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Finding Reason in a World Gone Mad

I write this amid violent unrest across the nation. Angry masses are protesting police brutality after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after being pinned down by a White officer. That officer, Derek Chauvin, was charged with murder Friday.

With the internet full of pictures of a police station set aflame, overturned cars and rage-filled faces, I see some people on social media worrying that this is just another byproduct of a larger problem years in the making.

More than a couple people have suggested that this is a slowly unfolding civil war.

Mood Music:

The latest violence comes a few weeks after protests over the pandemic lockdowns, including a series of gatherings where armed protesters flooded the Michigan statehouse.

The civil war predictions usually show up in the comments of such threads. In more than one, I’ve voiced my own worry about it.

This thought is always in the back of my mind. In the early ’90s a lot of armed militias threatened violence. Some acted on it, the most tragic example being the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

But in the last decade, the political divide has become starker. The left and right fringes have become louder and angrier. We have a president who likes to fan the flames on Twitter. More than ever, it feels like America is imploding.

One such illustration is the Boogaloo movement, whose right-leaning anti-government members actively prepare for a second American Civil War. Another example is in the tactics of the left-leaning Antifa movement, founded as an anti-fascist entity but whose tactics have been branded as terrorism by some (Trump declared it a terrorist organization).

Are those fears justified? Time will tell, but let’s step back, take a breath and put things in perspective.

I don’t see the threat of civil warfare as out of the question. But I work in an industry whose job is to consider and plan for scenarios that seem crazy and improbable. Indeed, some crazy things have come to pass. Who would have thought, even four short months ago, that we’d be living in a world of pandemic-fueled lockdowns and an almost-complete freeze of the global economy?

One friend was warning of lockdowns and a depression-caliber economic calamity in late February and I thought he was being over the top. Yet here we are.

We should note a few things about what we see in the real world and online:

  • Everything is hyper-magnified online. When your Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of pictures of armed protesters and buildings on fire, it’s easy to feel like the world around you is truly coming apart.
  • The internet has made it easier for people at the extreme ends of the political spectrum to be heard. They are much more likely to spout off than people with more moderate views.
  • The internet has given us more access to data than we’ve ever had before, but that data never truly shows the full picture and it’s easy for us to cherry-pick the bits that fit into our preconceived views. There’s a term for that: confirmation bias.
  • We’ve always had violent civil unrest in this country. The aftermath of the MLK assassination in 1968 and the L.A. riots in 1992 are but two examples.

Other things worth remembering:

Despite all the vitriol online, there are still a lot of good people in the world who will drop everything to help those in distress, even those with whom they passionately disagree when it comes to politics. I see people who don’t agree on a lot of things stepping up to help each other, like one guy who donated to an online fundraiser to help someone he argues with all the time, after they lost their home in a fire.

Though social media makes it easy for people to say angry things, most of the people I’ve seen do it don’t act on it. It’s not crazy to suggest that the ability of some to blow off steam online has helped them stay nonviolent in reality. Of course, the same can be said for those who take their anger from social media to the real world.

What to do with all this information? I don’t know. I only know what I’ll do with it — try to continue doing the right things through my daily actions.

The world will continue to resemble a Dumpster fire for some time to come.

We can’t fix everything on our own, but there are things we can do each day to make the world a better place.

That’s an obvious thing to say. But in a world gone mad, the words need repeating.

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Conspiracy Theories Aren’t About Good vs. Evil

I recently wrote about how COVID-19 has sparked a deluge of conspiracy theories, most notably those at the center of the “Plandemic” documentary making the rounds. But as I think of my own OCD-driven behaviors over the years, I find that it’s not entirely fair to dismiss these people as cranks and villains.

Mood Music:

I came across a Vox article that drives home the point. In “I Was a Conspiracy Theorist, Too,” Dannagal G. Young, associate professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware, describes the crazed internet rabbit hole she traveled down as she desperately sought answers for why her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor. As she jumped from one potential answer to the next, she wrote:

Each time I landed on a possible culprit, my anger reenergized me. Instead of making me feel hopeless, it gave me a target and suggested there might be some action I could take. If it were from his work or from an old factory site, maybe I could file a lawsuit. Maybe I could launch an investigation or trigger some media exposé. If I could just find the right person or thing to blame, I could get some justice. Or vengeance. Or … maybe just a sense of control.

