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Daily Coping Tip

Buy an extra item and donate it to a local food bank

I also have a thread at SQLServerCentral dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate.

For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar. My items will be on my blog, feel free to share yours.

No-so-smart Contracts

Perhaps the best quote I've seen in a long time: "These kinds of attacks are common in smart contracts because many developers do not put in the legwork to define security properties for their code..." I'm sure that this would apply to many kinds of software, not just smart contracts.

This is from an article on a hacker that stole money by altering a smart contract. In this case, tokens used to replace parts of the contract overwrote other tokens, which allowed a smart hacker to change prices and make more money. Or steal it, with a contract change, I don't know that theft is actually the correct term.

The wider issue here is poor developer practices, and really, not listening to the results of security audits and making changes in code. Maybe they listened to the audits and hadn't completed the work. There were some critical issues, and some remediation, but not enough in this case.

Building security into software is hard. The threat landscape changes and hackers are incredibly creative. It is hard for developers to keep up, but it is important, especially where there are finances involved. There are tools to perform security assessments and automated pen-testing. Everyone ought to use these, and more importantly, management should take security more seriously. If they don't, they deserve some sort of penalty.

The problem for many of us is that we can raise issues, but we are powerless to do anything. We can change jobs, but that's not practical all the time. We can continue to raise awareness, but that can be detrimental to our careers.

Mostly what we get to do is worry. We worry that the company will get penalized, which can affect our employment. We can worry that management will blame us for an issue they didn't allow us to fix or give us the tools to detect. We can also worry management will blame us for not knowing about an issue.

I believe we ought to have more focus on security, but I'm not sure what that means or how to achieve this in a practical sense. I don't even know how we're set up regulations and penalties for such a complex situation.

Mostly I'm just sad for the state of software security.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
  Featured Contents
Stairway to AlwaysOn

Stairway to AlwaysOn Level 8: Segregate Mirror Traffic in AlwaysOn

Perry Whittle from SQLServerCentral.com

this article details how to segregate the mirror traffic in an AlwaysOn group configuration

External Article

BETWEEN the two of us

Additional Articles from SimpleTalk

BETWEEN can be used in a SQL WHERE clause to filter on a range. Joe Celko explains the history of BETWEEN and also could be implemented.

External Article

DBAs at work #2: The airline DBA

Additional Articles from Redgate

How different is it working as a DBA at an airline? Find out how your peers work in this series: DBAs at work. This episode features Deborah Thompson, Database Administrator at WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline.

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - How Long has Your SQL Server Been Online

gbargsley from GarryBargsley

This week’s blog post will help you check your SQL Servers up-time. There are numerous reasons I can think of that you would want to know how long your...

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - The less you hear from or about the DBAs the better they are doing their job.

Kenneth.Fisher from SQLStudies

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is that DBAs are best when they are invisible. Now, this is also true ... Continue reading

 

  Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

New PoSh variables

I open a brand new PowerShell command shell with Windows 10 defaults and type this:
write-host "Hello, $NewVar World"
What is returned?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

  Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Amazon Aurora

What type of database is AWS' Amazon Aurora?

Answer: A MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible database service

