Just a quick note that there will be no fresh posts here for the next week. Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. I’ll simply be at a big security event and will be plenty busy there. Until then, peace be with you all. 🙂
Cancer: Faces of Bravery, Faces of Fear
The photos tell the tale clearly. Beth Whaanga, mother of four, has been through hell. She has the scars to prove it. And when she decided to show the world, people on Facebook unfriended her.
Mood music:
Whaanga has been in a long and brutal battle against cancer. Multiple surgeries have left her body mangled, though when fully clothed, the scars are hidden. She chose to reveal those scars in a photo series called “Under the Red Dress.” According to The Huffington Post, she lost 103 Facebook friends over it.
“When Beth posted these images on Facebook, 103 of them UNFRIENDED her immediately,” columnist Rebecca Sparrow wrote. “Some felt the images were inappropriate or even pornographic.”
Some say the people who did so are jerks, uptight prudes who prefer that life’s unfair twists remain hidden from view.
I prefer to think that they just acted on fear. They see the danger to their own lives and those of their loved ones in the photos. The first thing most people do in the face of fear is turn and run away. We’ve all done that. I certainly have. The hope is that over time we learn to turn back and face the fear. In time, I think at least some of them will.
What Whaanga did was brave and beautiful. She shows us that despite the damage she suffered, life goes on. She continues to live and love.
I know too many people with cancer. Some are distant friends, some are in my immediate family. They’ve shown bravery in the face of cancer in their own ways, but I hope Whaanga’s photos offer them additional inspiration and hope.
The Courage of Brian Krebs
Brian Krebs has been kind enough to compliment me on this blog a few times, telling me I have courage for writing about the demons. Today I celebrate Krebs’ courage, which is far more formidable than anything I could ever hope to possess.
Mood music:
For years at The Washington Post (which foolishly cut him loose) and more recently through Krebs on Security, the man has relentlessly investigated online crime and written scores of groundbreaking articles on his findings.
Hackers lurking deep in the bowels of the Internet’s seedy underbelly have good reason to hate Krebs’ guts. This is the guy who broke news of the recent Target breach, not to mention most of the other big security stories that went mainstream in recent memory.
And the bad guys aren’t happy. In the past they have:
- Sent poop and heroin to Krebs’ doorstep
- Stolen his identity half a dozen times
- Targeted his website with withering denial-of-service attacks
- Triggered a SWAT team raid on his home just as his mom was arriving for dinner
None of it has stopped Krebs.
As a journalist, I always envied the man. You could say I hated him as much as the black hats of the underground. Too many times to count, I had to follow up on news stories he broke for the sake of getting headlines on my employers’ sites. It always frustrated me that he could sniff out the tough stuff. It often made me feel inferior.
This was the typical newsroom conversation:
Editor: Did you see that Krebs post? We have to have something on that.
Me, in standard reporter denial mode: Fuck Krebs. He’s not writing about where the security industry is headed. All he writes about is the latest cybercrime.
Editor: Yeah, and he’s winning. Follow it up.
Me: Fuuuuuuuuck.
But in time, I came to appreciate and admire him. I even started to see him as a hero.
Though still a writer, I’m no longer a reporter chasing news, and that has allowed me to shed the last of the biases I may have held against Krebs.
Or, maybe more to the point, it allows me to admit something I probably wouldn’t have acknowledged in those earlier roles — I was jealous of the man’s tenacity and balls. Jealous with a capital J.
Krebs’ boldness has captured a lot of headlines lately, including this one in The New York Times, whose editors were probably delighted to remind The Washington Post of how stupid it was to fire him.
He has also received a lot of awards lately. Tuesday, for example, the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group awarded him its M3AAWG Mary Litynski Award at the organization’s meeting Tuesday in San Francisco. In announcing it, the group said:
With an intense passion and impressive self-taught technical skill, investigative journalist Brian Krebs has persistently and courageously shed a rare light on the dark underbelly of the Internet that has resulted in the disruption or shutdown of innumerable cybercrime operations.
The award and comments are well earned.
Congrats, my friend. The world is a better place because you’re in it.
Krebs at work. Photo by Daniel Rosenbaum/New York Times News Service
Cancer Can’t Stop the Almighty Cashdollar
A friend and colleague announced via Facebook and Twitter that he has thyroid cancer.
