I am a work at home dad, and I love my kids. Sometimes, like now, my heart is broken because my kids are addicted to technology and video games.
Relative to the other kids, Teddy and Jesse are great, but relative to their potential, technology is robbing them of the best times of their life. Both of them have their talents (Teddy golf and Jesse piano), but they are unable to explore these talents because rather than practicing, challenging themselves, and growing, their free time is wasted mindlessly watching videos or video games. They lose hours. Sure, as a parent, I try to be vigilant and stern, but it is exhausting and a losing battle.
My children now 15 and 13 years old lack many social skills of children of prior generations. Rather than interact with other kids, and learning to “get along”, they run home and myopically staring at a seven inch screen.
Perhaps the most worrisome is the skill of observation. They believe that the world is to be experienced through a 2 dimensional screen that tickles two senses (see and hear) and ignores the other three senses (touch, taste and smell). Real world is a beautifully complex ecosystem, and yet their experience is limited to what their devices can deliver.
At times, it is overwhelming, but then I realize it is not the children that are lost in this artficial fake technology bubble, it is the adults. God help us.
After a grueling eight-hour layover in Atlanta, my guitar and I finally boarded the last plane of the night. After scanning my ticket, Delta Lady #1 ran down the jetway to give me a ticket to place on my guitar.
I told her that my plan was to place the guitar in the closet in the front of the plane. I have traveled with my guitars on dozens of segments on multiple airlines and aircraft without incident. There has always been space in the small closet in the front of the plane or in the overhead bins. In retrospect, I regret not accepting the ticket.
I entered the plane and asked about placing the guitar in the closet, and Delta Lady #2 said that the closet might be full and was reserved for first class. My only option was to place the guitar in the overhead bins. I did not argue and continued to my seat.
Near my seat, there was an empty overhead bin, and I lifted my guitar. Delta Lady #3 said it would not fit, and guitars were not allowed in the overhead bins. Unfortunately, she approached to block me from placing the guitar. I reacted poorly, and continued stowing the guitar. I quickly learned that Delta Lady #3 was correct and Delta Lady #2 was incorrect, the guitar did not fit in the overhead bin.
The situation was escalating which made me uncomfortable. Delta Lady #3 provoked with “How would you feel if someone told you how to do your job?” and “I can get you thrown off the plane.” I ignored the taunts. Another passenger swore at me, and I kept quiet. I started back up the aisle with the guitar, and Delta Lady #2 was approaching, so I gave her the guitar, and sat down at my assigned seat.
A few minutes passed, and Delta Man #1 approached and gave me the ticket for the guitar. Later Delta Man #1 approached me, and gave me an OK sign. A few more minutes passed, and Delta Man #1 returned and told me that I had to leave the airplane.
In the jetway, Delta Man #1 explained that Delta Lady #3 would explain what happened, and that I needed to apologize. She recited her version of events and stated that I failed to obey her instructions. I did not tell her that her instructions differed from Delta Lady #2. I complied and apologized. She did not feel that the apology was adequate and had me thrown off the plane.
In March 2022, the Biden administration announced that cyber attacks from Russia were imminent. Although this is untrue, it shines a light on how unprepared the federal government and the rest of the country are for a nation state attack.
A nation state attack is exponentially more serious than ransomware. Unlike ransomware, a nation attack does not attempt to extort a fee to restore operations. It simply destroys without regard to consequence.
More importantly, a nation attack accelerates the frequency and sophistication of the attacks. For over a decade, the United States, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have been stockpiling vulnerabilities in the event of a cyber war. This is the reason why a cyber attack is NOT imminent, because Russia knows that America likely has a larger stockpile with more severe consequences.
When the Americans shut down 3 Iranian nuclear reactors and Russia shut down the Ukrainian electric grid, each of these attacks were accomplished through one vulnerability. The WannaCry virus infected 250K computers in one day through one vulnerability.
Any nation state, and most certainly Russia, has dozens if not hundreds of these vulnerabilities. Rather than one vulnerability, a nation state attack would deploy numerous vulnerabilities simultaneously entering unobstructed into every server and endpoint and any other device that contained critical information in the nation.
The first line of defense is patch management but this is wholly ineffective because patch management works with known vulnerabilities and these vulnerabilities are unknown by design.
The next line of defense is the antivirus which has not functioned against modern threats for almost a decade yet consumers and businesses and even the federal government blindly throw money at this obsolete vestige from a prior era of computing. So the attack continues.
The last line of defense is EDR / XDR / Zero Trust, which attempts to detect and respond to the full frontal onslaught nation state attack. Unlike ransomware, a nation attack would overwhelm the SOC (Security Operations Center) and it would quickly fall down.
This exposes the largest flaw in the nation’s defense. EDR / XDR / Zero Trust / SOC cannot scale to meet a spike in attacks. For a SOC to double in size, would take months, and a nation state can increase its attack level in seconds.
As stated earlier, this is not going to happen due to a respect for America’s vulnerability stockpile, however our defense frameworks should consider the possibility of a nation state attack. Unfortunately, none of the popular frameworks including NIST, MITRE and even Jack Voltaic comprehend the possibility of a nation state attack.
The first nation to contemplate in its national defensive cyber strategy the impact of a nation attack will win the cyber war. The first nation to effectively create cyber defenses that negate a flood of vulnerabilities attacks from a nation state will rise to the top of the world order, because it is no longer exposed to a cyber counter strike.
There is a solution and that is application whitelisting, AKA allow listing or software asset management. As NIST has been recommending for the last 7 years, application whitelisting should reside between the patch management and the antivirus layers. In this way, during a nation state cyber attack, the application whitelisting will strictly allow authorized applications to run. During this scenario, the volume on the network is substantial and network performance may deteriorate but it will not fall down. Some new good programs may not run properly until the attacks abate, but the goal is resilience, to withstand the attack.
This resilience gives patch management time to identify the vulnerability and remediate the vulnerability so the attacks abate. The nation state will likely deploy more of its stock of vulnerabilities which should also prove futile. At this point, the nation is deploying vulnerabilities faster than it can replenish, until the stockpile falls to zero. Then America wins.
Secure the Homeland.
Rob, do you have a digital out of home planning and buying agency? The ominous music of your current tv spot caused me to turn towards the tv to see visual of word content that is just as compelling. Buy American!
I want to win you as a client. My ad agency is small and nimble and female owned. It is our joy to deliver and exceed for those we work with and for! We need to air this spot on a few digital place based networks that also offer full sight, sound and motion. You need to trust me on this. Thanks for your time!