Explanation: Aurora is built as a MySQL and PostgreSQL database service. Ref: Amazon Aurora - https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Development
Job is empty SQL - Hi guys,   I really do not understand why I still receive empty emails. Please check my code:   EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @profile_name = '#####' , @recipients = 'a###' , @subject = 'queryresultset' , @body= 'test tes tesl' , @execute_query_database = 'dbo.rates' The mail I get is:      
SQL Server 2016 - Administration
External process holding the log and SQL give 'Unable to cycle error log'... - Hello We have a servers with the following issue Msg 17049, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_cycle_errorlog, Line 9 Unable to cycle error log file from 'D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG.98' to 'D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG.99' due to OS error '5(Access is denied.)'. A process outside of SQL Server may be preventing SQL Server from reading […]
Development - SQL Server 2014
T SQL to build complicated time series data - I have a database full of financial time series data like Symbol, Date, Price, Volume AAPL, 05/25/2020,150.10, 546285467 AAPL, 05/26/2020,153.34, 465055454 MSFT, 05/25/2020,100.10, 746285467 MSFT, 05/26/2020,103.34, 865055454 GOLD, 05/25/2020,2000.10, 450285467 GOLD 05/26/2020,20010.50, 350055454 etc Many symbols. Lets say I had an INPUT BOX on a client asp.net form that said this. ((Symbol1 - Symbol2)/1000)*Symbol3 The […]
SQL 2012 - General
Azure SQL backup policy strategies and best practices? - What are best practices for setting up long term retention for an Azure SQL DB? Are there any common strategies to keep the costs low? How should one go about implementing it for keeping 10 year backups. When I select weekly snapshots for 10 years, the cost is going through the roof (3.5x the cost […]
SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL
Problem understanding SUM function with GROUP BY - I have code I'm trying to write to sum the time in decimal for each user_name: SELECT [user_name], dbo.fnGetDecimalTime([event_sec]) as 'Decimal_Time', SUM(dbo.fnGetDecimalTime([event_sec])) as 'Decimal_Time_SUM' FROM [Charter].[dbo].[ConvoHrs] group by [user_name], [event_sec] order by [user_name], [event_sec] desc But my data comes back looking like this: user_name Decimal_Time Decimal_Time_SUM (b) Alexander Pierson     2.00 2.00 (b) Alexander Pierson  […]
Problem understanding SUM function with GROUP BY - I have code I'm trying to write to sum the time in decimal for each user_name: SELECT [user_name], dbo.fnGetDecimalTime([event_sec]) as 'Decimal_Time', SUM(dbo.fnGetDecimalTime([event_sec])) as 'Decimal_Time_SUM' FROM [Charter].[dbo].[ConvoHrs] group by [user_name], [event_sec] order by [user_name], [event_sec] desc But my data comes back looking like this:
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
SQL Agent step won't write to SQL log directory - I have a SQL 2019 (RTM-CU14) installation with an Agent job which constantly fails with the error: Unable to open Step output file. The step failed. The "Output file" value attempts to write to the SQL error log directory using agent tokens - although I've tried with a fully specified filename as well. Using C:\Temp […]
SQL Server 2019 - Development
Split a given number in Percentages and round to integer - Hi ,I would like to split a given number into 3 numbers based on a percentage(98.6% , 1.2%  and 0.2%) and round it to an integer value and the sum of 3 numbers should equal to the given number For example a given number is 300 or 120, for the given number 300,  I would […]
PowerShell Script output - I have a power shell sql script that works as I desire except the top line of the excel (csv file it creates) is not desired. The csv file created is used as a source file for another system - I need to eliminate the Power Shell Dialogue in first row Here's the script: # […]
Issue with Case statement - i have a table where i have mix and match records under statement column. i am trying to filter based on case statement.. but unavailable to figure out how to keep declare logic when condition is met. IINSERT INTO [dbo].[At] [statement]) Select CASE WHEN Statement like '%from%' AND Statement like '%Where%' AND Statement not like […]
Extracting out elements from XML String based on condition in tag - Hi there I am trying to the Channel list from a particular XML file  in lines 868 - 872 (Instrumental Channel List) Now i tried the following DECLARE @DataSheetXML XML -- Extract Datasheet, so that Probe Definition and Channel List can be extractted SELECT @DataSheetXML = DataSheetXML from [#DeviceMasterList] SELECT pd.a.value('let $a := . return […]
General Cloud Computing Questions
Recommended course with lab for Kubernetes CKA cert - Im a DevOps and cloud engineer and want to learn kubernetes because most opportunities that I come across are requiring experience with it. I know linux and have a solid and useful understanding of containers. Moreover, I have experience with Docker, bash, Python and Powershell. That said, I'm more of a hands on learner but […]
Reporting Services
Remove Extra Print Dialog Box 2016? - In SSRS 2016, microsoft added a "feature"  where a dialog creates a printer friendly PDF version of a report; which then sends that version to your normal windows printer.. and on top of that if you have a PDF reader installed it also pops up another window for you to preview it.. I'm not sure […]
Dynamic Parameter-Defaultvalues not working when using custom assemblys - Hi Everyone, My Reports are using Assemblies, for translation and for some Navigation-tasks. I’ve declared them in ‘References’ and create instances of them via Code. For that I’m using a Parameter @Languagecode to set the Target-Language. That all works perfectly, and here is my Code for that: Public Translation As Resources.ResourceProvider Protected Overrides Sub OnInit() […]
Powershell
List file shares from TAR file - How can I list just the directories from a TAR file, then extract just 1 file share from that TAR file. Thanks.
 

 

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