Read: Breaking and Entering

Today is Veteran’s Day. Make sure you reach out to someone who served and check-in to see how they are doing or if they need anything. I mean it. They deserve our time and energy, and our thanks.

Okay, shortly after I finish this post I will be burning this hard drive, tossing my phone in the fire, and I will be covering my head in tinfoil. And even this isn’t enough. In short, the online world is a digital house of cards and it’s not if you get hacked it’s when. You may or may not survive.

Major systems are ripe for the picking. All of them. Airlines, banks, retail, medical, etc. For some unknown and peculiar reason, I am fascinated by hacking and how these people and systems are born. Jeremy Smith’s “Breaking and Entering,” follows the birth and subsequent success of “Alien,” an MIT trained hacker who went on to found a very successful cybersecurity and risk assessment company.

Black hat, white hat, gray hat. I love stories like these so I’m jaded when it comes to recommending a book like this. I enjoy all of them. On a nice side note, Alien ends up working for Los Alamos National Laboratory (briefly) and actually lived in Santa Fe, so who knows. Maybe we crossed paths and never knew it.

This book left me feeling like I do when I think I’ve lost my phone. A frantic full-body pat down. Hoping and praying I haven’t lost it. That is what online security feels like. And for those of you who downplay this like you downplay having an actual photography archive, just know you are ripe for the picking. We should also sign out and sign in right….this….second.