Take something like the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns, with multitudes stuck at home looking for answers on how we got here and where it all might end, and you get radioactive yet fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. Lots of depressed, increasingly paranoid people with the internet at their fingertips. Lots of rabbit holes to explore.

There’s plenty of gasoline to stoke the flames. The government response has been full of contradictory advice. At the beginning of the pandemic you had the surgeon general tweeting about how masks won’t help. Then states started mandating that people wear them in public. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells Congress one week that it would be a huge mistake to end lockdowns now, only to be quoted a week later saying continued lockdowns would cause “irreparable damage.”

Then there’s the fact that the virus began in China. Given the Chinese government’s sinister actions over the years, it’s easy to wonder if it either created Coronavirus in a lab or accidentally let it leak from a lab where it was being studied.

Isolate people, knock their normal lives off their axis, and this is what happens.

The resulting emotions remind me of what it was like when I was first diagnosed with OCD but hadn’t yet brought it under control. I was paranoid all the time, seeing conspiracy everywhere. In those cases, the paranoia usually manifested itself as the perpetual belief that people at work were conspiring against me, or, at the very least, were constantly talking about me behind my back.

In the pandemic, with my OCD under better control, I’m not given to conspiracy theories. Not that my management of the disorder has been perfect. The compulsive actions that go with it have continuously surfaced, and I’ve had to play whack-a-mole with them. Compulsiveness makes you do a lot of stupid things, and I’ve certainly questioned my sanity and self-control in these last months.

The world is full of fear and uncertainty right now. People want answers and have gotten mixed messages. Economic uncertainty, health concerns, lack of contact with friends and loved ones — all ingredients for conspiracy theories. It’s not a matter of good versus evil or even smart versus stupid. It’s simply what happens in a global environment like this.

We’re all in varying degrees of pain and our collective sanity is fragile. We need to do better looking out for one another.

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Less Talk, More Action

People continue to share opinions as scientific fact, shouting down those who question them. Liberal Democrats do it, so do conservative Republicans. Libertarians do it, as do socialists. As I said in my last post: Yelling at each other and pushing conspiracies won’t end COVID-19 any sooner.

Mood Music:

We need to figure out how to re-open society while continuing to protect as many lives as possible. The simplest solution is mass testing and contact tracing. But the nation’s testing capability is horrendously broken. So what can we do?

  • Contact tracing. This will help us identify more of those who are sick and create an environment where the healthy get out of the house and conduct the business of life while the sick and vulnerable remain sheltered. It will require strong measures to protect privacy. We also need to demand measures to curb the runaway increase in government power that comes with mass surveillance.
  • Varied levels of continued social distancing. In cities where infection rates surge, people will have to do more social distancing and sheltering in place. When cases grow somewhere, targeted lockdowns will be necessary. In areas where cases are low, restrictions can be eased. States will have different dances between opening places back up, closing them again as needed, and eventually opening again. When we return to the offices, we’ll be wearing masks. On it goes.

When I was younger, I thought the ability to opine meant I was smart. Through time and experience, I’ve learned that talk is cheap. Opinions don’t mean action.

Since the start of the pandemic, I’m done my share of talking. Now I’m thinking harder about how I can take action to help. Here’s what I have so far:

  • Doubling down within my profession. I’ll use my skills in research-gathering and writing to help information security practitioners keep their organizations’ defenses strong amid all the disruptions of the pandemic. This is a no-brainer. I’ve already been doing it. But I can always work on ways to do it better.
  • Using this blog. Not to be an armchair pundit, but to share information readers can use to take constructive action and to try and be a voice of reason. There’s a lot of fear, anxiety and depression, and someone must provide perspective. I’m not perfect at that. Far from it. But I’ve had some luck there and will continue to do my best.
  • Sharing a balanced perspective on social media. With so much disinformation circulating on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere, I’ll continue to share articles I find useful and distill the takeaways to help people make sense of what’s happening.
  • Helping provide resources to my community. Along with my family, I’ll continue to do my part to ensure basic needs are met. Stepping up contributions to our parish food pantry is the biggest example right now.

