevant parties, including the owner, any contractors and engineers that worked on the building, and witnesses to the accident.
Richard Koenigsberg, an engineer hired by the buildings owner to bring its deteriorating facade up to code, inspected the site Monday and speculated that the water main work could be a factor given his assessment that the collapse appeared to have occurred at the first floor level.
It looks to be the problem would be at the first floor. I say that because of the way it collapsed, he told THE CITY Monday. It looks like there was a failure of the corner column at the first floor and then the rest came down.
The New York Times quoted an employee of a tax preparation office on the ground floor of the building who said that the collapse occurred moments after a major water leak erupted inside a first-floor market next door.
Asked whether the water main work could have been a factor in the collapse, Buildings Department spokesperson Andrew Rudansky responded, DOBs investigation into the cause of this collapse is ongoing.
Michaels said the water main work which was suspended Monday as the city works to examine and ultimately clear the site took place at the corner of Phelan Place and Billingsley Terrace. The collapse occurred at the corner of Phelan and West Burnside Avenue, just a few yards away.
The construction on that corner is part of a much bigger ongoing $68.8 million project to install new trunk lines that attach to the water mains that connect the area to the citys third water tunnel.
On Tuesday the FDNY announced a thorough search of the rubble caused by the collapse determined that no one was killed or seriously injured. Two people had minor injuries, they said.
Koenigsberg was hired by the buildings owners, 1915 Realty LLC, and inspected the facade of the 46-unit building in February 2020. He deemed it unsafe, discovering cracks in the bricks, fissures under window sills and a bowed parapet. The building was supposed to be repaired but the pandemic hit, and no work started until July of this year.
On Monday Koenigsberg said he does not believe the facade issues or ongoing repairs there caused the collapse, noting that work on the corner that collapsed had ended in late September.
Meanwhile, work continued Wednesday on shoring up the interior of the compromised structure and beginning the process of demolishing the partially collapsed floors now exposed to the elements.
The FDNY ordered tenants of the 47 apartments to vacate the premises, and Rudansky of DOB said the agency will begin escorting them back into their apartments to retrieve personal items once the demolition of the damaged apartments is complete.
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NYC penalizes building engineer in wake of Bronx apartment building collapse – Gothamist
New York Citys buildings commissioner says his agency is suspending an engineers authority to inspect building exteriors after a crucial error led to the partial collapse of an apartment complex in the Bronx's Morris Heights neighborhood on Monday.
The revelation comes after three witnesses and a government official briefed on the collapse told Gothamist that workers were jackhammering and removing bricks from a ground-floor support column at the seven-story building shortly before the disaster.
Department of Buildings Commissioner James Oddo said the engineer mistakenly deemed a load-bearing column decorative in plans filed with the agency in June.
The engineer failed to recognize a clearly structural column as such, and he can no longer be out there making assessments of the structural integrity of exterior walls of New Yorks buildings, Oddo said in a statement. We got lucky that no one was killed in this collapse; we will not take that risk again.
He said the agency was reviewing 368 other facade reports filed by the engineer in the most recent five-year inspection cycle.
The engineer, Richard Koenigsberg, said he did not know about the penalty until Gothamist contacted him while he was driving to the building site at 1915 Billingsley Terrace on Friday afternoon.
They havent notified me yet, he said, declining to comment further.
In a brief interview on Thursday, Eric Castillo, the owner of a bodega on the buildings ground floor, said the workers were hammering into the bricks just before the collapse.
They were removing the bricks, Castillo said in Spanish. We were scared, but we didnt know it was going to collapse.
Andre Soto, a superintendent at a nearby apartment complex, said he was also stunned to see workers hammering into the corner of the building, where a crack had been growing for years.
You cant do that, thats the corner, he said, adding that neighbors had long worried about the growing cracks, which appear in Google Maps images of the building.
Although the Monday afternoon disaster did not result in any deaths or serious injuries, it has displaced 174 people -- including 44 children -- from their homes, according to the Red Cross, which is assisting the tenants.
