Frequently Asked Questions

What topics does this site discuss?

Most of the posts are geared towards computer and network security. Diversity is the spice of life however, so don’t be surprised if you find geek humor, general science stuff or even a bit on auto racing.

What makes this site different than all the other security blogs?

Two words; “vendor neutrality”. Many blogs are run by security vendors, their employees, or consultants/analysts that do work for them. I’m an independent consultant who focuses on the commercial market. I also spend a lot of time teaching information security. As I’m fond of telling my students: “I’m equal opportunity, I’m happy to tick off all security vendors equally”. So (hopefully) my posts are free from marketing spin and provide an impartial view on security technology. Vendors want/need to sell products. That’s OK, its how they make money. Unfortunately this means they will not easily tell you about the bad or brain dead stuff that happens.

I also firmly believe that no single security solution is right for everyone. There is no “perfect” product out there as each has strengths and weaknesses. For example I have no one “favorite” firewall to sell to clients. Its more like 4-5, and which one I recommend depends on their network environment.

What are the Infocon levels?

The Infocon levels are based in Syslog’s severity levels. Its an attempt to further classify posts so you know what to expect. Here’s the breakdown:

• emerg = Hot topic currently impacting the Internet.
• alert = Assumes a solid level of knowledge to get value from post.
• err = Assumes an intermediate level of knowledge to get value from post.
• notice = Novice type info. Little background needed to get value from post.
• info = Humor. Random topics. Not network security related.

I left out debug to help minimize the signal/noise ratio.

So if you are new to the security field, you can filter on info, notice or possibly emerg posts to stay within your comfort zone.

What’s the deal with “invisible security bug spray?”

You can read all about it in an earlier post.

I posted a comment but it was never approved, what gives?

With the exception of the Learn page, I heavily moderate comments. I want to keep replies focused on expansion of the topic at hand. So posts that appear to be spam, unrelated info, “me too’s” or even praise get filtered. While I appreciate the effort, I want to avoid the Slashdot effect where 1 in 20 responses actually have useful content. I’m totally cool with comments that disagree with me, just please include content that backs up your statements.