On my recent posting about adhesives, deep state covert operative flex commented, kindly. [stderr] And it reminded me of an actual thing that happened.
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All the unbuffered error messages
On my recent posting about adhesives, deep state covert operative flex commented, kindly. [stderr] And it reminded me of an actual thing that happened.
Back in the mid 90s I had an unusual experience, in which I was caught in the blast-corona of Operation Sundevil – the Secret Service’s attempt to gain relevance in cybersecurity [wik]. My role was small but it made me realize that the government, at that time, was ignorant enough that they could easily be stampeded into doing stupid things, a form of “terrorism by stupid cop” which I later re-framed as “a denial of clue attack.”
I used to work for a consultancy called Trusted Information Systems, back in 1990-1994, which was a big contractor for DARPA and NSA. That was how I wound up building security systems in some pretty interesting places including the Clinton White House.
Getting infected with ransomware is management’s decision. They just don’t realize that they made that decision; it’s one of those things like driving under the influence of LSD: you may have plenty of time to regret it if it turned out to be a bad idea.
When I encounter a weird story that might be an interesting core for some bloggy ruminations, I usually email it to myself. Email is my “post it note” and it’s been a great technique since I keep a complete archive of my emails going back to the 80s. The problem is that I have an in-box that consists mostly of weird messages from myself (2000+ at present).
This is one that, I admit, never occurred to me, either. The fact that it did not is profoundly embarrassing. Ready for a little F-35 bashing?
Tomorrow I’m going to be on a webinar about security, “injecting security into systems engineering.” As Ghandi allegedly said when asked about “western civilization”, “… it would be nice.” I’m going to have to say more than that, and (as you have probably noticed) “saying more” is not something I have a problem with. [eventbrite]
If you asked Jackson Pollock to do a painting representing government computer security, it would look just like every other Jackson Pollock painting.
Now that I’m retired, I try hard not to be the guy who stands in the back of the room and shouts “You kids get offa my lawn!” but I have to admit that I often feel that computer security (as a field, in general) has gone horribly out of control and is thumping through the rough terrain and weeds while the driver, who lacks vision, keeps grasping for simple solutions to what is really a complex problem involving strategy, economics, and skepticism.
Parler is a security disaster in progress.