Construction crews at the site on Thursday were using a crane to demolish the remaining sections of crumbled apartments, with some of the tenants possessions still visible from the street. A childs pink jacket could be seen hanging from a door in one apartment..
Tenants were allowed to re-enter the building to retrieve some items on Thursday, but two told Gothamist they are too scared to return permanently.
My mom is still nervous and doesnt feel well after what happened, said Angel Soto, who lived in a third-floor unit with his mother and is not related to the super. She is very shaken up. I hear a lot of others are the same.
DOB spokesperson Ryan Degan told Gothamist the agency is inspecting all the buildings associated with David Kleiner, the Bronx buildings landlord, and his affiliates. Degan said the DOB had not yet identified any structural problems at those other sites.
Kleiner did not immediately respond to a phone call on Friday.
A spokesperson for Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark told Gothamist this week her office is also investigating the cause of the collapse.
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NYC penalizes building engineer in wake of Bronx apartment building collapse - Gothamist
MIT Loses Its Way in Failing to Combat Antisemitism on Campus – Daily Signal
As a 1981 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I have been appalled by the behavior of the president of the university, Sally Kornbluth, in the face of the antisemitism now infesting MIT, something that wasnt there when I was a student.
I echo all of the serious concerns raised by over 700 other MIT alumni who, on Dec. 11, sent a letter to Kornbluth and the MIT Corporation, the board that runs the university, over the continued failure of the MIT administration to address this dangerous plague.Kornbluth has lost the moral authority to continue as the president of MIT.
In fact, in a tone-deaf move, the members of that board issued a statement on Dec. 7 expressing their full support for Kornbluth, which, as the alumni letter correctly says, sends the wrong message to the MIT community, and especially its Jewish members. The statement says the board members utterly reject all forms of hate yet they refuse to take any action against those who have been spewing such hate on campus.
Of course, this tolerance for racist behavior is also no surprise to me, given MITs abandonment of basic principles of equal treatment of its students based on merit, regardless of their race or ethnicity, that started in the 1990s. That is when MIT started discriminating on the basis of skin color in its admissions policy. It even filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, aiming to justify such invidious discrimination, in the ultimately successful lawsuits filed by Asian American students against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
The scandal involves Kornbluths dismaying and highly criticized testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5, where she was accompanied by her woke apologists for students supporting a designated terrorist organization, Hamas, the plagiarist president of Harvard and the now resigned-before-being-fired president of the University of Pennsylvania.
At that hearing, Kornbluth implied, as the alumni letter says, that calls for genocide of Jews may not constitute bullying and harassment under MITs code of conduct, depending on context.
What context could possibly justify support for terrorist attacks and a call for genocide?!Protecting those who engage in such violent rhetoric, as my 700 fellow alumni have said, rather than the Jewish victims of such rhetoric, sends a strong signal to the rest of the world that violent words of hate are acceptable, at least as they relate to the Jewish people.
Somehow, I doubt that if rhetoric calling for the extermination of blacks had been spewed at these supposedly elite universities any of these college presidents would have waited a second to immediately condemn it or take disciplinary actions against the students spewing such venom.
That raises the more substantive problem. The problem isnt just Kornbluths regrettable and inexplicable testimony. It is also her refusal to take any action to suspend or expel the pro-Hamas, antisemitic students who have harassed, threatened, and intimidated Jewish students and faculty members, disrupted classes, protested in areas that the school has said explicitly are off-limits for protests, and blocked access to the main lobby of MIT in November.
As a letter from current Israeli and Jewish MIT students recounts, the administration took no steps against these students for any of these actions that not only threatened other students and faculty, but physically kept Jewish students out of buildings and prevented them from attending classes.
The worst actions of these thugs who masquerade as college students occurred on Nov. 9, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the day Jews all over Germany were attacked.
