This explains a lot. The Dunning-Kruger effect describes the phenomenon whereby people who don’t know anything about something think they know more than those who do. The peculiar part is that those who lack the expertise are often far more confident and forceful when they discuss the issue than those who are knowledgeable. This is because those who…
Archives for 2007
An Oversimplification of the Subprime Morgage Crisis
I’m not an economist, but I read a lot. Here’s what happened: greed + stupidity. Greed on the part of the lenders, i.e. taking advantage of people who can’t read finance terms, and stupidity on the part of…people who can’t read finance terms. Here’s how it plays out: Greedy, immoral people loan stupid amounts of money to people…
A Three-Dimensional Approach to Organizing Your Feeds Using Google Reader
I’m constantly optimizing how I do things, and nowhere is this more important to me than with my feed reader. I happen to use (and highly recommend) Google Reader, and what follows is a multi-tiered approach to classifying and reading your feeds using an often ignored feature of the application. The Problem The fundamental problem is input management.…
Say Goodbye to U.S. Particle Physics
This is sickening. Fermilab, The United States’ main particle physics lab, is being hamstrung by congress’s latest omnibus bill. This is the same bill that approves billions for the war in Iraq but will result in hundreds at the lab being laid off permanently and countless others having to take extended time without work. The bill reduces Fermilab’s…
Port Mirroring on a Cisco 3550 Switch
Just for reference… Source port(s): Switch# config t Switch(config)# monitor session 1 source interface fastethernet 0/1 Switch(config)# monitor session 1 source interface fastethernet 0/2 Switch(config)# monitor session 1 source interface fastethernet 0/3 Switch(config)# monitor session 1 source interface fastethernet 0/4 (however many you want to monitor) Destination port: Switch(config)# monitor session 1 destination interface fastethernet 0/24 …then exit…
Is It Wrong to Have Children?
I’ve thought a lot about having children over the years. Not so much whether I wanted to have them, but why people in general want to have them. More specifically, I’ve been trying to determine whether or not it’s becoming immoral to do so. Everyone knows that once a good parent has a child they become rather selfless.…
Was the Last Time Your Last?
I used to be into BMX bikes. I was obsessed. Every little thing about it was interesting. The brakes, the handlebars, the different types of mags–all of it. One day–I don’t remember when–I got off my last BMX bike. I wish I would have realized it when it happened. Later in life I got into skateboarding. My favorite…
5 Things My Second Generation iPhone Better Do
As most already know, the second generation of the iPhone will be released next year — possibly around April. For most people the major feature, which has already been confirmed, will be the network speed improvement, i.e. the move from EDGE to 3G. While I think this will be a great improvement (assuming I don’t lose too much…
Apple vs. AT&T
As you may have heard, AT&T’s chief executive disclosed last week that the second version of the iPhone will be coming next year. And most importantly, he said it’ll be 3G. Think of what that does to sales of the current version of the device — and right before the most important sales period for consumer electronics. How…
How to Name a Suburb Development
We’ve all seen them — these contrived little mini-communities with perfect landscaping and uppity names. Here’s how to name one. Pick any two of the following things and put them together: Pine View Crest White Creek Manor Stone River Heights Brook Green Cedar Acres Meadow Haven Ridge So, we end up with: Cresthaven Pineridge Cedarheights Brookstone [ etc.,…
A Shining Example of Socialism, and Why America Can’t Compete
[ Norway: A Socialism Proof of Concept ] So here’s the question — and this isn’t rhetorical: what’s the problem with this system? What about this (other than high taxes) is wrong? And are the high taxes perhaps tolerable given the fact that they’re being used properly? I genuinely have some cognitive dissonance on this issue. Once you’ve…
How to Migrate Your Custom Domain’s Email to Google (And Maintain Your Addresses)
After over six (6) years of handling my domain’s email through self-built and administered Linux boxes, I just migrated all my email functionality over to Google. This has never been a solid option for me for one primary reason: the mixing of gmail.com with my own domain (danielmiessler.com). Forwarding and changing “reply to” settings has never been that…
Genetics and Prejudice
It seems things are getting more intense on the genetics front, specifically with the implications of being able to clearly identify precisely which groups we fall into. They’ve just found the genes that make white people white, for example, and that keep Asians from sweating as much as other groups. According to this New York Times article many…
New Project: PasswordStandards.com
