Daniel Miessler's Blog, page 105
January 2, 2018
My Thoughts on the Flu Shot
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: My Thoughts on the Flu Shot.
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Ok, enough people have asked me about this that I’ll answer here. And please know that I’m not a doctor, a flu specialist, or any kind of medical professional. This is just my own line of reasoning.
So, I accept the science that you can’t get the flu from the shot, but anecdotally I’ve gotten sick almost every time I’ve gotten it.
I understand that I didn’t get the flu each time (you’d know if you had the flu, because you’d feel like you were dead), but I still got sick.
Basically every time.
So when I hear that it’s not very effective at stopping the Flu, and I never really get the flu anyway, I have to ask whether I want to almost definitely get sick (from something else) in order to lower my chances of getting the actual flu by some percentage.
I think the answer might usually be no, but perhaps this year might be a yes since it seems so bad.
Again, I would actually have to model this out to know for sure.
I’d factor in how bad it sucks to be the not-flu-sick, with a likelihood, and assign a risk score to that. And then I’d take the chances of avoiding getting the flu if I get the shot, and factor in how bad it’d be to get it, and then I’d produce a YES/NO answer.
But I don’t have that data, or even enough to guess at it.
So for now I’m going to skip it, but with an open mind on whether I should change my position. And if you’re an expert in this area, and/or have a model like this populated with data, I’d love to hear about it.
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
January 1, 2018
It’s Wrong to Fearmonger on IoT Security
You'll like the typography better at It’s Wrong to Fearmonger on IoT Security.
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Bruce Schneier on Amazon (Emphasis Mine)
In this blog post, Bruce Schneier is adding to what I’ve been complaining about for a while now in InfoSec—a massive tone of fear and panic around IoT technology and its interaction with humans.
Listen to the audio version of this essay.
“Everyone wants to control your life.”
“I fear it’s going to get a lot worse.”
Please stop.
I know it’s super cool to scream about how IoT is insecure, how it’s dumb to hook up everyday objects like houses and cars and locks to the internet, how bad things can get, and I know it’s fun to be invited to talk about how everything is doom and gloom.
I absolutely respect Bruce Schneier a lot for what he’s contributed to InfoSec, which makes me that much more disappointed with this kind of position from him.
InfoSec is full of those people, and it’s beneath people like Bruce to add their voices to theirs. Everyone paying attention already knows it’s going to be a soup sandwich—a carnival of horrors—a tragedy of mistakes and abuses of trust.
It’s obvious. Not interesting. Not novel. Obvious. But obvious or not, all these things are still going to happen.
When we brought electricity to millions of homes, houses burned down, and people died, but I’d argue it was worth it to have electricity in the home and business.
Fear-mongering about IoT is like looking at the first electricity coming to homes in the early 1900’s and warning everyone it’s a horrible idea because of the fire hazard.
You’re honestly objecting to assigning trust, at digital level, to various people in your family, friends, various organizations, etc? Digital management of trust is happening. Having digital assistants in our lives is happening. Having our homes, our workplaces, and our environments adapt to our presence is happening. These aren’t ideas, they’re inevitabilities.
Technology is integrating into human life on planet Earth, and there’s not anything anyone can do to stop that. And once we get out of the woods it’s going to be a massive improvement. Just like electrification was. We should obviously try to minimize the risks, but we don’t do that by trying to shout down the entire enterprise.
To characterize Amazon’s progress in smart homes as, “They want to control our lives.” is both incredibly shortsighted and irresponsible. Awesome people like Bruce (and everyone in InfoSec really) should be leading from the front by saying:
Yes folks—things are going to get nasty. The digitization of our lives through IoT will be a bumpy ride, and people will get hurt. We in InfoSec are on the front lines. We’re the technologists embracing this change first, as the inevitability that it is, and we’re doing our best to make the transition as safe as possible for you.
That is our role.
Not dog-piling on every new technology/life integration like it’s the harbinger of death that must be stopped by InfoSec. It’s not our job to stop the inevitable from happening; it’s our job to make it more safe when it does.
We should be shepherds, not obstructionists.
People complaining about fire hazards wouldn’t have stopped electrification, and people complaining about IoT isn’t going to stop that either.
People need us.
They’re bewildered and scared. So let’s start preparing them for what’s coming instead of adding to their fear and uncertainty.
We’re better than this.
—
I spend between 5 and 20 hours on this content every week, and if you are the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member for just $10/month…
Thank you!