That is not just a coincidence since these ill-behaved(and thats putting it mildlystudents who support Hamas, in their calls for a violent uprising or Intifada and their justification for the terror attacks by Hamas, are echoing the same antisemitism and violence perpetrated by the Nazis.
What did Kornbluth and the MIT administration do about that? Instead of dispersing, arresting, and detaining these thugs, the administration warned Jewish students not to enter MITs main lobby to breach the blockade because of a risk to their physical safety. They were told, says the student complaint letter, to enter campus from back entrances and not stay in Hillel [a Jewish student facility] for fear of their physical safety.
MIT allowed these terrorism supporters to overrun the campus and refused to protect their victims.
And what was Kornbluths excuse?In a Nov. 9 letter to members of the MIT community, Kornbluth refused to take action because she had serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues. In other words, she wanted to make sure that Hamas supporters who were foreign students wouldnt have their visas canceled or get deported.
In fact, that is exactly what should be happening. Antisemites who support terrorism and genocide, and who themselves terrorize fellow students and MIT faculty, not only shouldnt be at the institute, if they are not U.S. citizens, they shouldnt be in the country.
Kornbluths badly misguided priorities are just another example of why she is unfit to be the president of what was once known as, but appears to be no longer, the premier science and engineering school in the country.
Kornbluths Nov. 9 letter says that she was heartened by an effort from faculty to develop a Day of Dialogue. There has already been a Day of Dialogue at MIT, a day (in fact, several days) of violent, racist, antisemitic dialogue. The institute doesnt need another day of that.
What MIT needs is a new president (and, frankly, a new board of trustees) who immediately and loudly condemns all calls for genocide. It needs a president and administration that expels all students who support terrorist organizations and have been involved in harassing, intimidating, and threatening other students.
MIT needs someone who makes MIT once again a safe haven for students who want to become this nations best scientists, engineers, and technologists, and an institution that implements zero tolerance for the kind of hoodlums who are roaming the campus today being protected by an administration that has lost its way.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailletters@DailySignal.com, and well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
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MIT Loses Its Way in Failing to Combat Antisemitism on Campus - Daily Signal
Engineering is viewed as a portal to lucrative employment: PanIIT chief – Moneycontrol
Debashish Bhattacharya, Chairman of PanIIT Alumni India
A significant number of students have opted for engineering as a profession not driven by a genuine interest in the field, but because they view it as a pathway to secure more lucrative employment, Debashish Bhattacharya, Chairman of PanIIT Alumni India, told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.
PanIIT Alumni India (Pan IIT) is an umbrella organisation representing alumni of all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
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Bhattacharya was speaking in the context of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) engineers opting for non-core fields. Most of the graduating engineers think that technology means computer science, in which AI is the most buzzed term, he said, adding that the resume of any engineer, irrespective of the graduating discipline, talks about his/her coding capabilities, altogether missing the point that business analytics also have a business aspect.
Edited excerpts:
With the recent trend of core engineers joining non-core fields, do you think the fear of talent scarcity in core engineering is justified?
Most students have taken engineering as a profession not from a love of the subject but as a ticket to moving into more remunerative employment. As we are moving from employment seekers to employment creators, this perception is slowly changing.
ALSO READ |IIT Placements: The dismal reality behind the dazzling, multi-crore-salary headlines
A context of engineering in the overall development of society will help. There is no scarcity of talent, but engineers have a skewed view of what technology is, only moving to that area (IT / ITeS / Digital Tech) at the cost of the core engineering.
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Please elaborate
Most graduating engineers think that technology means computer science, in which AI is the most buzzed term. If we see the resume of any engineer, irrespective of the graduating discipline, it talks about his/her coding capabilities, capabilities in analytics and AI and other related technologies.
It misses the point altogether that business analytics also has a business aspect, and for a core industry such as manufacturing, it is an understanding of engineering that forms an integral part of the insight that makes analytics truly impactful.
Non-core recruiters often pitch wide exposure, competitive pay and challenging opportunities as key benefits.
