This week we chat with Patricia Aas about secure coding practices, using computers to count votes in elections and the two hardest problems in software development.

Patricia and Phil have both been at NDC TechTown all week where Patricia gave a keynote, a two-day class, a talk and hosted a meet-up - but still found time to chat with us.

We discuss the relationship between secure code and just plain good code (spoiler: they're essentially the same), and how much rigour went into computerising the Norwegian election vote counting system (spoiler: none). We also discuss whether it is possible to fully computerise national voting systems reliably (spoiler: you'll just have to listen).

Links:

• Patricia's consulting company- Hire her!
• Patricia's keynote, "Elections: Trust and Critical Infrastructure"- video
• Patricia's "Anatomy of an Exploit" talk- slides
• NDC TechTown
• C++ on Sea opens, with Hana Dusíková as first keynote speaker
• C++ on Sea, Walter E. Brown as second keynote speaker