I’ve just registered the domain of passwordstandards.com as part of a new project. The goal of the endeavor is to call attention to online services that don’t allow their users to select decently strong passwords. This is especially crucial for services that are financial in nature or maintain other types of sensitive information. Project Clarification First things first…
Leave an Outlet Free
I was put in an especially difficult business situation recently. My company, represented by myself, and another company (a massive superpower) were working the same project for the same client. The massive company had designed a network for this mutual client, and I was brought in to evaluate the security of said design. I found it unsatisfactory. They…
Stdout, Stderr, and Tee
My friend Jason just posted a really cool command line trick that lets you log stderr and stdout to different files while still having them visible in the console. ($command | tee /logs/stdout.txt) 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3 | tee /logs/stderr.txt Very cool.
New OS X “Trojan” In the Wild
A new “trojan” has been identified by Intego that enables phishing attacks to take place against Mac users. But before you get too worried, let’s take a look at how it works. Go to a malicious site. Get prompted to install software. Choose to install it. Put in your admin password when it asks for it. Get pwned.…
That Was Then, This Is Now
[ From a Forwarded Email ] School, 1967 vs. 2007 Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack. 1967 – Vice principal comes over to look at Jack’s shotgun. He goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack. 2007 – School goes into lock down, and…
What Does OS X Say When You Ask it to Pronounce Itself?
In the tech world it’s easy to find debates about how to pronounce things. One of those things is OS X. Most people either say “Oh Es Ex” or “Oh Es Ten“. So which is it? As it turns out, it’s not a matter of preference like most claim — that is unless you simply prefer to pronounce…
This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu
It irks me when names are mispronounced—especially when it’s easy to figure out the right way to say it. Some examples include “line-ix”, “oh-es-ex”, or “you-bun-too”. The mispronunciation of Ubuntu is becoming more common now. As it gets more popular more are getting the opportunity to mangle it. When I first saw the name I proceeded to mess…
How NOT To Do American National Security
I’ve been watching the Republican presidential debates with increasing unease. Why am I uneasy? Because these people are going to get us killed. It’s amazing how ignorant they are about security. All we hear from these fools is, “Grow the military.” “More weapons.” “Better weapons.” They want to let Russian and China and Iran know that we can’t…
What’s in a Memory?
I’ve been thinking about memories for as long as I can remember. What I’m most interested in is the mixing phenomenon: the functionality that makes you feel sad when you hear a song, or makes you remember your childhood when you smell a certain food. We know the basics. The song is associated with other memories that were…
How Planes Fly: What They Taught You In School Was Wrong
So we all know how planes fly, right? The top of the wing is rounded and the bottom of the wing is more straight. Air takes longer to travel over the top of the wing than the bottom, which results in more pressure on the bottom, hence the lift. Right? As it turns out, no. This is what…
Penetration Testing is Easy — Too Easy
Penetration testing falls into three basic categories based on the posture of the organization you’re up against. Reality obviously has shades, but here are the main groupings I always seem to run across during internal assessments. Trivial Joke Standard Mess Seriously Stout And here are some of the primary metrics: Asset Management: Do they know what all their…
Thank You, MS05-039
Ah, hacking the Gibson and listening to pre-reign-in-blood Slayer. Life is good. As a friend put it: “the simple pleasures.” I’d forgotten how fun this is — even though it’s not very hard. [ Oct 17, 2007 ]
The Conservative Christian View of the Jews: The Standard for Cognitive Dissonance
Conservative Christians in the U.S. have a serious bit of cognitive dissonance on their hands when it comes to the Jews. On one side they support them emphatically because they are supposedly God’s chosen people. Yet at the same time they’re compelled to believe every single one of them is going to hell because they don’t accept Jesus.…
Quote Drift
Quote Drift is the phenomenon where you have a quote you enjoy from a movie or T.V. show and you go around repeating it constantly for an extended period of time. But when you finally get around to watching the original piece again (an event you’re looking forward to) you discover that the original is quite different from…
Better Quicksearches with QuickSilver
Like many out there I’m rather obsessed with doing things the best way possible. Up until yesterday I was using browser-based quick searches to perform quick Internet searches. But there’s a better way. QuickSilver (sorry, OS X only) allows us to get the same quick search functionality, but from anywhere. So if you’re working on some code in…
Blogging: What’s the Difference Between Pingbacks and Trackbacks?