After some years of work, most engineering graduates cannot be differentiated from the technologists, similarly for people going into Finance and Marketing.
For those who have stayed in engineering (manufacturing, design, maintenance, technology or the process of manufacturing), they look distinctly different in look and feel from the others.
What is your advice for core engineering studentsCivil, Mechanical, Electrical etc.
Engineering is the science of application; going through our recent history, we can see technological breakthroughs starting from, for example, the development of steam engines and animal-less mobility. Slowly, the pace of breakthroughs picked pace. Having a course on the history of engineering will enable the students to see how important engineers are to society.
ALSO READ |IT vs Non-IT sector: How entry-level salaries have evolved over 5 years
Engineers translate research into practice and create an impact. And technology is the way of doing things. It has now been limited to only digital technology, which survives on the core, which is engineering. An understanding of the domain of engineering is critical for us to develop and consolidate our leadership position in engineering and technology.
Where are IITians mostly concentrated after graduation, in terms of industry? Has it changed in the last 5-10 years?
I see a large population getting into technology, another large population changes lines to finance and marketing. In my perception, I would say about 50 percent of the engineering graduates move into IT / ITeS / Tech; about 30 percent move into higher studies (MBA / MS / MTech / ME followed by PhD) and the changeover in discipline happens here. Of the remaining, 12 percent move into design, stores, etc.
The balance 8 percent moves to the shopfloor (production, maintenance).However, in the last 10 years, I am seeing a growth of interest in research and core engineering, and with the startup ecosystem starting to explode, the number of people wanting to get into core engineering is also growing.
With the recent disruption caused by the pandemic and then followed by the global slowdown, what are the key domains where India can lead globally?
Our tryst with COVID has resulted in rapid research in the Pharma industry; vaccine development time has crashed from an earlier estimate of 10 years to a few months now. This is an area where we have been excelling in recent years, and our leapfrogging onto digital technot having as much baggage as the developed nations.
ALSO READ |How much do IT employees earn within 5 years: An analysis
Likewise, India has a massive opportunity to take over the slack left by China. In addition, we are good at pure technology, so, tech leadership is one more area where we are going to consolidate.
What are the strategies needed for advancing this lead at the institution and industry levels?
The adversarial position that exists between academia, industry, administration etc. needs to be broken. This can be facilitated by collaborative working: research, internship, product development, joint incubation, and others. With collaboration, interactions will ease, minds will open, results will start emerging, and slowly this will pick up pace.
Therefore, this is the key strategy. And underneath, there are various aspects as stated above that will enable us to advance. The magic happens when all are brought together, and each of us should continue to push the boundaries persistently and create opportunities for collaboration.
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Engineering is viewed as a portal to lucrative employment: PanIIT chief - Moneycontrol
Cloud engineer gets 2 years for wiping ex-employers code repos – BleepingComputer
Miklos Daniel Brody, a cloud engineer, was sentenced to two years in prison and a restitution of $529,000 for wiping the code repositories of his former employer in retaliation for being fired by the company.
First Republic Bank was a commercial bank in the U.S., employing over seven thousand people and having an annual revenue of $6.75 billion. The bank closed on May 1, 2023, and was sold to JPMorgan Chase.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announcement, Brody was fired on March 11, 2020, from First Republic Bank (FRB) in San Francisco, where he worked as a cloud engineer.
Thecourt documentsstate that Brody's employment was terminated after he violated company policies by connecting a USB drive containing pornography to company computers.
Following his dismissal, Brody allegedly refused to return his work laptop and instead used his still-valid account to access the bank's computer network and cause damages estimated to be above $220,000
"Among other things, Brody deleted the bank's code repositories, ran a malicious script to delete logs, left taunts within the bank's code for former colleagues, and impersonated other bank employees by opening sessions in their names," describes theU.S. DOJ announcement.
"He also emailed himself proprietary bank code that he had worked on as an employee, which was valued at over $5,000."
