Bill Brenner

What I Learned About Myself at DEF CON

by Bill Brenner August 11, 2014 Fear and anxiety

I’m just back from Las Vegas, where I attended BSidesLV, Black Hat and DEF CON. I’m jet-lagged as hell and feel like toxic waste, but I’m also feeling pretty good about myself. Mood music: Here’s the thing about DEF CON: Attendance is huge, the lines are long and it’s easy to find yourself wedged between crowds of humanity moving in different directions. Like all of Vegas’ casinos, a thick cloud of cigarette smoke hangs in…  [Read More]

Telling the Tate-LaBianca Story: Truth and Embellishment

by Bill Brenner August 9, 2014 Crime and punishment

Update 7/30/20: Since writing this post, I’ve been in touch with David Oman and believe my criticism below was harsh. He has invited me to visit his house next time I’m in the area and I hope to do so. As I said before, when following a case like the Manson murders, everyone has a theory and some do, as Brian Davis noted, “worm their way” into the narrative by exploiting people who were there…  [Read More]

Tate-LaBianca, 45 Years Later: A Strange Society of Manson Watchers

by Bill Brenner August 6, 2014 Crime and punishment

This week marks the 45th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders. I’m marking it first with a prayer for the victims and second by making note of some interesting people I’ve met as a result of this lifelong Manson obsession I have. I’ve been to L.A. twice, and both times drove around to the two murder sites and other places. I’ve also read Restless Souls: The Sharon Tate Family’s Account of Stardom, the Manson Murders, and…  [Read More]

Leave Abigail Hernandez Alone

by Bill Brenner July 31, 2014 Crime and punishment

Trashing the victim in a crime is nothing new; we’ve been doing it forever. That doesn’t make it right. Mood music: After the Manson murders in 1969, for example, the newspapers were full of speculation about how the victims may have done themselves in by living a lifestyle that attracted dangerous people. Today people are fixated on the case of Abigail Hernandez, a 15-year-old New Hampshire girl who recently returned home after being missing for several…  [Read More]

Revere Tornado: Was Reaction Overblown?

by Bill Brenner July 30, 2014 Dealing with life

Someone on Facebook complained about those who compared the damage done to Broadway in Revere after a tornado tore through on Monday to a war zone. Soldiers who’ve seen battle wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, he said, and the damage was nothing like what people experience regularly in the Midwest, where entire towns are wiped from the map. Mood music: Normally, I’d agree with a statement like that. I spend much of my blogging time pointing out all…  [Read More]

That Restless Feeling When You’re Waiting to Travel

by Bill Brenner July 29, 2014 Infosec

This time next week I’ll be traveling to Las Vegas for three security conferences, and I’m finding myself in a restless state of mind. It’s that point where the planning and logistics have been worked out, and I’m itching to just get on with the mission at hand. It’s a mindset that conflicts with the “one day at a time” system of living I’ve worked hard to adopt in recent years. Mood music: I do…  [Read More]

Happy in My Discomfort

by Bill Brenner July 28, 2014 Fear and anxiety

I’ve written about information security for more than a decade, but I’ve never pulled the levers, so to speak, until this past week. It’s both terrifying and awesome. Mood music: People in my industry assume I know how to conduct a penetration test, process software vulnerabilities and manage compliance operations. Truth is, I know how to write about this stuff, but I’ve never actually done these things. I never claimed that I had, but since…  [Read More]

Black Hat, BSidesLV, DEF CON Anxiety Leads to Stress Dreams

by Bill Brenner July 24, 2014 Infosec

I typically don’t remember my dreams, but Tuesday night I had a doozy of a stress dream. You could say my brain was smacking me for making light of other people’s anxieties in the run up to Black Hat, DEF CON and BSidesLV. Every year at this time I start to hear people worrying aloud about their Vegas schedules, which is understandable. I used to create detailed schedules but threw out the script a few…  [Read More]

When Cops Do Bad Things: The Eric Garner Incident

by Bill Brenner July 23, 2014 Fear and anxiety

This video of a man being choked to death by police is getting a lot of attention lately: Even The New York Times covered the incident. This sort of thing is normally New York Post territory. Of course, the video does come from the Post. You can hear people in the background talking about police bullying an innocent man whose only crime was trying to break up a fight. Police claim he was initially approached…  [Read More]

The Battle of Market Basket

by Bill Brenner July 22, 2014 Food

Several people have asked what I think of the Market Basket drama, including the boycotts and empty shelves as employees fight for the reinstatement of recently canned CEO Arthur T. Demoulas. Here’s my answer. Mood music: Many people worry about what will become of a supermarket chain that, up to this point, has been the cheapest on the block. If this chain goes bye-bye, a lot of people in financial distress worry they’ll have more trouble putting food…  [Read More]

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