I have two favorite conferences of the year: AppSec Cali ENIGMA ENIGMA 2019 ended today, and I wanted to do a quick capture on what I saw and found interesting there. The conference For me conferences are all about the combination of ideas, people, and conversation, and that’s what both of these do really well. First a bit…
Archives for January 2019
Unsupervised Learning: No. 162 (Member Edition)
This is a member-only even episode. Members get the newsletter every week, as well as access to all previous episodes, while free subscribers only get odd episodes every other week. Become a member to get access immediately
Machine Learning’s Effect On Humanity Will Be Magnifying Our Successes and Failures
AI—and specifically machine learning—are going to empower humans the way a futuristic exoskeleton would empower a 4-year-old. When they want something from the kitchen cabinet—they’re going to get it. And if they don’t want to brush their teeth, it’s not going to happen. And in the process of expressing these concerns, the kitchen, bathroom, and perhaps the entire…
DNS Servers That Offer Privacy and Filtering
If you’re a programmer, a systems administrator, or really any type of IT worker, you probably have your favorite go-to IP addresses for troubleshooting. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably been using the same ones for years. Such IPs can be used for: Testing ping connectivity Checking DNS resolution using dig or nslookup Updating a system’s permanent…
We’re Heading for Something Ugly in 2020
I’ve had a sense of foreboding for the last month or so about the mental health of the United States. And sure—the Trump situation is raising pulses, but it’s more than that. It’s a building tension that I feel coming from everyone—especially online—from being forced by current events into extreme versions of ourselves. It’s like the country is…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 161
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show where I spend 5-20 hours finding the most interesting stories in security, technology, and humans, which I then curate into a 30-minute podcast & companion newsletter. The goal is to catch you up on current events, show you the best content from around the web, and hopefully give you something to think…
Those Bashing Smart Locks Have Forgotten How Easy it is to Pick Regular Ones
There’s currently a major backlash in the InfoSec community against so-called “smart” locks. And it’s not just by people who naturally overreact to change, or from people outside of InfoSec: there are plenty of smart people in our field—whom I respect greatly—that are making loud noises against this technology. So I want to make it absolutely clear that…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 160 (Member Edition)
This is a member-only even episode. Members get the newsletter every week, as well as access to all previous episodes, while free subscribers only get odd episodes every other week. Become a member to get access immediately
Why I Think the NSA is Releasing a Free Reverse Engineering Tool This Year at RSA
The NSA is releasing a free reverse engineering tool this year at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. A lot of people are asking about the motive of the NSA releasing a free reverse engineering tool at RSA this year.Theories include: it’s a backdoor, it’s a tracking mechanism, etc.My opinion? Recruiting.It’s a PR move to attract talent…
A Remarkably Clear Overview of The Border Security Situation
I recently stumbled onto a podcast with Scott Adams about border security, and what I learned from it not only surprised me, but also Scott Adams as the host. I used to be a huge Scott Adams fan, but that went away when he revealed himself to be one who places his tax rate above the welfare of…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 159
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show where I spend 5-20 hours finding the most interesting stories in security, technology, and humans, which I then curate into a 30-minute podcast & companion newsletter. The goal is to catch you up on current events, show you the best content from around the web, and hopefully give you something to think…
How to Monitor a Website’s Uptime for $0.75/month on Amazon
If you’re like me, you care if your website goes down. There have been services available for years that monitor your site and let you know if it goes down. The one I’ve been using for over a decade is Pingdom, which is great. It gives you tons of advanced options like searching for text within probe responses,…
How Nassim Taleb is Both Right and Wrong About IQ
Nassim Taleb is making loud noises about how IQ is basically a big scam, and how it doesn’t mean anything. Like usual, he’s onto something, but also like usual his passion and snark is causing him to miss something major. For the record, I think Taleb is an absolute genius. I’ve read all of his books, and some…
How to Ctrl-Alt-Delete in VMware
Few things are more annoying than being stuck inside a bad UI, and withinin virtualization environments is a common place for that to happen. Here’s how to do the three-finger-salute inside VMware. Regular: Ctrl+Alt+Del Full-sized Mac keyboard: FwdDel+Ctrl+Option (Delete below Help key) Abridged Mac Keyboard, Fn+Ctrl+Option+Delete
Site Traffic Metrics for 2018
So the biggest story for my site’s traffic in 2018 is the Google Algorithm Changes that I wrote about here. It was a bloodbath, basically. I am currently at 50% of my traffic as compared to the beginning of 2018. But I’m hoping that’ll re-adjust as Google tries to figure out who has authority on various topics and…
The Difference Between Security and Privacy
Short answer: it’s a trick question. Privacy is part of security. But just because one is part of the other doesn’t mean they are the same. There’s a nuance there that’s important. The word “security” is shorthand for “information security” or “cybersecurity” in this parlance. Information Security is about controlling access to information. Privacy is about making sure…
It Appears China is Building a Massive Espionage Database on America
I’ve mentioned this in numerous places for the last few years, so I decided it was time to finally put it into a formal piece. It seems obvious at this point that China is building a massive database of information on American individuals and companies, which they can then use for various purposes—including espionage, intellectual property theft, extortion,…
The Differences and Similarities Between IoT and ICS Security
I saw a tweet recently by Robert M. Lee—a highly respected ICS Security professional in the industry. When folks put “ICS” in the category of “IOT” it conflates the systems, purpose, value, and risks of separate communities. There’s important differences between a robot arm in a car manufacturing plant and your internet connected doll even if both have…
Things I Like to Do In January
January always feels fresh to me—a chance to be better. But at the same time, it’s really just a day after the end of December. This is why I don’t do New Year Resolutions. Basically, if you wanted to do that thing bad enough, you would have done it already. But that’s for things that you can do…
The Polarization of the Bay Area’s Quality of Life
I’m a life-long Bay Area resident—born and raised—and I’m starting to see transformations in various communities that are setting off my dystopian spidey senses. Basically, I’m seeing stark and disturbing differences between communities that are just a few miles from each other. I’ll take the Newark / Fremont area as an example, since I’m familiar with it, but…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 158 (Member Edition)
This is a member-only even episode. Members get the newsletter every week, as well as access to all previous episodes, while free subscribers only get odd episodes every other week. Become a member to get access immediately
Red Teaming is Vaccination for the Enterprise
I was doing the Twitter thing recently, and someone was talking about red teaming and I had an epiphany: Vaccination and Red Teaming are extremely similar. Or at least they should be. Here are some similarities: The main purpose is to strengthen the defenses It’s done by exposing defenses to the bad stuff Its effect weakens over time,…
Inflammation in the Body Keeps Being Tied to Depression
If a rat is experimentally injected with infectious bacteria, it behaves a bit like I did after the dentist. It withdraws from social contact with other animals; it doesn’t move so much; its sleeping and eating cycles are disturbed. In short, infection reliably causes a syndrome in animals — called sickness behavior — that is roughly recognizable as akin to the human…