Until his access to FRB's network was eventually terminated on March 12, 2020, Brody had performed the following actions:
After the incident, Brody falsely reported to the San Francisco Police Department that the FRB-issued laptop had been stolen from his car.
He continued to uphold this story when interviewed by United States Secret Service agents following his arrest in March 2021.
Eventually, in April 2023, Brody pleaded guilty to lying about the laptop and to two charges concerning violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
In addition to the two-year prison term and the payment of the restitution, Brody will serve three years of supervised release.
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Cloud engineer gets 2 years for wiping ex-employers code repos - BleepingComputer
Cloud engineer wreaks havoc on bank’s network after firing – The Register
An ex-First Republic Bank cloud engineer was sentenced to two years in prison for causing more than $220,000 in damage to his former employer's computer network after allegedly using his company-issued laptop to watch pornography.
Miklos Daniel Brody, 38, of San Francisco, pleaded guilty in April to two charges of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after obtaining information from and intentionally damaging a protected computer, and one charge of making false statements to a government agency.
In addition to spending two years behind bars, the judge ordered Brody to pay $529,266.37 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release after he's out of jail.
Brody worked as a cloud engineer for First Republic Bank until March 11, 2020, when he was fired for violating company policy. Earlier that month, the bank's infosec team received a notification that Brody had used one of his company-issued computers for non-work purposes, allegedly plugging multiple flash drives into the laptop, and downloading files, some of which contained pornography.
This prompted a meeting with the bank's VP of human resources, and during that conversation Brody allegedly claimed friends gave him the USB drives that he thought contained the movie "The Matrix," and all he did was unwittingly plug them into his computer.
The following day, March 11, 2020 Brody sent a rambling email to the VP, according to court documents [PDF]. Here's a snippet, as written:
Those excuses did not work, and later that day, Brody was fired during another meeting with bank executives and escorted off the premises. His bosses had asked him to bring his company-issued MacBook to the meeting, but he did not, so they told him to return it via mail.
But instead of doing that, Brody allegedly went home and that evening wreaked havoc on First Republic Bank's network in retaliation for getting canned, according to court documents. after more than two hours before his credentials were revoked.
"Once Brody accessed the FRB computer system through the VPN connection, he connected to FRB's protected Jumpboxhost server "Jumpbox." This enabled him to access the code repositories in the "Devbox" and "Github," the complaint alleges.
He allegedly deployed malware and left code-related "taunts" for his former co-workers, deleted code repositories and computer logs, "broke" Ansible Tower, locked users out of one of the bank's Amazon services, damaged "multiple areas" of the IT environment, and emailed himself proprietary bank code that he had worked on and was valued at more than $5,000.
While Brody logged in with his own ID and multi-factor password, he also impersonated a coworker, "senior cloud engineer A.A," who had received a promotion that, it's claimed, Brody "coveted." A.A confirmed that they had not accessed the system at that time.
According to the bank's estimates, the total damage exceeded $220,000.
After discovering the digital break-in, the bank's HD department called Body and demanded he surrender his computer. Brody didn't, and in an email to the bank said:
"You guys and frankly FRB left me in a financial hardship situation in the middle of the corona virus outbreak with this sudden termination and no severance package. In my opinion this is especially harsh and cruel given my ~2 years of service and hard work with good faith and excellent performance."
Over the next days and weeks, Brody allegedly came up with several more excuses as to why he couldn't return the bank-issued device, including filing a false police report with the San Francisco Police Department claiming the laptop had been stolen from his car while he was working out at the gym.
Brody then doubled down on that false allegation in statements he made to US Secret Service agents. He later admitted making false statements about the company-issued laptop in his guilty plea.
At his sentencing hearing, the judge determined the total cost to the bank's systems was least $220,621.22. It would have so much easier, and cheaper, to simply lock down the account as they left the building, but it seems some folks still haven't got that message.