Larry Cashdollar — an Akamai security researcher I like to call “The Almighty Cashdollar” — was tested a few weeks ago, and I know he’s been worried. Now, at least, he knows what he’s up against.
Mood music:
He wrote:
I have thyroid #cancer. I’ve been waiting for the last week for my biopsy results and the doctor called today.
— Larry W. Cashdollar (@_larry0) February 17, 2014
But he’s going to prevail. Here’s why.
- As cancers go, the thyroid variety is among the most easily beaten. I know quite a few people who had it and, since surgery, have been cancer free.
- Larry is tough. I’ve seen it in his workmanship. This is a guy who continued trying to do security research while lying in a hospital bed with  pneumonia.
- He has a good sense of humor. One of the first conversations I had with him was at dinner during last summer’s Black Hat hacker conference. We had a lot of laughs that night, and humor is the greatest weapon we have in a world gone mad.
- He’s prevailed against the tough stuff before. Did I mention he tried to keep working from a hospital bed once? The dude is crazy, and you can’t beat crazy.
- He has a lot of people pulling for him at home and work.
Now that you have an answer, I know you’re going to overcome this in short order, my friend.
I look forward to writing about your security research again. I doubt I’ll be waiting long.
Exploiting Tate-LaBianca Murders for Fun and Profit?
Y’all know I’ve long been obsessed about the Tate-LaBianca murders. But let’s be clear: All those stories about the spirits of Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring haunting a house a few doors down from where the murders took place? I don’t buy any of it.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/5fvJEpdq8a8
The claim has been made by David Oman, whose home has been the subject of a Ghost Hunters episode and several other news reports.
Oman has been all too eager to invite people to his “haunted house” and those who’ve been there claim to have seen and heard strange things. But when you put someone in the spotlight, they’re bound to tell the world anything. They may even want to believe it so badly that they end up thinking they saw things that weren’t really there.
Now the house is in an episode of Ghost Adventures. People talk about having been being overcome with depression as they drove up the private way to Oman’s house. And Oman and others say the strange happenings are about more than the Tate hauntings. The site is also a Native American burial ground and a hotbed of paranormal activity, they say.
I remain skeptical. First of all, I drove up and down that street three times and never experienced any weird feelings. Secondly, Oman produced a movie loosely based on the murders called House at the End of the Drive, and I can’t help but suspect all the ghost stories are publicity to pump up the film.
There is also the fact that a lot of other residents in that neighborhood have never experienced anything abnormal.
It annoys me how people continue to exploit five murder victims who didn’t deserve the cards they were dealt. It seems we refuse to let them rest in peace.
If Oman ever invited me into his house — and I doubt he ever would — I’d go in. I’d even spend the night. One, because I’m curious. Two, because I’m always open to the possibility that I’m wrong. If I were proven wrong, I’d write about it.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Photo by Bill Brenner. The big mansion on the left is where Sharon Tate’s house once stood. Oman’s house is on the far right.
A Birthday Message to Colin
A mom from Kalamazoo, Mich., created a Facebook page for her son called “Happy Birthday Colin.” She did so after he told her he had no friends to invite to his upcoming birthday celebration. Colin has issues that are similar to autism, though his specific diagnoses are not yet public. Given my youngest son’s challenges on that front — not to mention my own — this squeezed my heart. What follows is an open letter to Colin.
Mood music:
Dear Colin:
Because of the mental and physical challenges you face, some people have trouble figuring you out. Some classmates and their parents may not be comfortable around you. They mean no harm. It’s just that, unfortunately, human beings often react foolishly to things they don’t understand.
I experienced that as a kid, though probably not to the degree you are experiencing now. Some of the kids who made fun of me back then are good friends today. Because we eventually grow up and learn to understand and even appreciate our differences.
If I’ve learned anything in my own journey, it’s that you can’t always hide from hurt and disappointment. Life is hard. But it’s supposed to be.
It’s how we find out what we’re truly made of.
Item: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a pampered child whose worldview changed when he was crippled by polio in 1921. A lot of people would have given up right there, but he rebuilt his life, became a mentor to other polio victims and was the longest-serving president in history, dealing with war and economic calamity that could have broken the spirit of healthier leaders. Through it all, he carried on an outward cheeriness that put people at ease.
