I think the bottom is starting to rot out of the education racket. Elite education today is essentially two different things: The prestige of having gotten into that school, and The education you receive there. These two things are separating from each other, and I think that separation is about to accelerate. Better education elsewhere (or at least…
The Need for Post-Capitalism
When I saw Yuval Harari live with Sam Harris in San Francisco, I heard a lot of interesting things. But the most interesting thing I heard that night was from Harari, when he said something like: Forms of government have periods where they’re best suited, based on the evolution of the people at that moment. And as the…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 168 (Member Edition)
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My RSA 2019 Summary
RSA was good this year, but I didn’t really notice any major new trends. Nothing on the scale of—say—AI, or blockchain. But there were some disruptions that looked quite interesting. Primary themes The overall themes I saw this year were largely the same as last year, with a few notable changes. AI talk has become a lot more…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 167
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Privacy Implications of 5G
Most people have heard that 5G is forthcoming, but few are versed on the key advantages over 4G LTE. Here’s a primer. Speed: Becasue it’ll work at much higher frequencies (many proposals use ranges over 6Ghz) you can move more data per unit of time. More Call Capacity: there will be less congestion and service degradation in busy…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 166 (Member Edition)
This is a Member-only episode. Members get the newsletter every week, and have access to the Member Portal with all existing Member content. Non-members get every other episode. Sign in or… Become a member and get immediate access
Unsupervised Learning: No. 165
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Rise of the Corporate Technology Ecosystem (CTE)
I love thinking about how technological advancement will intersect with our desires as humans. My book on this topic is called The Real Internet of Things. We have all these gadgets, technologies, and services, but towards what goal are they moving us? What’s the endgame? We see the features—like email and personal devices and various kinds of applications—but…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 164
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
AI-powered Visual Sensors Will be Wielded By Digital Assistants to Build us Custom UIs
Benedict Evans is one of my favorite tech analysts. His content is usually great, I often agree with it, and his presentation style is quite unique. His annual presentation on technology trends should not be missed. I had a chat with him in person once, and it was dissapointing to show him my long-term thoughts on where technology…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 163
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…
My Takeaways from ENIGMA 2019
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…
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…
The Effect of Google’s Late 2018 SEO Algorithm Changes on Multi-Discipline Sites
Starting around October 1st I saw something catastrophic happen to my incoming traffic from Google. Compared to the beginning of the year I have gone from around 10,000 pageviews a day to around 5,000—a 50% loss in traffic. Once I noticed (which took a while), I started reading a ton of articles on all the various potential causes.…
The Difference Between Decompilers, Disassemblers, Debuggers, and Hex Editors
For people looking to get into reverse engineering, the barrier to entry can be fairly steep—starting with the terminology. Here are the differences between a few key tools you will encounter on the path. Decompilers reverse binaries into higher-level languages, like C++. Disassemblers reverse binaries into assembler language. Debuggers allow you to view and change the state of…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 157
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…
The Unsupervised Learning Gift List
I often find myself in the unpleasant position of wishing I could send people a gift, but not knowing what to get them. What I like to get people are smallish things that produce absolute delight, like the perfect knife, whiskey glass, or end-table book. So what I’m going to do here is capture my list of items…
Sensors + Algorithms Are the New Camera
Don’t call them cameras or microphones anymore. Those are human-centric names, and humans are about to be the Neandertals of detection. I first heard this idea regarding cameras from Benedict Evans. What we’re moving towards is a world where sensors are everywhere—and of multiple types: Visible light Non-visible light Radio waves Sound Vibration Chemicals Radioactivity Air pressure Etc,…
The Difference Between a Penetration Test and a Red Team Engagement
One of the most frustrating things to me as a security person is having sales and marketing types confuse the different types of security assessment. Similarities And among those types of assessment, the pentest and red team are two of the most commonly mangled. First, let’s start with similarities. They’re both types of security assessment, meaning their goal…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 156 (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
Medium Just Became an Even Worse Option for Blogging
Medium has quietly been making a series of changes that are all bad news for writers who still publish articles on their platform.I discovered the most recent—and most significant—change when I emailed the Medium support a few days ago asking to update the canonical links of the e-Residency article that I had just re-written and updated on nomadgate.com.It’s…
Do Great Minds Come from Lives of Comfort?
I’m not sure where all I am getting this from, but I know it’s multiple angles. I just got done watching a documentary on Mr. Rogers, and something struck me about his background: he grew up with a rich and successful family. Bertrand Russell then came to mind. He was from a rich family as well, and he…
The Strange Game of Shared, For-profit Cybersecurity Risk Scores
Brian Krebs ran a story recently about how FICO has a new service for rating the Cybersecurity risk level of various companies. Problem is, in one of their marketing communications about the new offering, they leaked the actual report data for a little company called ExxonMobil. I find this space both strange and fascinating. On one hand I…
The Future of Config-file-based IT Infrastructure
To me the main feature is that they’re the beginning of config-file-based infrastructure. Imagine a language that can translate a business requirement into a full tech stack. That’s where we’re heading.— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler) December 15, 2018 I saw this tweet by Dan Kaminski recently, and gave a quick response as one does on Twitter. But I think…
Remote Doctor Visits Are Spectacular
I just recently did my first remote doctor visit, and it was life-changing. I’m generally not the type who goes to the doctor. I sometimes go for years without seeing one, and I don’t even have a primary care physician. I haven’t for decades. Anyway. I was in Vegas for conferences a couple of years back and needed…
How to Survive if You Wake Up in the Past
My friends and I have always had a fun game we play, where we imagine what we’d do if we were thrust backward in time. So you’re like dropped in Rome at 1 BC, or Britain in 1300. What would you do? We’re ignoring language, but that’s important too of course. You know all these technologies are possible,…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 155
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…
Why I Believe Postmodernism is Causing Depression
There’s a lot of confusion about the term Postmodernism. To people on the far left, it’s their shadow religion—basically a healthy disregard for any value system that has exerted influence (and caused suffering) in the last few thousand years. To the far right, it’s a rejection of all that is good in the world—like tradition, family, piety, and…
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