NotAwful.Security

When we were children, we were told to apologize for saying mean things to each other. We were conditioned to accept those apologies regardless of whether those apologies were honest - they never were. I was bullied as a child and was forced to listen to false apologies often. I resented those bullies because the more of those false apologies I heard the more I realized they all managed to blame me for their actions. As I grew up I mimicked those structures to avoid admitting that I was an abusive friend. I was never taught how to issue a real apology, but like many things in my life I was able to infer it from what I had learned. Lately, I have seen that many people accept false apologies because they have never heard a meaningful apology. I am going to teach you what an apology looks like so that you can understand when someone is not apologizing to you. Anatomy of an Apology An apology is made up of four things: Subject of apology Admitting guilt The guilty part...

When I am passionate about something I am almost always very loud about it. There are a lot of conversations about people "panhandling" for money to travel to BlackHatUSA 2017 and DEFCON 25. Most of the conversations I've seen are dominated by people being very vocal against people crowdfunding any part of their trip, right down to someone who paid travel, lodgings, and tickets out of pocket and couldn't afford food while in Vegas. " How dare they ask if anyone wants to give him some money so they eat? " - Aristocrats, probably I am going to talk about conference travel, barriers, and elitism. A Quick Note On Elitism I wrote a thread on twitter, here , regarding high-priced certificates being used as arbitrary barriers to entry into the field of information security. Halfway through that thread I talked about networking, here , and how the combination of high-barrier to entry and side-stepping traditional hiring processes through networking created...

1. Don't hurt others 2. Protect those who cannot protect themselves 3. Strive to be better My name is ephemeral. I currently go by Amanda on Twitter , and by NotAwful in most other places. It will change in the future but for now I am comfortable and have no plans to change that. As of writing, I am a networking and telecom student studying information security on the side. I do not have much real-world experience but I am seeking it avidly and learning as much as I can until I get there. My primary interest in infosec is malware research and software reverse engineering, but before I get there I will likely be working within the realms of general IT. Expect me to post reviews and thoughts about things that I am learning in technology here. I have played a lot of tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon World, Shadowrun, and a few others. I have also played many video games. I think critically about game design and while you won't see me break...