Month: March 2013

  • Consolidating Rants

    It’s no secret that many things set me off in society and the industry. This results in my constantly taking notes about possible articles, rants, and rebuttals. I’ve been doing it for a long time. Time permitting, and more importantly mood depending, I stop everything and focus on one. It is the only way one…

  • A Holdout for Sanity

    Last week, I blogged about the Adria Richards saga, and then linked it into similar activities from the ADA Initiative (AI). Days after, people are still divided on who was right and who reacted poorly. One thing almost everyone agrees on is that no one came out a winner. In the wake of both incidents,…

  • All This Over a Dongle?!

    As usual, someone is wrong on the Internet, and I just can’t help myself. Many will already be familiar with the incident at PyCon this week. During a talk, two men were talking to themselves, and a woman overheard it. She took offense to what they said, got the attention of convention staff, and had…

  • The Lesser of Two Weevs

    Yesterday, Andrew Auernheimer (aka Weev), was sentenced for his 2012-08-16 indictment on one count of “fraud and related activity in connection with computers” (18 U.S.C. § 1030) and one count of “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud” (18 U.S.C. § 371). This was the result of Auernheimer’s activities in 2010, where he manipulated a…

  • Why Panels Don’t Help InfoSec That Much

    The other day, a brief Twitter rant, followed by a few blog replies led to “that would be a great panel”. I don’t disagree, it would be a fun panel if I was on it, or could participate from the crowd. I’ve been on my share of panels in the past, one about Anonymous, a…

  • Rebuttal: Cyberwar, Part 73

    [This was originally posted on attrition.org.] This is a rebuttal piece to a series of Tweets by Dan Holden on 2013-03-11 (displayed below). Please note, that @ErrataRob and @DesmondHolden both provided follow-up, which are included below my rebuttal. If you read mine, read theirs. If that isn’t acceptable, navigate away now. I’ve been pretty vocal about my…

  • A fascinatingly disturbing thought…

    Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson offers us a “fascinatingly disturbing thought”: Not only does he remind us that our perception of intelligence is laughably flawed, but he reminds us that any superior race out there (e.g. the kind that could achieve interstellar travel) would likely look at us as if we were chimps. Like we look…

  • You posted the business hours, not me…

    Safeway (@safeway), my local grocery store. A few blocks from home, where I go several times a week. Also the home of my pharmacy, where I spend an inordinate amount of money, including almost $1100.00 yesterday. That is not a typo. Tonight, I get there at 11:47 and find the door closed, even though they…

  • Twitter, the Ultimate Better Business Bureau

    Over the last year, I have learned that Twitter has become the ultimate medium for getting a company’s attention. When you complain about a company and include their @ name, the potential for a lot of people to see it is there. As such, companies have quickly figured out to be very responsive, and very…

  • Invariably, All Good Software Shall Pass

    Countless times, we see software that has promise go away. We get hooked on a new app or new software package, it gets better, we sing its praise. Ultimately, and invariably, at some point the developers take a sharp turn away from sanity. I haven’t upgraded to the latest major version of iTunes because of…