A few things I’m considering:

  • Volunteering some of my time as a contact tracer. Though in my state, this is a paid position, so I’d want to leave those opportunities for folks who are unemployed.
  • Delivering groceries to those who can’t get out.
  • Volunteering more directly at the food pantry.
  • Getting involved in efforts to acquire and distribute masks, gloves and other safety gear for both hospital workers and people who don’t have the luxury of staying home.

By sharing this, I hope to inspire more of you to stop shouting, opinion-flinging and arm flailing. And I welcome your ideas as to how else I can help.

If we sit here doing nothing, our words will mean nothing.

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“Plandemic” and the Loss of Perspective

We’ve reached the toughest part of this lockdown yet. Anger and anxiety are so high that some of us no longer trust our friends and see conspiracy around every corner.

Our discourse is like a van full of clowns swerving all over the road, picking up speed and running people down along the way. There’s a sudden, steep decline in the kindness I recently wrote about. Everyone yells. Nobody listens.

Mood Music:

Conspiracy theories have gotten wilder, including the “Plandemic” video that keeps appearing, getting pulled down by social media sites, then re-appearing again.

The 26-minute “Plandemic Movie” is set up as an excerpt/preview of a larger documentary to come. It’s thesis is that COVID-19 was created so Big Pharma could rake in big profits from vaccines. It also claims sheltering in place breaks down our immune systems and masks can make people sicker. 

A couple people I respect peddled the video on their Facebook pages yesterday in what amounted to a trolling exercise. Other friends who believe the lockdowns are necessary responded with anger and name-calling. The comment threads on those continue to grow longer and more nonsensical.

This loss of perspective was inevitable. No matter how comfortable we are in our homes, several weeks of staying inside with no end in sight is going to turn us into crazed cats in cages.

I’m feeling it, too. The Facebook name-calling I mentioned above? I can’t remember for sure, but I suspect I’m guilty of contributing to some of it.

That’s the other thing with life these days: You can’t remember things you did from one day to the next, even when you’re sober and taking care of yourself.

I have no answers, but I know this: Yelling at each other and pushing conspiracies won’t get us out of our cages any sooner.

I promise to keep reminding myself that we’re all human and that kindness is crucial in these difficult days.

Hopefully, some of you will do the same.

self hatred II by ~xiaoD

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When Kindness and Reason Break Through Facebook’s Wall of Vitriol

Firestorm in the shape of a fist and the middle finger
Firestorm in the shape of a fist and the middle finger

Most days, scanning Facebook reminds me of a picture I found online a few years ago — a mushroom cloud giving the finger.

Sure, there’s plenty of love and amusement to see on the Book of Face. But when it comes to political discourse, particularly in the U.S., people go nuclear with their beliefs.

They verbally vaporize anyone in their path who thinks differently. They drop labels like “fascist” and “liberal.” When challenged on their positions, they respond with “fuck you” while questioning the intellect of whoever’s comment rubbed them wrong.

Conservatives do it. Liberals do it. Centrists do it. And everyone gets shanked from it.

Mood Music:

When you see that shit often enough, it’s easy to miss the better parts of humanity on social media. You see so much hate, rage and self-righteousness that it poisons you.

The other day, several of those middle-finger mushroom clouds came from good people who believe the current strategy of social distancing and economic lock-down is the only sensible approach. The target of their outrage?

A guy worried that those measures are a threat to personal liberty and economic stability.

Irritated, I went on Facebook and scrawled this:

Some of those 78 comments were the predictable rehash of fixed opinions.

Another exchange — between the guy I was writing about and a nurse whose kids went to elementary school with mine — gave me something to be grateful for:

A reminder that in the Facebook viper pit, kindness, reason and understanding do exist if you pay attention.

