Patrick Howell O’Neill

This whole Yandex incident has been a nice and tidy case study in a bunch of people posting what they feel and hope to be true (and seemingly winging it on the definition of the word "bot") vs relatively quick and sound pushback from actual experts

A mini-controversy periodically emerges about elected officials on Signal. It's rarely a nuanced discussion. The idea that using Signal is in and of itself shady is truly wacky. But elected officials conducting business in ways that escapes public records and oversight actually warrants attention

withthat said, Signal is a landmark app first for delivering easy e2ee to the public but also because for most people, not public officials, auto-deleting messages is the smart thing to do from a security and privacy pov, making it normal and easy is great. I wish every app had this option.

A mini-controversy periodically emerges about elected officials on Signal. It's rarely a nuanced discussion. The idea that using Signal is in and of itself shady is truly wacky. But elected officials conducting business in ways that escapes public records and oversight actually warrants attention

Using auto-deleting messages in private chats to conduct government business or hiding chats that should be responsive to record-keeping, that all needs attention. But some non-technical people get really weird about Signal and then about encryption and by the end of it the issue is garbled badly

A mini-controversy periodically emerges about elected officials on Signal. It's rarely a nuanced discussion. The idea that using Signal is in and of itself shady is truly wacky. But elected officials conducting business in ways that escapes public records and oversight actually warrants attention

you people all need subways

This Clippers punishment and Ballmer suspension seems significant

I know that's a dumb and obvious thing to say, it just comes to mind because of the parade of posts I've read over the last year who were (understandably) sure that it's currently impossible for bad behavior to have consequences

There's a whole cottage industry now of professional posters who take journalism and repost it with no credit, no link. What's considered normal now is wild. Polymarket is a multibillion dollar company and their whole social media strategy is to never ever credit journalists who work they use

I think a lot of people have thoughts about the latest White House EO but have not read the entire EO. This is genuinely understandable, these memos are written in lawyerly gobbledygook, but if you care about cyber I beg you to read the whole memo before posting takes. Fact sheet doesn't count!

The White House is setting up a program to have private companies conduct government-authorized cyber operations against foreign cybercriminal groups, including surveillance and disruption www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

NEW: US Cyber Command is grappling with an unusually high number of personnel deaths by suicide this summer including members of one of the command’s elite units. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

By the time the season starts the Knicks are gonna be like #6 on the title favorite betting odds

I still don't fully understand cyber company code names. If you're tracking a Russian group that you name explicitly as Russian, why do you need a cryptonym that means Russia? Isn't this just an extra layer of obfuscation? Only thing I can make out is that coming up with code names is kick ass fun

Okay, fun aside, the answer is more likely that it's a marketing function. You own the name "borscht," whenever someone mentions the vaunted threat actor SPICY BORSCHT, someone relevant with the power of the purse may think of your CTI firm.

I still don't fully understand cyber company code names. If you're tracking a Russian group that you name explicitly as Russian, why do you need a cryptonym that means Russia? Isn't this just an extra layer of obfuscation? Only thing I can make out is that coming up with code names is kick ass fun

Blog history question: Nowadays, it seems like all the cool weather blogs/accounts do weather ratings. The 1st time I remember seeing this was in The Awl, Choire Sicha would post a pic of the sky in ny and rate it and then write some unhinged prose. Was this a thing before Choire's weather reviews?

I miss blogs