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Cloud engineer wreaks havoc on bank's network after firing - The Register
MIT engineers design a robotic replica of the heart’s right chamber – MIT News
MIT engineers have developed a robotic replica of the hearts right ventricle, which mimics the beating and blood-pumping action of live hearts.
The robo-ventricle combines real heart tissue with synthetic, balloon-like artificial muscles that enable scientists to control the ventricles contractions while observing how its natural valves and other intricate structures function.
The artificial ventricle can be tuned to mimic healthy and diseased states. The team manipulated the model to simulate conditions of right ventricular dysfunction, including pulmonary hypertension and myocardial infarction. They also used the model to test cardiac devices. For instance, the team implanted a mechanical valve to repair a natural malfunctioning valve, then observed how the ventricles pumping changed in response.
They say the new robotic right ventricle, or RRV, can be used as a realistic platform to study right ventricle disorders and test devices and therapies aimed at treating those disorders.
The right ventricle is particularly susceptible to dysfunction in intensive care unit settings, especially in patients on mechanical ventilation, says Manisha Singh, a postdoc at MITs Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). The RRV simulator can be used in the future to study the effects of mechanical ventilation on the right ventricle and to develop strategies to prevent right heart failure in these vulnerable patients.
Singh and her colleagues report details of the new design in an open-access paper appearing today in Nature Cardiovascular Research. Her co-authors include Associate Professor Ellen Roche, who is a core member of IMES and the associate head for research in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT; along with Jean Bonnemain, Caglar Ozturk, Clara Park, Diego Quevedo-Moreno, Meagan Rowlett, and Yiling Fan of MIT; Brian Ayers of Massachusetts General Hospital; Christopher Nguyen of Cleveland Clinic; and Mossab Saeed of Boston Childrens Hospital.
A ballet of beats
The right ventricle is one of the hearts four chambers, along with the left ventricle and the left and right atria. Of the four chambers, the left ventricle is the heavy lifter, as its thick, cone-shaped musculature is built for pumping blood through the entire body. The right ventricle, Roche says, is a ballerina in comparison, as it handles a lighter though no-less-crucial load.
The right ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs, so it doesnt have to pump as hard, Roche notes. Its a thinner muscle, with more complex architecture and motion.
This anatomical complexity has made it difficult for clinicians to accurately observe and assess right ventricle function in patients with heart disease.
Conventional tools often fail to capture the intricate mechanics and dynamics of the right ventricle, leading to potential misdiagnoses and inadequate treatment strategies, Singh says.
To improve understanding of the lesser-known chamber and speed the development of cardiac devices to treat its dysfunction, the team designed a realistic, functional model of the right ventricle that both captures its anatomical intricacies and reproduces its pumping function.
The model includes real heart tissue, which the team chose to incorporate because it retains natural structures that are too complex to reproduce synthetically.
There are thin, tiny chordae and valve leaflets with different material properties that are all moving in concert with the ventricles muscle. Trying to cast or print these very delicate structures is quite challenging, Roche explains.
A hearts shelf-life
In the new study, the team reports explanting a pigs right ventricle, which they treated to carefully preserve its internal structures. They then fit a silicone wrapping around it, which acted as a soft, synthetic myocardium, or muscular lining. Within this lining, the team embedded several long, balloon-like tubes, which encircled the real heart tissue, in positions that the team determined through computational modeling to be optimal for reproducing the ventricles contractions. The researchers connected each tube to a control system, which they then set to inflate and deflate each tube at rates that mimicked the hearts real rhythm and motion.
To test its pumping ability, the team infused the model with a liquid similar in viscosity to blood. This particular liquid was also transparent, allowing the engineers to observe with an internal camera how internal valves and structures responded as the ventricle pumped liquid through.
They found that the artificial ventricles pumping power and the function of its internal structures were similar to what they previously observed in live, healthy animals, demonstrating that the model can realistically simulate the right ventricles action and anatomy. The researchers could also tune the frequency and power of the pumping tubes to mimic various cardiac conditions, such as irregular heartbeats, muscle weakening, and hypertension.
