I’m reposting this article as part of my tests of auto-posting. In other words, my first attempt wasn’t exactly a success. It appears that I didn’t get my cron working correctly. Like lots of other people, I’m looking at Mastodon as a newer, better tech-social community. I’m trying to auto-post ... Read More

Like lots of other people, I’m looking at Mastodon as a newer, better tech-social community. I’m trying to auto-post from this site to a Mastodon ID, and I have a separate Mastodon ID that I use for conversation. @[email protected] is the conversation one. @[email protected] is the autoposting one. Now, maybe ... Read More

This post is inspired by Tessa Flattum’s post, “How to Write a Novel with ADHD.” I self-diagnosed my own ADHD after my son was diagnosed as a child. I’ve written three technical nonfiction books on cybersecurity. I agree with her general observations, but my own experience is a bit different ... Read More

Former President Trump recently suggested that the sitting President simply needs to “think” something is declassified in order to declassify it. Is there a cascade of increasingly formal ways to declassify? Perhaps: Think the information is declassified Tweet an order that the information is declassified Write up and sign a ... Read More

A software engineering friend fell victim to an almost-successful attack on his Facebook account. The attacker seemed to have a database of email addresses and user physical locations (i.e. cities, states, small countries). If the email’s domain name wasn’t registered, the attacker constructed a domain registration and directed its email ... Read More

MSSE second-year students may request a cybersecurity elective as course SENG 5271. If the course is not chosen to be an offered elective, students may take it as an independent study. In either case, the course is entirely online. The course provides a broad introduction, while focusing on the practical ... Read More

Back in the dark ages of the Trump presidency, the President tweeted this photograph. An earlier post examines the legality of this act (100% legal), and speculates about the potential damage to national security (none, really). Journalist Zach Dorfman of Yahoo News has posted an interesting article that quotes defense ... Read More

I am pleased to report that the fourth course for the University of Minnesota in my online Cloud Cybersecurity specialization, Cloud Top Ten Risks, is now available for registration. The course itself should be running in a week or two, depending on internal processes at Coursera ... Read More

I am offering a fully online cybersecurity elective to MSSE second-year students for 2022: SENG 5271. It uses my Cybersecurity in the Cloud specialization offered on Coursera, plus readings and labs from my textbook Elementary Information Security. The course and textbook focus on how technical measures relate to more abstract ... Read More

Elsewhere on the Internet last week, people were solving a mystery about a PDP-1 running a model train. People who know about such things acknowledge that the “Tech Model Railroad Club” (TMRC) at MIT used a PDP-1 to operate its layout for a few years. The photo at the left, ... Read More