In the blogging world we often hear the words “pingback” and “trackback”. We vaguely understand them both to mean linking to someone else’s content, but what’s the difference between them? The short version is that trackbacks are the old, manual way of doing this while pingbacks are the more modern and automatic way. To use a trackback one…
Sam Harris Says We Shouldn’t Call Ourselves Atheists
Sam Harris has come out with an interesting essay on religion. This time, rather than simply going after religion in his characteristic way he has a message for non-believers. He says we should stop calling ourselves atheists altogether. My concern with the use of the term “atheism” is both philosophical and strategic. I’m speaking from a somewhat unusual…
Economics as the Solution to Cognitive Dissonance
Scott Adams just wrote an interesting piece about how he thinks economists have a unique way of seeing the world. First, he loosely defines an economist as someone who seeks explanations for why things happen. I like that, and it fits with my favorite economist’s view as well (Malcolm Gladwell).He then goes on to explain why economists are…
Made For AdSense (MFA)
MFA stands for Made For AdSense. It refers to a blog whose content is farmed out to non-professional writers (or scripts). The goal of these sites is not the creation of quality content, but rather the collection of revenue from AdSense or other advertising schemes. One attribute of these sites is often the creation and or organization of…
You Already Have Admin, Dumbass
There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” —President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 Nothing is more lame than trying to pull Windows hashes off a system in…
Curiosity is the Receptor, Understanding is the Stimuli
The more questions one has floating around in their mind at any given time, the more knowledge can be harvested from day to day experiences. Knowledge and understanding are being presented in every experience, but unless you have the appropriate curiosity associated with that presentation of information, nothing will be gained. People who lose their curiosity early in…
The Math and Philosophy Behind Tool’s Lateralus
This has been my favorite band since finding Undertow in the 90’s. This just makes me like them even more. If any of you know any more mathematical connections/relationships, let me know. I’d like to compile a reference.
The Real Reason Apple is So Popular Right Now
I was in CompUSA the the other day and noticed quite a few people in the Apple section. I realized that this was becoming increasingly common everywhere I went. Indeed, much Apple love these days. But why now? I mentioned to an employee in the PC section that Apple interest seemed to be getting stronger overall, and asked…
The Definition of Philosophy
Paul Graham just described his view of philosophy. He essentially said it’s the attempt to find increasingly general truths that have useful applications. I mostly agree with this, but I’d like to offer my own definition. I see philosophy as the attempt to reveal the nature of reality through thought, logic and discussion as opposed to through the…
Dumping Firefox. Going to Safari.