When I was a kid there were plenty of roadblocks. I missed a lot of school because of Crohn’s Disease and lost a brother when I was only a couple of years older than you are now. My studies suffered, and I was put in a lot of the classes where they put the problem children.
Things worked out, though. I got married and had two kids that are much smarter than I was at that age. I have a job that’s allowed me to do a lot of excellent things (excellent to me, anyway).
You shouldn’t settle for anything less than the life you want. And you shouldn’t resign yourself to the idea that you can’t have good friends.
Item: Abraham Lincoln suffered crippling depression his whole life and lost two of his four children, all in a time before anti-depressants were around. He led the Union through the Civil War and ended slavery.
There will be setbacks and those can be discouraging, but you CAN survive them with the right perspective. Be patient with those around you and they will come around someday.
Item: The drummer from Def Leppard had an arm ripped off in a car wreck. A lot of people thought his career was over. Twenty-six years later, he’s still drumming.
Just keep trying, and never give up on yourself. Nobody can hold you back. Only YOU can hold yourself back.
One more thing: Having a good life doesn’t mean you get to live without the bad stuff from time to time.
It’s easy for people who fight mental illness and neurological disorders to go on an endless, futile search for the happily ever after, where you somehow find the magic bullet to murder your demons, thus beginning years of bliss and carefree existence.
There’s no such thing as happily ever after.
That’s OK.
I believe in you. Your mom certainly believes in you.
The rest is up to you.
Your friend,
Bill
The Danger of False Memories
Since this blog is part memoir, I worry about misremembering the past when I write about it. I’m obsessed with truth and recall things to the best of my recollection. But I know that for every memory I share, someone out there will remember things differently.
A Daily Beast article reminds me that I’m right to be obsessive about honesty.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/_FPBi9N9hNc
The article notes how terrifyingly easy it is for therapists and investigators to plant false memories in a person as they lob one question after the next in an ironic attempt to get to the truth. From the article:
In the real world false memories can result from well-meaning investigators asking leading questions, from therapists trying to uncover hidden truths, and yes, from distraught parents engaged in acrimonious divorce proceedings. …
It’s important to point out that a false memory is different from a lie. Liars know what really happened, but claim something different. People with false memories honestly believe what they’re saying—there is no intent to deceive. They’re just wrong about what actually happened, for predictable reasons.
There’s some comfort in knowing that you’re not lying if you misremember. But that’s cold comfort to someone who remembers an event differently and feels you have lied about them.
All I can do is keep recounting things to the best of my ability. And I try to always put a disclaimer in posts saying that I’m writing my memory of something, not necessarily the unvarnished truth.
That said, the article prompted me to think back on my own therapy in search of times when a therapist’s questions may have led me to a false memory.
My therapists have helped me a lot, and their approach has always been to ask me questions but not steer me in one direction or another. They’ve typically asked general questions and let me talk from there. If any false memories have been created, it would have been during follow-up questioning. But none of my therapists have questioned me aggressively.
I’ve also always approached therapy in a somewhat standoffish fashion, skeptical of any suggestion they give me. I’ve approached my appointments that way specifically because I didn’t want to be led wrong by their feedback. Therapists are human, after all, and I do know people whose therapists filled their minds with a bunch of bunk.
Up to this point, I think my strategy has worked. Still, you never know when you might be remembering something differently than how things really went down.
Fortunately, many people who were there have told me they remember events much the same way. But some have recalled a different version of events. Whenever they do, it’s my job to think long and hard about their version versus mine, and, whenever necessary, to correct the record.
An Anxiety Attack
Friday afternoon I didn’t feel right. It was as if an anvil had been strapped to my chest. Breathing was labored. My face had that pins-and-needles sensation. I had to use the bathroom a couple times in short sequence. I’m pretty sure it was an anxiety attack.
Mood music:
I used to get them all the time, and overcoming them has been a central theme of this blog. I’ve largely controlled the attacks with Prozac and Wellbutrin.
Truth is, before Friday I can’t remember the last time I experienced one. That it came on with such force was more than a little distressing.