I know these individuals fairly well and there are political positions they would not agree on. But in this exchange, that didn’t matter.

They connected over things that go beyond economic, political and spiritual ideology: the shared experience of losing loved ones and doing a job in dangerous conditions.

While they traded kind words, others in the thread discussed the challenges at hand and truly seemed to be seeking common ground.

Maybe — just maybe — we can get past petty differences and tackle the bigger problems.

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Trolling in the COVID-19 Era

Many of my friends and I troll each other a lot online. Those who doesn’t know us might think we’re mean-spirited old geezers. But really, it’s how we show affection and even respect. It’s how we know we’re buddies.

Mood Music:

Today’s Mood Music is for my pal Dave Marcus, who is vain and no doubt thinks this post is about him. Also, Faster Pussycat will annoy him. (Too bad Def Leppard never covered the song.)

In this era of lockdowns and political dysfunction, a lot of people are easily offended. That was true before the pandemic, too, but with life as upended as it currently is, people have reached new levels of prickliness.

This post isn’t about how people should behave. Who am I to tell anyone what to think or how to feel? It is, however, about how I personally choose to carry on with people whether I agree with them or not.

My friends fall into the following three categories:

  • Group A thinks all the mask wearing, school closing and economic lockdown is a government plot to enslave us.
  • Group B thinks Group A is a bunch of right-wing thugs willing to let people die to preserve their economic comforts.
  • Group C tries to urge calm and point to sunnier days ahead, sometimes ignoring realities staring them in the face.

I’ve jumped between the three groups since the pandemic began. I don’t think current safety measures are a plot to steal our freedom, though I do worry about government amassing levels of new power we won’t be able to claw back.

I don’t think all of those who oppose social distancing and lockdowns have their head in the sand. Some have prepared for many kinds of emergencies as a matter of course.

I agree with those who believe that if we freeze the economy for too long, there won’t be much of an economy left when it’s all over.

I mostly fall into the C group. I always go looking for the bright side, sometimes to a fault. No apologies here — we need hope to battle through the tough stuff.

I’m going to continue to share articles I believe are from reliable sources and have details we can use to plot our way forward. Some of those will be scary articles about China and bio warfare (never thought I’d share from The EpochTimes, but I trust the writer). Some will paint pictures of economic depression, because we have to be realistic about what we face and plan accordingly. Many will show the better side of humanity during this emergency, because we need reminders that humanity is capable of good.

Some of my friends will affix the laughing emoji to the comments and drop memes and gifs suggesting that I’m overreacting. Others will use the comments section to question my sanity, conclusions or whatever else comes to mind.

I see people on Facebook who hate being questioned or disagreed with. They respond with words like “asshole,” “liberal,” “fascist,” “communist” or just react with the standard “fuck you.” That’s unfortunate, but I wish them well.

To those in my orbit who want to troll: Have at it. You may be idiots, but you’re my idiots.

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4 Problems with Krypt3ia’s Krampus List

I like Scot “Krypt3ia” Terban. The security researcher has a crotchety communication method I enjoy, and I read his posts a lot. I especially enjoy when he goes after security vendors for FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).

So when he released his annual Krampus List — a naughty list for the security community — I read it and laughed a lot.

But as I read through it, I found some of it mean spirited. By the end I found myself in a familiar quandary: How could I laugh and be disgusted at the same time? My brain has always been a mass of contradictions, and this is just another example.

There’s a razor-thin line between good-natured jabs and outright venom. From my perspective, picking on Boris Sverdlick because he “took his third job in two years and moved his family across the country for the third time” was a good-natured ribbing. He has switched jobs a lot and there’s nothing wrong with that. You gotta go where your heart takes you. But when his adventures are chronicled on Facebook, his friends — myself included — like to pick on him, as good friends often do. He gives as good as he gets.