It’s Wrong to Fear-monger on IoT Security
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: It’s Wrong to Fear-monger on IoT Security.
—
Bruce Schneier on Amazon (Emphasis Mine)
In this blog post, Bruce Schneier is adding to what I’ve been complaining about for a while now in InfoSec—a massive tone of fear and panic around IoT technology and its interaction with humans.
Listen to the audio version of this essay.
“Everyone wants to control your life.”
“I fear it’s going to get a lot worse.”
Please stop.
I know it’s super cool to scream about how IoT is insecure, how it’s dumb to hook up everyday objects like houses and cars and locks to the internet, how bad things can get, and I know it’s fun to be invited to talk about how everything is doom and gloom.
I absolutely respect Bruce Schneier a lot for what he’s contributed to InfoSec, which makes me that much more disappointed with this kind of position from him.
InfoSec is full of those people, and it’s beneath people like Bruce to add their voices to theirs. Everyone paying attention already knows it’s going to be a soup sandwich—a carnival of horrors—a tragedy of mistakes and abuses of trust.
It’s obvious. Not interesting. Not novel. Obvious. But obvious or not, all these things are still going to happen.
When we brought electricity to millions of homes, houses burned down, and people died, but I’d argue it was worth it to have electricity in the home and business.
Fear-mongering about IoT is like looking at the first electricity coming to homes in the early 1900’s and warning everyone it’s a horrible idea because of the fire hazard.
You’re honestly objecting to assigning trust, at digital level, to various people in your family, friends, various organizations, etc? Digital management of trust is happening. Having digital assistants in our lives is happening. Having our homes, our workplaces, and our environments adapt to our presence is happening. These aren’t ideas, they’re inevitabilities.
Technology is integrating into human life on planet Earth, and there’s not anything anyone can do to stop that. And once we get out of the woods it’s going to be a massive improvement. Just like electrification was. We should obviously try to minimize the risks, but we don’t do that by trying to shout down the entire enterprise.
To characterize Amazon’s progress in smart homes as, “They want to control our lives.” is both incredibly shortsighted and irresponsible. Awesome people like Bruce (and everyone in InfoSec really) should be leading from the front by saying:
Yes folks—things are going to get nasty. The digitization of our lives through IoT will be a bumpy ride, and people will get hurt. We in InfoSec are on the front lines. We’re the technologists embracing this change first, as the inevitability that it is, and we’re doing our best to make the transition as safe as possible for you.
That is our role.
Not dog-piling on every new technology/life integration like it’s the harbinger of death that must be stopped by InfoSec. It’s not our job to stop the inevitable from happening; it’s our job to make it more safe when it does.
We should be shepherds, not obstructionists.
People complaining about fire hazards wouldn’t have stopped electrification, and people complaining about IoT isn’t going to stop that either.
People need us.
They’re bewildered and scared. So let’s start preparing them for what’s coming instead of adding to their fear and uncertainty.
We’re better than this.
—
I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
Bruce Schneier is Wrong to Fear-monger on IoT Security
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: Bruce Schneier is Wrong to Fear-monger on IoT Security.
—
Bruce Schneier on Amazon (Emphasis Mine)
In this blog post, Bruce Schneier is adding to what I’ve been complaining about for a while now in InfoSec—a massive tone of fear and panic around IoT technology and its interaction with humans.
I absolutely respect Bruce Schneier a lot for what he’s contributed to InfoSec, which makes me that much more disappointed with this kind of position from him.
“Everyone wants to control your life.”
“I fear it’s going to get a lot worse.”
Really? Bruce, no. Please stop.
I know it’s super cool to scream about how IoT is insecure, how it’s dumb to hook up everyday objects like houses and cars and locks to the internet, how bad things can get, and how you get to be the one that warned everyone in your new book.
InfoSec is full of those people, and it’s beneath you to add your voice to theirs. Everyone paying attention already knows it’s going to be a soup sandwich—a carnival of horrors—a tragedy of mistakes and abuses of trust.
It’s obvious, Bruce. Not interesting. Not novel. Obvious. But obvious or not, all these things are still going to happen.
When we brought electricity to millions of homes, houses burned down, and people died, but I’d argue it was worth it to have electricity in the home and business.
Fear-mongering about IoT is like looking at the first electricity coming to homes in the early 1900’s and warning everyone it’s a horrible idea because of the fire hazard.
