Loose Lips
When I was in the military we were constantly drilled about the problem of Essential Elements of Friendly Information, or EEFIs. What are EEFis? If an adversary can cast a wide net of surveillance, they can often find multiple clues about what you are planning to do, or who is making which decisions. For instance, if several people married to military members all make plans to be without their spouses for a long period of time, the adversary can be certain a unit is about to be deployed. If the unit of each member can be determined, then the strength, positioning, and other facts about what action you are taking can be guessed.
The Hedge 78: Mike Bushong and Radical Candor
Communication is one of those soft skills so often cited as a key to success—but what does effective communication entail? Mike Bushong joins Eyvonne Sharp and Russ White on the Hedge to discuss radical candor, and the importance of giving and taking honest feedback to relationships and business.
Time and Mind Savers: RSS Feeds
I began writing this post just to remind readers this blog does have a number of RSS feeds—but then I thought … well, I probably need to explain why that piece of information is important.
The amount of writing, video, and audio being thrown at the average person today is astounding—so much so that, according to a lot of research, most people in the digital world have resorted to relying on social media as their primary source of news. Why do most people get their news from social media? I’m pretty convinced this is largely a matter of “it saves time.” The resulting feed might not be “perfect,” but it’s “close enough,” and no-one wants to spend time seeking out a wide variety of news sources so they will be better informed.
On the ‘net: From Stamps to the Stack
I’ve started publishing in the Public Discourse on topics of technology and culture; the following is the first article they’ve accepted. Note the contents might be classified as a little controversial.
The Hedge 77: The Internet is for End Users
When the interests of the end user, the operator, and the vendor come into conflict, who should protocol developers favor? According to RFC8890, the needs and desires of the end user should be the correct answer. Mark Nottingham joins Alvaro Retana and Russ White on this episode of the Hedge to discuss why the Internet is for end users.
The Insecurity of Ambiguous Standards
Why are networks so insecure?
One reason is we don’t take network security seriously. We just don’t think of the network as a serious target of attack. Or we think of security as a problem “over there,” something that exists in the application realm, that needs to be solved by application developers. Or we think the consequences of a network security breach as “well, they can DDoS us, and then we can figure out how to move load around, so if we build with resilience (enough redundancy) we’re already taking care of our security issues.” Or we put our trust in the firewall, which sits there like some magic box solving all our problems.
The Hedge 76: Federico Lucifredi and the Taxonomy of Indecision
Decision making, especially in large organizations, fails in many interesting ways. Understanding these failure modes can help us cope with seemingly difficult situations, and learn how to make decisions better. On this episode of the Hedge, Frederico Lucifredi, Ethan Banks, and Russ White discuss Frederico’s thoughts on developing a taxonomy of indecision. You can find his presentation on this topic here.
It is Always Something (RFC1925, Rule 7)
While those working in the network engineering world are quite familiar with the expression “it is always something!,” defining this (often exasperated) declaration is a little trickier. The wise folks in the IETF, however, have provided a definition in RFC1925. Rule 7, “it is always something,” is quickly followed with a corollary, rule 7a, which says: “Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can’t have all three).”
Slow Learning and Range
Jack of all trades, master of none.
This singular saying—a misquote of Benjamin Franklin (more on this in a moment)—is the defining statement of our time. An alternative form might be the fox knows many small things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
The Hedge 75: Mike Parks and the Remote Work Scramble
The international pandemic has sent companies scrambling to support lots of new remote workers, which has meant changes in processes, application development, application deployment, connectivity, and even support. Mike Parks joins Eyvonne Sharp and Russ White to discuss these changes on this episode of the Hedge.