Stop living in the past!
You have a future to screw up.
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spaf
@spaf@mstdn.social
mastodon 4.7.2Spaf is a homunculus of possible extraterrestrial origin, tilting at windmills. Cybersecurity, bad jokes, political outrage, academe, non-sequiturs, entropy. See http://about.me/spaf for more.
6813 Followers
275 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 02, 2022
Other info:
My Purdue webpage:
My thought for today, and part of my philosophy of life:
If you can’t learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
October is the Awareness Month for both Cybersecurity and Breast Cancer. I proposed a two-factor authentication study to honor both. My IRB (my wife) withheld her support on three grounds: conflict of interest, inadequate containment, and the PI's character.
Enable MFA. Schedule your mammogram. Do both. No IRB approval required.
I tried carbon dating, twice.
Would not recommend. The charcoal briquette was a lousy kisser, had no conversation skills, and lied about its age by 5,730 years.
The match with a lump of anthracite went worse — I was immediately given the coal shoulder.
I am joining more than 100 voices calling on governments, funders, AI developers, and standards bodies to invest in the six conditions needed for a rigorous, reliable independent AI evaluation framework.
Read the full letter at frontieraievaluation.org.
I feel stupid.
Another year of MacArthur Genius Grants announced, and I wasn't on the list....
It is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
One of the classic jokes for the occasion:
A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel hanging from his belt buckle.
The barkeep asks: Do you know you have a wheel over your crotch?
The pirate says, "ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, and it's driving me nuts.
Everyone is someone else's weirdo.
-- Attributed to C. A. Dykstra (1883-1950) and S. R. Adams (1957-2026)
Status of my quest: my extended family, done; my university, done; the Internet at large, well underway.
It's frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence.
-- George Orwell (1903–1950)
It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
Worthless persons appointed to have supreme control of weighty affairs do a lot of damage.
-- Aristotle (384–322)
Advisory: I may not be answering email today.
It is only partially brillig. Thus, I will slithe a few of the toves, gyre with none of them, and gimble strictly within the wabe.
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
I wish more of our Republican senators were like Mitch McConnell.
Pro tip: they're not little, they're not green, and they're not men.
Unless cheap tequila is involved, in which case they're all three, and it's not an abduction; it's Saturday night. That missing time is now accounted for.
Boosted by @hypebot@goingdark.social
Historical comparisons to Roman imperial decline are incorrect.
Yes, we have gladiatorial combat staged for the ruler's birthday, plans for a triumphal arch, and oaths of fealty. But the Romans had better roads, principled senators, and respect for science.
Do NOT take the Cyclosporiasis outbreak lightly. Getting it from extra spicy tacos has consequences!
Thought for the day.
Armor’s Axiom:
Virtue is the failure to achieve vice.
The problem isn't that my attention wanders at work.
The problem is that it leaves the building to get tacos, gets lost, then goes home to take a nap.
There are many stories about 9/11.
I have my students read this one in some of my advanced security courses: https://bit.ly/4ipccJE It is a lesson about preparedness and the value of drills. It is also a lesson about leadership, sacrifice, and love.
If you can access the article (unfortunately, paywalled), it is worth a read today.
People have complained about my humor. They call it "sick."
I'm not sick -- I'm twisted. "Sick" makes it sound as if there's a cure.
Well, we do need to note that MAGA does continue to remind us of questions requiring deep thought.
I just learned that a former colleague has been arrested. What a shock!
He has been accused of taking human skin from a medical supply company.
He wasn't charged with theft -- it was graft.
Some people have praised my problem-solving skills.
In fairness, most of those problems were ones I caused.
A computer science department is a nonempty set of researchers such that each claims to be doing cutting-edge AI, and at least one other will insist that work is merely curve-fitting on a deprecated dataset.
Students don't seem to change all that much.
I'm still getting some of the same excuses.
On a recent trip, we had to explain to our niece why there was no floor 13 in a high-rise.
Imagine how, in a decade or so, we will have to explain why there are no floors 45 or 47.
Asking for, er, a friend.
The doctor advises making healthier choices.
Which whiskey has the most antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals?
@337guanacos@xarxa.cloud ...and HailHydra!
The only thing Flat Earthers fear is sphere itself.
Highly inspirational:
"One day you will wake up, and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted. Do it now." - Paulo Coelho
Okay, maybe TOO inspirational. Who will Venmo some bail money?
New entry in the CERIAS blog.
Fourth in my series on AI hype. The bill for replacing staff with AI has arrived: most CEOs report no return, AI-use mandates have become token rationing, two-thirds of employers that cut jobs are rehiring, and the new failure modes bypass controls built for human error.
https://ceri.as/inv-e
I am discovering new abilities as I age.
For instance, last night I was able to melt an ice cube simply with the power of my mind.
Admittedly, it took nearly an hour of concentration, but I hope I will become better with practice.
Over on the CERIAS Blog…
Too many people are prone to accepting hype and myths about computing, and that often leads to poor decisions. 20 years ago, my first post in the CERIAS blog addressed an example — the folk wisdom that monthly password changes improve security — a myth that had already survived 30 years and that NIST needed until 2017 to retire. The same mythmaking machinery is at work around AI: the claim that LLMs make software developers, security analysts,…
https://spaf.wordpress.com/2026/07/10/over-on-the-cerias-blog/
OMB proposes rewriting federal research grant rules. Among other changes, political appointees could override scientific peer review on what gets funded. Comments close July 13. Polite comments of any length must be considered; a paragraph counts.
https://www.regulations.gov/document/OMB-2026-0034-0001
Replying to
@raptor@infosec.exchange No, not the first. James Anderson documented the class of problems over a decade before. However, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first documented use of one.
“Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
-- Thomas Edison
What can we conclude from this aphorism?
Really smart people are usually quite moist, and a bit salty.
This is a great distillation of some important points about risk, cybersecurity, and the NIST CSF. If your work touches on any of those, this is worth a read.
https://cyberriskbook.com/ai-wont-save-you-from-weak-cybersecurity-fundamentals/
#cybersecurity #risk #NIST
I've been thinking about what I might do to stay occupied if I retire.
Perhaps a dating site for chickens? Without a regular income, I would struggle to make hens meet.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@hrbrmstr/116506420825705134
Not exactly a comic book, but it helped make a lot of superheroes!
Pentagon warns US unable to fight two ceasefires simultaneously
https://www.duffelblog.com/pentagon-warns-us-unable-to-fight-two-ceasefires-simultaneously/
Revisiting the 2017 Ghost in the Shell eight years on: a better film than I remembered, and a line about memory and identity that resonates more now in the age of LLMs.
It is a bit toasty in the Midwest US this week.
Happy Tau Day! (US calendar notation)
https://www.tauday.com/state-of-the-tau-current
I am so lucky -- my wife pampers me.
Or huggies, or depends ... whatever is on sale.
If someone near to you has not yet heard the news about Senator Graham, break the news gently. Tell them that Lindsay Graham has gone to caucus with Mitch McConnell.
Replying to
@wendynather@infosec.exchange @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social
Llama 3.2 refers to me in the past tense, which is a little disconcerting.
GLM Flash recounts an incorrect association.
Otherwise, thankfully, the material about me appears mostly correct.
Replying to
@itisiboller@infosec.exchange Hey, what do you expect from a country that avoid using the metric system?
Replying to
@deborahh @Beltliner403
Thanks. The app I was posting from didn't have an option to add alt text.
Replying to
@SteveBellovin@infosec.exchange @rrb@infosec.exchange There are many things in the proposed rule-making that are awful, but I picked only one for the post.