I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with Firefox over the months. It’s been getting to the point where I’ve been considering moving to Safari a few times, but I never had the eggs to pull it off. Well, Ken mentioned today that he’s going make the switch for a whole month. I told him I couldn’t do…
How I Learned Integrity: A “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” Lesson
The UF Tasing incident reminded me of something that happened to me in high school. When I was in 9th grade I was almost killed by 10 police officers. I was in the local newspaper, and barely escaped some serious court time. It was Saturday night at around 11pm or midnight. We were at the local Motel 6…
Web Design: The Most Important Usability Change You Haven’t Made Yet
I have a new design philosophy. It’s called 100% Easy to Read. Here are the highlights: Don’t tell us to adjust the font size Don’t tell us busy pages look better Don’t tell us scrolling is bad Don’t tell us text isn’t important (95% of “web design” is typography) Don’t tell us to get glasses (use a font-size…
Ron Paul’s Flaws as Seen by One Die-Hard Supporter
First off, let me just say that I am a serious Ron Paul supporter. I’ve blogged about him, spammed promoted him to friends and family, and even put a Ron Paul 2008 bumper sticker on my car (I don’t do bumper stickers). I’ve been resisting the call to write this piece for some time now, but I can…
Ron Paul is Seriously Flawed as a Candidate; We’re Just So in Love With Him That We’re Not Paying Attention
First off, let me just say that I am a serious Ron Paul supporter. I’ve blogged about him, spammed promoted him to friends and family, and even put a Ron Paul 2008 bumper sticker on my car (I don’t do bumper stickers). I’ve been resisting the call to write this piece for some time now, but I can…
How To Set Up Subversion
Setting up Subversion for revision control can be a bit frustrating. There are a million sites talking about how to do it, but many of them are contradictory and/or overly complex. Here’s a simple approach that works for me every time. Create Your Repository svnadmin create /Repository This utilizes the svnadmin that creates the main directory that your…
Why CISSPs DO Need to Be Decently Versed in Technology
I have been taking a bit of flak regarding my post comparing the CISSP to the GSEC. It’s been interpreted as negative towards the CISSP, which I suppose is fair to some degree. I find the prevailing argument put forth by Martin McKeay in support of the certification to be weak at best (essentially that GSEC is technical…
Scott Adams Says Fossil Evidence is Bullshit, But He Believes in Evolution
Scott Adams has posted another highly inflammatory post — this time claiming that popular evidence for evolution is bullshit. I’m no longer surprised by these pieces of his, but I have figured something out. He’s playing games with his readers by creating incendiary titles that don’t match his post content. His post is titled, “Fossils — Still Bullshit”.…
Should CISSP’s Know Basic Networking?
I say yes. Martin McKeay from Network Security Blog disagrees. He writes: I kind of like Daniel Miessler’s writing and think he has some good posts, but he totally misses the point of the CISSP when he complains about CISSPs who can’t program a home network. The CISSP isn’t aimed at testing someone’s ability to program their Linksys…
Google Phone vs. iPhone
Google is releasing a phone soon (possibly Q1 2008). It’s going to run on HTC hardware. It’s going to be sick. This we know. Google vs. Apple. I don’t see anyone else in this game right now. Everyone else will be trying to catch up via imitation. A few points/predictions: The overall web service integration (Google services, obviously)…
Ron Paul is for Real. Let’s Do This.
Many have been hearing a lot about Ron Paul lately — have heard some things they like — but aren’t sure exactly where he stands on the issues. Well, he’s actually a real candidate now. He’s not some random, fringe guy anymore. He’s winning straw polls, he’s making it onto mainstream media outlets, and he’s getting people involved.…
Philosophy Should Be a Core Part of Education at All Levels
Philosophy should be taught starting at a very early age, and should continue all the way through college. Nothing is more important than learning how to approach…thinking. Logic, reason, debate, and most importantly — resistance to manipulation. I think young students versed in philosophy and history have a solid foundation on which to take on additional education. Can…
How Would You Prove Evolution?
I need some help here. I have a friend with whom I’m debating evolution. He is a fundamentalist Christian (wait for it), but he has an uncharacteristic understanding of, and respect for, science. So he’s an extremely intelligent guy who doesn’t deny the validity of science. In fact, he actually accepts microevolution. He’s familiar with the various moth…