You’re honestly objecting to assigning trust, at digital level, to various people in your family, friends, various organizations, etc? Digital management of trust is happening. Having digital assistants in our lives is happening. Having our homes, our workplaces, and our environments adapt to our presence is happening. These aren’t ideas, they’re inevitabilities.
Technology is integrating into human life on planet Earth, and there’s not anything anyone can do to stop that. And once we get out of the woods it’s going to be a massive improvement. Just like electrification was. We should obviously try to minimize the risks, but we don’t do that by trying to shout down the entire enterprise.
To characterize Amazon’s progress in smart homes as, “They want to control our lives.” is both incredibly shortsighted and irresponsible. Awesome people like Bruce (and everyone in InfoSec really) should be leading from the front by saying:
Yes folks—things are going to get nasty. The digitization of our lives through IoT will be a bumpy ride, and people will get hurt. We in InfoSec are on the front lines. We’re the technologists embracing this change first, as the inevitability that it is, and we’re doing our best to make the transition as safe as possible for you.
That is our role.
Not dog-piling on every new technology/life integration like it’s the harbinger of death that must be stopped by InfoSec. It’s not our job to stop the inevitable from happening; it’s our job to make it more safe when it does.
We should be shepherds, not obstructionists.
People complaining about fire hazards wouldn’t have stopped electrification, and people complaining about IoT isn’t going to stop that either.
People need us.
They’re bewildered and scared. So let’s start preparing them for what’s coming instead of adding to their fear and uncertainty.
We’re better than this.
—
I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
Two Alien Space Forces That Almost Certainly Exist
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: Two Alien Space Forces That Almost Certainly Exist.
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I was watching the Black Mirror the other night and remembered one idea and had another one.
These are both making the not-insignificant assumption of faster-than-light travel.
I think there is an extremely high chance that two different types of space force exist in our universe.
A force that listens for early civilizations sending out beacons, similar to Earth broadcasting out constantly say, “Hello! We’re here! Is there anyone out there?”, and then comes to save them from other aliens who come to take advantage. The Three Body Problem talks about how bad of an idea it is to send these kinds of messages, and Steven Hawking agrees.
A force that finds all civilizations capable of creating conscious creatures in virtual reality, and then goes and explores every single instance they have running to make sure nobody is trapped in a state of suffering. Imagine someone creating AIs who are like background characters in some grand plot, except they’re millions of individuals, and each one of them is conscious in some way and is actually suffering. Or like has been explored recently, imagine a few people created in the likeness of a gamer’s enemies, and who are subjected to unspeakable horrors for basically infinity (consider that you can control the passage of time to the subject).
I think that any sufficiently capable and morally advanced civilization (likely mostly AI at this point) would have these types of forces deployed throughout the universe.
Perhaps it would just be one collective, like the Borg except for good, who goes around making sure entire races don’t get exterminated by conquerors, and that someone doesn’t discover the ability to make consciousness and then use that ability to massively increase the amount of suffering in the universe.
Think of the stories that you could write about these two forces (or maybe two divisions of the same force).
And then think about the fact that, if there is such a thing as faster-than-light travel, they probably already exist.
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
December 31, 2017
Unsupervised Learning’s Best Links of 2017
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: Unsupervised Learning’s Best Links of 2017.
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This is a special, supplemental content post for site members looking back at the most popular Unsupervised Learning stories of 2017. I basically went through every newsletter and extracted the most clicked stories, and then distilled them that down to this list.
How to Email Like a CEO
The Future of AppSec Testing
A Guided Digital Security Planning Tool
Disambiguation of Net Neutrality
Marc Andreessen Keeps Coming Back to these 8 Books
Criminals Using iTunes to Launder Bitcoin
Know Which of Your AWS IPs Are Externally Facing
…
You can get the rest of this member content by becoming a member below.
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
December 30, 2017
The Real Internet of Things: Acknowledgments
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: The Real Internet of Things: Acknowledgments.
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These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017.
Thanks to Saša Zdjelar, Andrew Ringlein, and Jason Haddix for reading various versions and fragments of this text. Your input and support throughout this precarious first-book experience was deeply felt and appreciated.
Thanks especially to Saša for enthusiastically talking through many of these concepts with me, and to Jason for being the first of my friends to tell me back in 2013 that I had something worth capturing and sharing.
It’s easy to simply stop writing a book and to never go back. And without you two I very well could have.
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
The Real Internet of Things: Colophon
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: The Real Internet of Things: Colophon.
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These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017.
