More Wal*Mart

Wal*Mart adventure

Cul-de-sac party!

Neighbor's son having four boys over for his birtday. This is an awesome place to raise kids.

SANS Network Security 2008

Put up my first blog post over at the Trusted Signal Blog.

I saw that SANS' Network Security 2008 in Las Vegas is going to have what's sure to be an awesome keynote by Ed Skoudis and Kevin Johnson on combining traditional and web application penetration testing.

As someone who has done a fair amount of web application pen testing over the years and virtually no traditional penetration testing, I can see how a web application pen test could be used to aid a traditional pen test, but I'd love to hear Skoudis' and Johnson's expert ideas on the subject.

The Last HOPE & house work

Spent most of the weekend working on the house. We're painting. Finally have a color to two that we both can agree on.

This weekend was The Last HOPE conference in NYC. Wish I could have gone. Instead I followed some of the Twitterers at the conference. Big thanks to quine and spacerog for their efforts.

I won't make it to Black Hat or Defcon either this year.

How to eat a donut

Pool daze

Summer is flying by and I haven't been to the pool yet. When I was a child, I lived at the pool in the summer time. Where does the time go?

Grant and Chuck and I were on the swim team, friends with lifeguards and complete pool rats. As I think of those days now, racing bicycles through the streets, over the canal route and through the park to get to the pool, I can't help but smile and feel nostalgic. Those were carefree days.

Soon my own children will be living similar experiences. In a few short years, my children will be racing on their bikes, through the streets, the park, downtown and to the pool. Will they join the swim team? Will they befriend the lifeguards? Will they be pool rats?

Will they recall these days with fondness and wish they could go back to simpler times?

Time is flying by. Life is precious. And short.

Why FISA matters

Again from a fellow Obama supporter trying to convince him to not support the pending FISA legislation in the Senate.

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Alexis N. Mueller "
Date: July 8, 2008 15:29:06 CDT
To: Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right
Subject: [SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA] Re: RE: Why Won't Barack Obama Call Me Personally and explain Every Single Policy Position He Has?

Snip

Martin Niemöller's poem comes to mind. If you will allow me a slight variation (Original Poem):

First they came for my right of protection against illegal searches and seizures,
- but I had nothing to hide, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for my right to due process,
- but I was not accused, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for my right of habeas corpus,
- but I was not locked up, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for my freedom of speech, there was no way left for me to speak out.


Slippery slope, people. Slippery slope.
-Alexis N. Mueller