Latest Posts

• Defeats and Failures

  ”My defeats and failures have provided my best education.    My opponents and enemies have done most to strengthen my character.”

  • Alton Melville

• Elon Musk's Email To Employees: 'Six Points' For Better Productivity

  1. Get rid of excessive meetings

     “Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get (rid) of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.”

  2. Get rid of frequent meetings.

     “Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.”

  3. If you aren’t adding value to the meeting, leave.

     “Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time,”

  4. Use descriptive words for more effective communication.

     “Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla,”

  5. Communication through chain of command is unnecessary.

     ” Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.”

  6. Common sense overrides company rules.

     “In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a “company rule” is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.”

• Struggles develop strengths

  “Your struggles develop your strengths.”

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger

• Hatred vs. Love

  “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.”

  • Martin Luther King Jr.

• Zoom...again...again

  Zoom drops the ball again, again

  https://www.securityweek.com/zoom-macos-contains-high-risk-security-flaw

• Always do your very best.

  “Always do your very best. Even when no one else is looking, you always are. Don’t disappoint yourself.”

  • Colin Powell

• Forming habits

  “Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing.”

  • Wilt Chamberlain

• iMessage Not Private

  From: https://www.apple.com/privacy/

• Love your neighbor

  I’m reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and felt like I needed to share this quote from it:

  The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not wast time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.

  The same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite direction. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate, and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become – and so on in a vicious circle for ever.

• Zoom...again

  Zoom drops the ball again

  https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/12/23303411/zoom-defcon-root-access-privilege-escalation-hack-patrick-wardle

• Effective distractions

  “a distraction doesn’t have to be evil to be effective” – Elder Kelly R. Johnson

• Backblaze Discount for February 2022

  One of the first lines of defense against ransomware is regular backups. Their normal price is $7/month, per computer, for Unlimited Backups so you can’t go wrong.

• Set Your Identity Protection PIN with the IRS today

  Cybersecurity tip of the day…

• G Suite Free is going away

  If you’re using the free edition of G Suite, this should not come as a surprise, but your days of free will soon be over. Make a plan now for what you will do when you get this email.

• Law Enforcement Access to Chat Data

  A January 2021 FBI document outlines what types of data and metadata can be lawfully obtained by the FBI from messaging apps. Rolling Stone broke the story and it’s been written about elsewhere.

• Knowledge of true truth can keep you out of trouble

  “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

  • Mark Twain? (attribution uncertain)

• Go to the source if you don't want remorse

  “Go to the source if you don’t want remorse”

• What data does Signal store about me?

  The short answer

  The short answer is: not much.

• CyberStart America running again

  If you know anyone in grades 9-12 that has any interest in cybersecurity, CyberStart America is kicking off again. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about cybersecurity and they award scholarships too! https://www.cyberstartamerica.org/

• It's time to stop using SMS

  

  The important information

  How would you feel if every text you’ve ever sent suddenly became public?
  “5-Year Breach May Have Exposed Billions of Text Messages” <- That’s a real headline from 2021.

• Invasive Instagram advertising

  Yes, I have concerns about Signal in the long term, but you’ve got to love the research they do. Check out the type of information that Facebook tracks about you and how it is leveraged for advertising. https://signal.org/blog/the-instagram-ads-you-will-never-see/

• Signal's cryptocurrenty mistake

  Preface

  I’d like to first make clear that I’ve been a long-time user of Signal. And I’ll most likely continue to use it. This post is more of a warning that Signal might not be a wise long-term choice for messaging, so if you are new to Signal, you may want to consider alternatives before you jump in.

• Achievement Unlocked: CISSP

  I received this message today:

  Congratulations! Based on your examination results, application review and acceptance of your endorsement, the (ISC)² Board of Directors has awarded you the CISSP certification.

• Another T-Mobile data breach

  T-Mobile disclosed that they have had another data breach.

• Red vs Black

  If you go to the southwest desert and catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today: Liberal vs Conservative Black vs White Pro Mask vs Anti Mask The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar and why? -Alex Morton

• The Social Dilemma

  I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now… If you haven’t watched The Social Dilemma then you need to make time to watch it this week.

• Cycle of Hate

  The best way to break the cycle of hate is through kindness. We must show kindness toward those that show hate for others.

