One of my favorite things to observe and study is how reality breaks models, and Gender Dysphoria is a strong example. Gender Dysphoria noun The distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth. Liberals and conservatives often have extreme views around gender identity that conform to their own rigid…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 93
This is episode No. 93 of Unsupervised Learning—a weekly show where I curate 3-5 hours of reading in infosec, technology, and humans into a 30 minute summary. The goal is to catch you up on current events, tell you about the best content from the week, and hopefully give you something to think about as well… This week’s…
How to Tell If You Should Hire an InfoSec Person With a Music Degree
It’s the only chart you’ll ever need for this. You’re welcome. The InfoSec industry is full of top talent that has no degree, art degrees, and STEM degrees. It’s also full of bottom talent in all those categories. You simply can’t tell how good someone will be at their job based on how much—or what type—of formal education…
A Rudimentary Threat Model Framework for Password vs. TouchID vs. FaceID
[ Full size image. ] There’s been a lot of discussion around Apple’s replacement of TouchID with FaceID on the new iPhone X. There’s conversation around the overall security of biometric authentication vs. as well as comparisons of TouchID security vs. that of FaceID. Unfortunately, the usual question being asked is something like: Which is more secure? But…
Whitelisting Cloudflare With IPTABLES
Many people use Cloudflare to protect their website but don’t restrict access to the web server to Cloudflare IPs. This means that whatever protection Cloudflare provides can easily be bypassed by hitting your IP directly. That’s why you should have a firewall. And if you’re cool, you’re probably using iptables. So here’s how to make sure only Cloudflare…
What If Attackers Pivot from Ransom to Extortion?
This is one of those ideas that I debate a bit before posting. Either 1) it’s seriously evil and I shouldn’t give anyone the idea, or 2) anyone wicked enough to do it will have already thought about it and/or is already doing it. I’m posting it here because I’m convinced it’s #2. So the idea is that…
My Thoughts on the iPhone X Announcement
Apple released its iPhone X (ten, not ex) today. I’m a complete Apple acolyte but can’t help but notice that all the main features (edge-to-edge display, wireless charging, and facial authentication) have already been out for months or years from other vendors. I get that most of those vendors do those things poorly, and Apple will finally do…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 92
This is episode No. 92 of Unsupervised Learning—a weekly show where I curate 3-5 hours of reading in infosec, technology, and humans into a 30 minute summary. The goal is to catch you up on current events, tell you about the best content from the week, and hopefully give you something to think about as well… This week’s…
I Finally Found a Book Summarization Service
For like the last 10 years I’ve been looking for a solid book summarization service. I occasionally see one and get excited about one, but upon inspection they usually turn out to have like eleven books, or the summaries are crap, or the interface is unusable. Well I think I might have just found an actual solution, and…
Facebook’s Unexpected Usefulness
I don’t use Facebook much in my personal life, but I do have a page for me as a business or brand or whatever. Over the last couple of years I’ve started to notice the high quality of ads on Facebook in the rare times that I do go on. So much so that I’ve actually bought several…
Authentication Types and Their Impact on Forced Device Access
We’re hearing a lot about what Apple is doing with the new iPhone, specifically around facial authentication replacing TouchID. I think there is some cool stuff around this, particularly how it seems that there are a lot more authentication points with a facial scan then with a fingerprint scan. But there’s one thing that I find interesting about…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 91
This is episode No. 91 of Unsupervised Learning—a weekly show where I curate 3-5 hours of reading in infosec, technology, and humans into a 30 minute summary. The goal is to catch you up on current events, tell you about the best content from the week, and hopefully give you something to think about as well… This week’s…
Facial Gestures and Eye Tracking as Computer Inputs
There’s a lot of talk of voice becoming a major computer interface in the coming years. I agree with this, and I talked about it in my book. But there are some major limitations to voice. It’s audible (that’s the whole point) so it’s not great for use in extremely quiet places like libraries, or extremely loud places…
Marketing Groups are Junking Up the Security News
It’s getting harder to tell the difference between marketing and security news. I was alerted to this problem (at a conscious level) when a friend of mine pinged me about the recent study on a potential catastrophic failure of infrastructure in the U.S. It was right before Blackhat USA, and it was produced by a company with something…
Supporting the Site Through Mentorship
I’ve decided to get a bit more serious about enabling others to help support my work. I’m spending enough time on content creation, and enough people seem to enjoy the output, that I think it’s worth trying to recoup costs (first) and maybe even make something (later) through the generosity of readers/listeners. To that end I’ve created the…
My Problem With Buddhism
[ Sep 5, 2017 — A couple of people have reached out to correct me about this post. Their main point seems to be that Buddhism has moved on from only focusing internally, and that caring about the world is a big part of the point now. I think I was wrong to use the word Buddhism in…
$337 Out of Pocket to See a Doctor in Las Vegas
I recently spent two weeks in London followed by a week in Las Vegas. As I was leaving London I could tell I was getting something like a sinus infection, which I used to get fairly often. I’ve solved that problem, but that’s story for another time. Anyway, being someone who just goes to clinics every year or…
Reading is Life
I think I bring this up every year or so, but the point is becoming more acute for me. Reading is life. I’m starting to believe that the most brilliant people in the world were, before and above all else, obsessed readers. Christopher Hitchens basically read and wrote constantly, and I’m now understanding why. When I am reading…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 90
This is episode No. 90 of Unsupervised Learning—a weekly show where I curate 3-5 hours of reading in infosec, technology, and humans into a 30 minute summary. The goal is to catch you up on current events, tell you about the best content from the week, and hopefully give you something to think about as well… This week’s…
The False Dichotomy of Conflicting Ideas
The struggle for ideological simplicity forces a polarization in our public dialog that doesn’t match reality. This is happening constantly, all around us, on multiple topics. Essentially, when someone has an opinion and they are presented with an alternative view, the conclusion they draw is that either they’re right, or I’m right, and since I’m right they must…
If I Were Putin I’d Try to Start a Race War in the U.S.
This is probably nothing, but if I were Putin, and I was in charge of a massive disinformation capability, I would study and instigate racial tension in the U.S. Like I said, probably nothing. No, but hear me out. Or not. They already have operatives here. Tensions are already extremely high for actual racial tension reasons. When you…
Trump, Adams, and the Unnecessary Actor
I just finished listening to Sam Harris and Scott Adams debate politics on Sam’s podcast. The topic was Adams’ support of Trump, which has basically been unwavering since around last August when he started predicting that he’d win the election. His argument is that Trump is a master persuader, and that everything he’s doing is calculated and thought…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 89
This is episode No. 89 of Unsupervised Learning—a weekly show where I curate 3-5 hours of reading in infosec, technology, and humans into a 30 minute summary. The goal is to catch you up on current events, tell you about the best content from the week, and hopefully give you something to think about as well… This week’s…
The Enemy is Amathia
Evidently, Socrates thought the greatest potential for evil came from the ignorance of people. He had a name for it: Amathia. A great article on the topic put the best definition as: Amathia /’em AUTH ee uh’/ noun ‘Disknowledge’ instilled into the soul by bad upbringing and bad education, consisting in false values and notions and beliefs. I…
The Bay Area is Separating into Red and Green Zones
The more I pay attention in the Bay Area the more I’m noticing it’s a place of extreme poverty. Much of the East Bay is extremely poor. The South Bay is largely poor. The North Bay quite poor (on the east side). Altogether the Bay Area is around 7 million people, and within these vast areas of poverty…
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