Picking on Kelly Lum (@aloria) for narcissistic drama and a lack of contributing to the community? That was pretty shitty. Sure, her posts can be dramatic, but the same can be said about most of us. Hell, my posts have been all about family deaths and unfinished family business all year. I’m sure some of you don’t like it, but that’s what has been on my mind and you’re welcome to unfriend me any time. Kelly has been open and honest about dealing with mental illness. She’s done her day job well despite all that and has set a good example for the rest of us. Whine all you want about her not contributing to the community. In my book, the example she sets is a big contribution.

But there are bigger problems with Scot’s list:

  • It’s made up of anonymous submissions. It’s easy to rip on someone when nobody knows who you are: You don’t have to back your comments up. You don’t have to worry about being attacked in kind. That’s awfully convenient — and cowardly.
  • People who make the comments almost certainly spread their own drama. The worst hypocrisy is the kind where the hypocrite doesn’t show their face.
  • People love to bitch about “a lack of contribution” to the security community. I find that odd, because if you’re doing your job well, you are contributing to the community.
  • Terban endorses all the comments. Though it’s made up of anonymous submissions, Terban collects them and distributes them, essentially endorsing the mudslinging. When a lot of people are criticized for talking shit and spreading drama, Terban is spraying bullets inside a glass house.

Infosec is hard. The people it attracts can be difficult to work with, myself included. Since we’re connected to each other by Facebook and Twitter, we’re exposed to each other’s personal drama. None of us are perfect. We all have different ways of contributing to the community, and what’s useless to one person is valuable to another.

Laugh all you like at the Krampus List. But if you don’t see some of yourself in there, you might be part of the problem.

Cyber Krampus Logo

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5 Realizations and Defenses from the Family Business

Big pressures aside, I’ve learned much while cleaning up and selling off the old family business and managing trusts Dad left in my hands.

Mood music:

Until I took on this family business stuff, I’d never had to deal with lawyers or real estate people at this magnitude. I had certainly never managed this kind of money. Here are five realizations — and five defenses — that have saved me from implosion.

5 Realizations

  1. Lawyers are the best and worst of humanity. I have to deal with several of our own and other people’s lawyers for real estate matters and environmental remediation. The best ones guide you through traumatic minefields and save you from your own inexperience. The rest bleed you dry and bog you down — and bill you for every drop of blood spilled.
  2. Hurry up and wait. Lawyers, insurance companies, government agencies and vendors love paperwork. I’ve filled out more in the last six months than I have in the previous five years. They want their forms immediately, but once they have them, you wait months for resolution.
  3. Cost estimates are rarely accurate. There’s a huge disconnect between what vendors tell you something costs and what it actually costs. It’s usually more than you’re led to believe.
  4. A good financial advisor can save your life. Mine has guided me through the intricacies of trust management, investments and loads of related tasks. I never could have handled it alone.
  5. Insurance companies have nice people but evil policies. Processing Dad’s life insurance claims is a mind-numbing experience. When I call these companies and talk to real people, they’re nice enough. But the left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. This causes many problems.

5 Defenses

  1. Trust no one. Even when people work for you, blind trust is hazardous. When you have three or more lawyers who have to talk to each other, miscommunication abounds. One will tell you what they think is a solution and you’ll walk away thinking the matter is settled. Then someone else will contradict the previous information and send you back to square one. In business, trust is expensive.
  2. Take care of yourself. I can’t say I’ve learned to do this. But I’m realizing a poorly maintained body will fail under pressure before long.
  3. Paying work comes first. It would be easy for me to let the family business overcome every aspect of my life. There are simply too many moving parts. Early on I found myself taking care of family business before my real work. Then I remembered the real work is what pays the mortgage, the kids’ tuition bills, healthcare and the food on the table. That must always come first.
  4. Make them wait. Since paper pushers take their time, I’m learning to make them wait, too. It’s the closest I come to revenge — and to maintaining balance in my life.
  5. Follow your conscience. I was terrified I’d fuck up everything in the beginning. But when I trust in God and follow my conscience, things work out.

Survival book in the jungle

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Coming Soon: The OCD Diaries Book Series

For years, people have told me to write a book based on this blog. And for years I’ve resisted because life was busy enough between work, family and writing for three blogs. But after some brainstorming with Erin last weekend, the decision is made: I’m diving in. The time is right.