• Update your Chrome

  I promise I’m not going to always be posting, “You need to update X” messages.

• Comodo/Sectigo privacy failure

  I don’t think I’ll ever use Comodo/Sectigo for encryption certificates again. Needing me to send a gov’t issued ID is fine. Insisting that it’s secure to send it through plain email is not.

• Google suspends Element App from Play Store

  “Google suspended Element from the Play Store without warning or notification.”

• Update your iPhone

  PSA to all of my friends with iPhones (hey, I don’t discriminate) be sure to install the latest OS update today.

• Power of Love

  I love this quote used in a talk at church yesterday:

• SMS Privacy

  It’s interesting that people are worked up about the whatsapp policy change but don’t realize it’s always been that way for regular text messages.

• New to Signal

  I’ve been getting more and more notifications recently from Signal about my contacts using the app. I love it!

• Survey, January 2021

  Will you please take a couple of minutes to fill out this survey? It’s for a project I’m working on (and should take literally less than two minutes to do)

• Crisis Averted

  “You never get credit for the crisis you avert.” As I have spent the last 20+ years in the tech arena, I fully agree with that quote from a podcast I recently listened to.

• Station Wagon

  QOTD: “ Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.”

• Neither snow nor rain ...

  It looks like “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…” needs to be revised.

• Game On Live Studios

  Game On Live Studios did a fantastic job covering our swim meet yesterday! You can view it here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vqaBXyO0jg4 @GameOnLS #GameOn

• Give Thanks - for sore muscles

  I’m thankful for sore muscles; sore from hard work or hard play. I’m thankful for kids that willingly (sometimes unwillingly) participate with me. #givethanks

• Apple censoring protestors?

  I wonder what the real driver behind Apple’s request is https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-telegram-belarus/

• Give Thanks

  I’m grateful for friends that are filling my social media feeds with uplifting messages over the last couple of days. I hope this continues long after Thanksgiving. #givethanks

• Give Thanks

  I’m thankful for this message and prescription for facing any ill in the world. I challenge you to watch this brief message and accept his challenge to share your gratitude on social media. #givethanks

• I still don't trust Zoom

  Zoom still hasn’t earned my trust.

  “Zoom compromised users’ security when it secretly installed ZoomOpener, … which actually made users vulnerable to malware, according to the FTC. … [Zoom] deployed ZoomOpener without user consent.”

• Election Fear

  QOTD:

  “Just a reminder that the government should never have so much power that one presidential election feels like life or death.”

• Raspberry Pi 400 kits

  Raspberry Pi 400 kits are now available. Pretty cool! https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400/

• Your good password is bad

  Even if you think you have a “good” password, you should still be using MFA, folks. Use MFA everywhere you can.

• DOJ wants encryption backdoors

  DOJ formalizes request for encryption back-doors http://web.archive.org/web/20201012231020/https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/12/doj-formalizes-request-for-encryption-back-doors #privacy #surveillance

• Big Tech Censoring

  Maybe Big Tech is trying to say something like: “Science! Science! We already have the science we want and don’t need more science!”

• EARN IT threatens free speech

  I get really tired of the “It’s for the children!” type bills when they do very little to actually help the children. EARN IT is such a bill. It doesn’t really help protect children but it does open the door for our privacy to be violated through backdoors. These backdoors would be accessible to companies and their employees. Eventually these backdoors always end up in the hands of malicious actors(read: hackers) that use them to expose everything that you want to keep private.

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

  I just finished reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” It was not an easy read, but it was interesting! https://amzn.to/30rbSB7

• SMS Privacy and Security

  An interesting (and short) read. My biggest takeaway is that I shouldn’t be using SMS as much as I do. If you value privacy & security you should consider alternatives to SMS.

• Backblaze drive stats Q2 2020

  Backblaze drive stats posted for Q2 2020 https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q2-2020/

• Facebook Privacy Lawsuit

  Just when you didn’t think 2020 could get any crazier, Facebook is taking the EU to court over … privacy.

• Breaking up with Ting

  Mobile phone security is important

  ;tldr

  After 6 years of being with Ting, I’m changing providers. Ting used to care about me, now they don’t. I’m sorry Ting, we need to part ways. It’s not me, it’s you. You’ve changed and I don’t want you to hurt me so I’m leaving.