Were reanimating the heart, in some sense, and in a way that we can study and potentially treat its dysfunction, Roche says.
To show that the artificial ventricle can be used to test cardiac devices, the team surgically implanted ring-like medical devices of various sizes to repair the chambers tricuspid valve a leafy, one-way valve that lets blood into the right ventricle. When this valve is leaky, or physically compromised, it can cause right heart failure or atrial fibrillation, and leads to symptoms such as reduced exercise capacity, swelling of the legs and abdomen, and liver enlargement.
The researchers surgically manipulated the robo-ventricles valve to simulate this condition, then either replaced it by implanting a mechanical valve or repaired it using ring-like devices of different sizes. They observed which device improved the ventricles fluid flow as it continued to pump.
With its ability to accurately replicate tricuspid valve dysfunction, the RRV serves as an ideal training ground for surgeons and interventional cardiologists, Singh says. They can practice new surgical techniques for repairing or replacing the tricuspid valve on our model before performing them on actual patients.
Currently, the RRV can simulate realistic function over a few months. The team is working to extend that performance and enable the model to run continuously for longer stretches. They are also working with designers of implantable devices to test their prototypes on the artificial ventricle and possibly speed their path to patients. And looking far in the future, Roche plans to pair the RRV with a similar artificial, functional model of the left ventricle, which the group is currently fine-tuning.
We envision pairing this with the left ventricle to make a fully tunable, artificial heart, that could potentially function in people, Roche says. Were quite a while off, but thats the overarching vision.
This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation.
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MIT engineers design a robotic replica of the heart's right chamber - MIT News
SPH Engineering’s 4th International Drone Show Winners in Las Vegas – UASweekly.com – UASweekly.com
SPH Engineering proudly announced the exceptional results of the 4th International DroneShow Competition, showcasing an impressive array of talent and creativity from participantsacross 24 countries with 105 applications in 8 diverse categories the competitiondemonstrates the growth and innovation in the drone show industry. The results were unveiledat the Live Design International Trade Show (LDI), featuring a collaborative drone show withSky Elements Drones, that illuminated Las Vegas sky with 400 drones, letting the whole cityknow about 22 outstanding winners.
The results of the 4th International Drone Show Competition are exceptional, and we areproud, for the first time, to bridge the online competition to an offline celebration of the winners.Weve received an overwhelming number of amazing projects, signaling a flourishing industry.The drone show industry is evolving rapidly thanks to the increasing number of talentedproviders and animators contributing to the sectors growth. This year, the jury board faced anexceptional challenge due to the outstanding number of submissions. The caliber of entries ledto the expansion of recognition to include 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places across all categories. We arecommitted to continuous expansion of the Drone Show Competition with industry growth, andcant wait to start work on next years activities to surprise you even more with better projectsand wider activities, shared Alexander Levandovskiy, Head of Drone Show Technologiesat SPH Engineering.
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1st place Andrei Golenev from UAE with Kuwaits national day2nd place Drone Sky Shows from United States with Sky Symphony united Drone Sky showsAustralia, Japan , China, and Singapore3rd place Dutch Drone Shows from Netherlands with Drone Show Festival Gijon
To commemorate the winners achievements, the crowning event took place at the Las VegasConvention Center during the LDI 2023 Expo. SPH Engineering hosted an Award Ceremony, anexclusive gathering that recognized and honored the brilliance of the competition winners. Thecelebration reached new heights with a stunning Drone Show, masterfully orchestrated by SkyElements, where 400 drones painted the Vegas sky with symbols of victory and glory. Thecaptivating display even featured a trophy and drones elegantly held in the winners hand,creating a visual spectacle of triumph and pride. In addition to the mesmerizing drone show, aunique element was introduced a QR code embedded within the display, guiding viewers toan online page showcasing the winning projects.
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SPH Engineering's 4th International Drone Show Winners in Las Vegas - UASweekly.com - UASweekly.com