Climate change survey

Please take a few minutes and fill out this survey on climate change. It's for my sister-in-law's dissertation research. You can enter to win $50 for taking it. Thanks.

Our relationship with our wife

Come home after a hard day at work and the dinner’s not ready, the house is a mess, and the kids are screaming. What do you do?

How do we treat our wives?

https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation

https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/families-and-the-church-in-gods-plan?lang=eng#1.3.1

Mosiah 3:19

POV Dyer-gram
- men look at how far they’ve come
- women see how far they have to go
- need to help each other see alternative perspective

The perfect woman does not exist. “Even if she did, she wouldn’t want you!” Woman helps perfect the man and the man helps perfect the woman. - President Dyer Zone Conference 6/8/00

Where are some pitfalls in the marriage relationship?
In what ways does the adversary skew the roles of husband, wife, father, and mother?
Playing “my life sucks more” and other stupid games of one-upmanship
Don’t assume you know motivation behind words/actions
Not trying to fix everything
It’s not 50/50, it’s 100/100!

How do we improve things?
How do we nurture that relationship?
Choose to love. Love the verb, not love the feeling
Counseling
Serve to love - you value that for which you sacrifice
Zone Conference 10/14/99

1. No contention, not even in the heart
2. We all want to be good spouses and parents
3. We can only change ourselves (don’t carry around lists)
4. Mental list of things we admire
5. Companionship is 100%/100% proposition

Validation of feelings and effort
Grandpa Bob's advice - compliment her regularity

Valentine's day
Make it count! Your quality of life is directly proportional to the happiness of your wife.
Memorize Mosiah 3:19

Course manuals:
https://www.lds.org/manual/marriage-and-family-relations-instructors-manual
https://si.lds.org/bc/seminary/content/library/manuals/institute-student/eternal-marriage-student-manual_eng.pdf

How to Handle UPnP Vulnerabilities

Posted on the Bit9 blog: How to Handle UPnP Vulnerabilities

See all my Bit9 blog posts here.

Release the Kraken

Posted on the Bit9 blog: 4 Realities of Cybersecurity

See all my Bit9 blog posts here.

Preaching to the Choir: The Problem with Cybersecurity Education

Posted on the Bit9 blog: Preaching to the Choir: The Problem with Cybersecurity Education

See all my Bit9 blog posts here.

Gratitude

Notes for Elders Quorum lesson on 11/4/12

History of Thanksgiving -wikipedia

•           in the United States
•           World 

Why?

Mosiah 2:19-22

Men are that they might have joy

-          gratitude is a weapon for that end

Alma 34:38

Sister Christensen (Mission mom)

-          Ingratitude is a form of pride

1. Count blessings
2. Pause
3. Express faith
4. Express gratitude for additional things
5. Write it down

D&C 59:7,21

General authorities talked about it – Elder Oaks, Elder Eyring, President Monson

http://www.lds.org/topic/gratitude

Count Your Many Blessings

Luke 17:11-19

Do you accept the Daemon?

I recently finished listening to Daemon, a techno-thriller by Daniel Suarez. As a regular listener of several TWiT network shows, I have heard about the book regularly through Audible.com commercials. My catalyst for finally getting Daemon came this summer when Suarez released his latest book, Kill Decision. It seemed more than serendipitous coincidence that his newest book used my last job (signal processing on UAVs) for a topic, while his first book used my current job (blocking malware) for a topic. Thus I had to pick Daemon up, and once I picked it up I could not put it down.

Daemon begins with the death of Matthew Sobol, a fictional game designer. Sobol’s massively multiplayer online games brought his company wild success, and apparently left him with too much free time to think about the world order. He decided to change that order post-mortem by leaving behind a powerful internet daemon. The daemon intricates itself with the world’s information technology systems, obtaining immense power. The story follows many characters, some of which fight the daemon and some of which join the daemon. Both approaches provide thought provoking perspectives.

An interesting case study comes from the daemon’s takeover of Leland, a fictional multi-national financial company. Like many large corporations, Leland depends on a complex IT infrastructure. Recent cuts to the IT budget demonstrate the CEO and board view that infrastructure as an unfortunate operating expense rather than a core intellectual property resource. Those cuts produce vulnerable systems and disgruntled employees, which then facilitate the industrial espionage that introduces the daemon to the system. Once inside, the daemon moves laterally and vertically to compromise the entire system. The chiefs and board recognize the stranglehold too late, and the company becomes part of Daemon Inc. Fiction? Yes. Demonstrates real-world issues? Also yes.

Suarez makes several points through the book about technology and our society. Our world consists of largely monolithic monoculture of interconnected systems. We build layer upon layer on top of insecure technologies at the base. As we squeeze out each inefficiency, we make the entire system less flexible and more brittle. A relatively small number of us really know how the digital world works. Powerful people put their power into technology they do not understand or, even worse, misunderstand. Entire fortunes are made virtually and in the blink of an eye, without any produced good or service. All these set up an environment ripe for a cyber-parasite such as Sobol’s daemon.

Unfortunately, no silver bullet exists for dealing with these issues. Carnegie Mellon lead a study on ultra-large-scale (ULS) systems half-a-dozen years ago. Much excitement surrounded the initial release of the study, but it appears that the research area has languished since then. The study identified “security, trust, and resiliency” as a future topic of interest. Indeed. Those three compose a triumvirate for uptime, with each affecting the others. Any solution for one must consider the other two. Does your plan for server resiliency include security and trust? It should.

I really enjoyed Daemon, and highly recommend it. Many others feel the same way. A few complaints come from those who do not realize this first book only contains the the first half of the story. Picture reading Lord of the Rings and stopping midway through The Two Towers. Fortuitously, the rest of the Daemon story already exists in FreedomTM. I suggest getting both and then disappearing for a couple weeks to finish them. You will not regret it.

Need more info about Daniel Suarez and the ideas from his book? Check out these recent interviews for his Kill Decision book tour:

• Sword & Laser
• Triangulation
• Big Book Show
• Authors at Google