I don’t have to think too hard to figure out where it came from. I’ve been under a lot of stress. I’ve been doing a lot of driving the kids around. There are appointments everywhere on the calendar I look. My sleep is erratic. As great as work is going, I’m managing the endgame for a huge project I’ve been working on since early June and much is at stake.
All good things, but stressful nonetheless.
Friday the attack started while Erin and I were sitting in the accountant’s office, where we were getting our taxes done. The appointment was taking longer than expected, and we had to pick the kids up from school. I worried about the traffic and then fretted about having to go right back out to pick up trophies for a Cub Scout awards ceremony. I was thinking about things I wanted to do Saturday night, worrying about all the different ways those plans could be derailed.
It’s also February, when I start worrying about bad weather and family crises getting in the way of the biggest security conference of the year. Last year I was driven to distraction by that very worry, though that was more low-level anxiety, not an outright attack.
I have some work to do, untangling the various emotions and putting my coping tools to effective use. Back when these attacks were a twice-weekly problem I didn’t have the tools I have now. I’m also much better aware of the symptoms and at zeroing in on the triggers.
That’s something to be thankful for, and I am.
Like the rest of my demons, this is a life-long adversary to be kept in check. And so it will be.
Angry with CVS for Dropping Cigarettes? Smoke Another One
When CVS Pharmacy announced it would stop selling tobacco products last week, most people were either supportive or indifferent. Then there were a few suggesting the chain is a loyal foot soldier of the so-called nanny state; telling people what they can and can’t buy.
Mood music:
Most of the discontent is over at Fox News, where The Real Story host Gretchen Carlson asked her guests, “Is it OK legally … to restrict tobacco availability in a private store like this? For people who smoke, you know, they have a right to buy cigarettes. It’s not illegal.”
Fox Business pundits Neil Cavuto and Melissa Francis bemoaned the slippery slope CVS was traveling down, asking what’s next: Ring Dings? Doritos?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Here’s mine:
CVS has the right to decide what it will and won’t sell — whether it’s tobacco or junk food. People who don’t like it can shop elsewhere.
People do have the right to buy cigarettes. I myself use e-cigs and usually buy them at one of my local gas stations. People can buy their junk food pretty much anywhere.
The freedom to abuse oneself won’t end because CVS has gone down this path.
Frankly, I think CVS showed balls in nixing tobacco. In the short term, at least, the decision is going to cut into its bottom line. It’s choosing to strip itself to the roots and strengthen its hand as a company that deals in health. Good for CVS.
Even if it were bad for the company, so what? The owners can do what they want. Because, you know, theirs IS a private company.
Coca-Cola’s “America the Beautiful” Ad and Misplaced Outrage
I finally got around to watching the Coca-Cola “America the Beautiful” ad that made so many people angry. So now I ask you: What’s the big deal?
http://youtu.be/443Vy3I0gJs
I usually avoid debates about immigration and whether people should learn to speak English in order to live here. There’s no winning debates like that. It’s a classic liberal vs. conservative argument. Those who feel strongly one way or the other are set in their views and will fly into a rage anytime someone presents a different opinion.
This commercial, originally shown during last weekend’s Super Bowl, sparked all the old outcries, including this from conservative commentator Glenn Beck:
“So somebody tweeted last night and said, ‘Glenn, what did you think of the Coke ad?,’ Beck said in a segment flagged by BuzzFeed. “And I said, ‘Why did you need that to divide us politically?’ Because that’s all this ad is. It’s in your face, and if you don’t like it, if you’re offended by it, you’re a racist. If you do like it, you’re for immigration. You’re for progress. That’s all this is: to divide people.”
Thing is, I look at this commercial and think nothing about politics. Nor do I think about Immigration Reform. I don’t think about the merits of speaking English only. I don’t think about Democrats or Republicans.
I simply see a video celebrating America’s diversity. Spanish isn’t the only language covered. It captures languages from around the world, representing all the world’s cultures. It celebrates the melting pot that is the U.S.A. Scores of cultures, living together.
There’s nothing political about it.
The only reason this ad has sparked controversy is because the typical voices from the extreme ends of the political spectrum chose to make a big deal about nothing.
Leave it to someone like Beck to take an ad promoting togetherness and turn it into a tirade about divisiveness.
Good grief.