San Francisco CA, London UK, Newark CA
2016
macOS Sierra
Vim
Markdown
Pandoc
Zomby, Glitch Mob, Technoboy, Ratatat, Cryptex, Behemoth, Opeth, Gojira
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
The Real Internet of Things: Afterword
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: The Real Internet of Things: Afterword.
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These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017.
There are many who will read this book and see nothing but dystopia. In certain moods, I’m one of those people.
What’s important to understand, however, is that I’m not conjuring this reality into existence. I’m not enabling it to happen. I’m simply describing what is—without question—going to happen. As I talk about in the initial concept of Prediction, these are things that will come to pass not from conscious, planned thought, but rather because this is what humans will demand—and inevitably receive—because of what our species innately desires.
The amount of functionality these technologies will bring, and the demand for them by both consumers and industry, will be too powerful to oppose. They are an arriving train, and all we can do is get ready for it. When it gets here, it might run us down or it might take us comfortably to our destination. But it’s coming either way.
Many of the possible uses for these ideas deeply trouble me. As someone who cares about inequality, I see DAs as powerful levers for the successful to pull even further away from the masses. As someone in cybersecurity, I have compiled my own personal legion of abuse cases for so many of these capabilities, and they range from the troubling to the terrifying.
But my distaste for, and concern about, many of the potential abuses will not stop me from either alerting people of what’s coming, nor from seeking a way to transform it into something positive.
Hating the thought of this tech harming our humanity is natural, but don’t allow the unpleasantness convince you that it isn’t there, or that it isn’t inevitable. It is there. And it is coming.
So let’s use our energy to make the arrival as safe, secure, and beneficial to humanity as possible. Denial and dismissal help no one.
Extended content
There is far more to say on each individual topic presented here, as well as more topics to add. As I do I’ll be capturing them on my site at: danielmiessler.com/blog/. Please join me there as I continue to explore the concepts with related ideas, additional use cases, and conversation about how these technologies can and will be misused.
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
The Real Internet of Things: What Does It All Mean
To benefit from the work I put into my typography, read natively at: The Real Internet of Things: What Does It All Mean.
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These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017.
So we’ve talked through the various concepts. But what does this all get us? How is this the future of technology and humanity?
There have been three main themes throughout this book:
That we can predict the future of technology through our understanding of what humans ultimately want as a species.
That human-to-technology interface is about to fundamentally change by abstracting technology behind natural interfaces.
That we’re moving towards a bottom-up and evolution-based model vs. one that’s top-down and design-based.
Prediction
We cannot know what technology will be capable of in the future, but the more we understand ourselves the more we will know exactly how it’ll be used. That dynamic is the key to our predictive power.
We are the imperfect pothole, and technology is the puddle inside. Know the shape of the container and you’ll know the shape of what fills it.
Given that perspective, technology is perhaps best defined as:
An artificial layer of abstraction that converts an entity’s desire into reality.
Technology is what fills the gap between the world we have and the world we want, and in that sense it is far more predictable than most realize.
Interface
With regard to interface, the future of technology is one where technology usage becomes more natural, more invisible, and completely abstracted. Poking at applications applications with fingers or keyboards is identical to running clothes up and down a washing board—in a river.
We’re not just moving to a model where humans interact with their computers via voice, text, and gestures—that’s a small detail in the larger point.
What we’re moving toward is a model where humans don’t really interact with computers at all. Instead, humans will interact with assistants who then interact with computers on our behalf. It’s mediation. It’s abstraction. It’s humans simply wanting or needing things, naturally communicating those needs implicitly, or explicitly, and having those things simply happen.
The world becomes transparently curated and reconfigured around us according to our preferences.
Evolution
Finally, daemonization will unify a person’s identity into a single source of truth that lives where it should: with you.
Instead of being the fleshy, abstracted subject of thousands of imperfect databases, you will become the single authority for who you are, your realtime state, what you care about, and how you prefer to interface with everything else.
It will allow us to know the state of the world in realtime, to parse that information continuously, and to use technology to shape our lives according to our values.
This not a technology upgrade, it’s a humanity upgrade.
It’s knowledge of, and connection with, all other objects through our respective daemons—allowing you the ability to create and exchange value in realtime.
It will transition us from a model where institutions slowly and imprecisely interact with other institutions about us, to a model where we interact and exchange value with each other.
This is the real Internet of Things.
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I spend 5-20 hours a week collecting and curating content for the site. If you're the generous type and can afford fancy coffee whenever you want, please consider becoming a member at just $10/month.
Stay curious,
Daniel
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