Mood music:

In 2016 I’ll still write fresh posts here, but my main focus as far as The OCD Diaries goes will be on book writing. Not one book, but a series. There are several recurring themes in the blog and instead of jumping from one to the other in one book, the best approach is several small volumes that zero in on specific themes. The idea is for these to be relatively short essay collections. Instead of merely cobbling together old posts, there will be a lot of fresh writing to fuse things together.

I also want to use a lot of art. Some will be my own. But I have many friends who are artists and I want to use these to give them some more exposure.

We’ll be shopping around for a publisher, but if we can’t find a suitable one we’re going to self publish. One of the great things about the Internet is that it’s easier to go it alone, whether it’s book publishing or music recording. I have one big advantage going in: a lot of experience with publishing and plenty of connections in the business.

These will not be self-help books. I’m too flawed to be telling you how you should deal with life. These are just my experiences and observations. The reader can do what they will with it.

Here’s my early thinking on the different volumes. Any and all feedback is appreciated:

  • Lessons from an Imperfect Childhood: Don’t expect this to be a laundry list of grievances from childhood. I have no grievances. Life happens, and we all go through tough times. I also believe that most of us have imperfect childhoods and that we even need it to be that way. This volume is where I’ll write about the lessons my experiences produced.
  • Turning Mental Disorder into a Superpower: This volume will be a chronological narrative of my struggle with OCD and the magic that happened once I realized the goal wasn’t to beat the disorder but to manage it in ways that turn weakness into strength.
  • Grief Management 3.0: Here, I’ll collect my essays about loss, with a focus on how one gets through it.
  •  The EddieTheYeti Collection: I’ve written a lot of posts based on the work of friend and fellow infosec practitioner Eddie Mize, who has done a lot of remarkable art under the name EddieTheYeti. This book will feature my writing and his art.
  • Living with Depression, Fear and Anxiety: My experiences and lessons from all three will be collected here.
  • The Rebellious Catholic: This volume will have essays from my ongoing spiritual journey.
  • What InfoSec Taught Me About Dealing with Life: My work in the security industry has produced critical lessons on how I need to live my life. Expect an emphasis on the many mistakes I’ve made and why they were ultimately for the good.

Will I get through this whole list in 2016? I doubt it. But the new year will be my starting point. Titles and the number of volumes are also likely to change.

Let the games begin.

Uncle Fester reading a self-help book while lying in bed

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Why I Don’t Separate Personal from Professional on Social Media

In the world of social media, I’ve seen a lot of folks try to keep their work and personal lives separate. For business, people use LinkedIn. Facebook is for friends and family. But I never even tried to do this. Here’s why.

Mood music:

I used to think it was possible for me to put on different faces for different crowds. I could have my family face, reserved for when I was at home or at family gatherings. Then, when it was time to go to work, I could put on my work face. For friends I could put on my friend face.

For a while, I managed to carry on that way. I had my reserved side for family. I’d exchange pleasantries but wouldn’t open up much. For work I showed my serious side, the cool demeanor that hid all the insecurities. For friends I showed my crazy side, with a mouth full of profanity and dark humor.

As I started working on myself a little over a decade ago, coming to grips with my demons, fears and self-destructive behavior, I realized I couldn’t hold all those pieces together anymore. It started to feel like juggling, and I’ve never been good at juggling.

The more it became a struggle, the harder I tried to make it work. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I let the different sides of myself melt into one pot.

The crazy, profane, serious, quirky parts of me were now there for all to see — at home, at work and in front of friends.

That was a moment of freedom for me. By pulling my various personalities out of their individual boxes, I became whole.

When social networking came along, I didn’t even try to keep things separate for different audiences. I realized I couldn’t do it in the real world, so how could I do it online? Whether it’s at an industry gathering, a party with friends or family or swapping comments with folks online, I let it all hang out.

I’m more honest — and happier — that way.


“Flower of My Madness,” by EddieTheYeti