@fifonetworks@infosec.exchange

Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Aug 03, 2026

Over the weekend a residential client asked, "Can I pay you with Zelle?" I said yes. Then, I immediately logged into my US Bank business checking account and enabled Zelle payment processing. Years ago when I asked my CPA if I should start taking credit card payments, he said, "Bob, if someone wants to give you money, find a way to say yes." Since then, in addition to credit cards, I've added PayPal, Venmo, and now Zelle. #entrepreneurship #techsupport

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 27, 2026

Over the weekend a man in Oregon called for tech support (I’m in Washington). “Bob, I can’t get my printer to work.” I connected remotely to his computer while we talked on the phone. He’s running Windows 11 Home, 25H2. I opened “Printers & Scanners” to see what’s up. He has one printer, and it had an error message. I started from the beginning: downloaded and installed the current driver package directly from the HP website, power cycled the printer, and rebooted the computer. I tested printing from “Printers & Scanners” with the normal test page, then tested from Microsoft Word – oops! – it’s coming up in fax mode! I set the printer as default and tested again. Then I asked the client to try printing something, whatever it was that he couldn’t print before he called me. He opened Outlook, opened an attachment, and printed it. Success. You see, a lot of this isn’t hard. They just need a friend. He’s a residential client. I looked in my records, and he’s been a client since May of 2019. This was the eighth invoice in seven years. The last invoice before this was in October, 2024 – 21 months ago! But he remembers me, and when he does need help, I get the call. THE LESSON Repeat business matters. But you also need to have a large, dynamic, growing customer base, because everyone doesn’t need your help every month. Does this seem insecure? Never knowing if, or when, a client will call back? No. It’s not insecure at all, if you build your client base. The beauty of this business model is that no one person can ever fire you. No one can take away your income. You’ve got to do the work, though, of providing consistently good service, and always be marketing. Continually be about the business of nurturing and growing your customer base. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #RemoteSupport #TechSupport #HelpDesk

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 23, 2026

While making coffee for my mid-morning break today, it occurred to me that my stainless steel coffee filter is an appropriate analogy for the security of your information when you pour it into an AI LLM. #ai #cybersecurity

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 23, 2026

I replaced the keyboard on my desk setup today (laptop, but with external monitors, mouse, and keyboard). And I am reminded once again that my favorite keyboard of all time is STILL the keyboard on a Commodore 64.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 21, 2026

Replying to @pws@social.coop

@pws@social.coop That's exactly right, and an important point. In my profile you'll find this: "I do a fair amount of custom work for people when a loved one dies: unlocking computers, data recovery, and account recovery (Advice: keep paying their cell phone bill until you've got all their data back)." I remember one case in particular where a man died and his only living relative was a brother in his seventies. We charged the battery on the deceased man's cell phone. Even though the brother couldn't unlock the phone, it was configured to display text messages on the lock screen, so I was still able to use it for MFA with various accounts. The cell phone makes data and account recovery much easier.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 20, 2026

A man passed away recently. He had eight different email addresses, including a couple that belonged to his wife before she died in 2019. His family is paying me to close down his social media presence and close out the email accounts. I just closed an AOL email account that he opened in the 1990s. A couple of the other old emails (anyone remember Juno?) had no MFA, and the passwords consisted only of uppercase and lowercase letters. These old email addresses are a spammer’s dream. Easy to crack into, well established addresses, and the deceased person won’t complain or tighten security. If you have a loved one who passed away, make some decisions about their email addresses. Add MFA that you control if you’re going to keep the email active. And when it’s time, close the account. I know that’s a big emotional step. It seems so final. On the other hand, your loved one probably doesn’t want their old email address used for cybercrime. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #RemoteSupport #TechSupport #HelpDesk

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 19, 2026

Downtown Seattle saw a big boost from the FIFA World Cup, and now they want to keep the increased foot traffic. This is not rocket science. Deal with the homeless problem. Reduce the crime rate. Provide adequate, affordable parking. Voila! Foot traffic will return to downtown. #Seattle

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 18, 2026

We watched "Blackberry" on Netflix last night. I highly recommend it if you're into the history of modern technology. It says right in the description that it's fictionalized, and inspired by, actual events, so don't take it too seriously. But even with that, there was one element - an innovation by the RIM engineer to improve capacity - that I'm sure was the origin of something we now take for granted in all Internet-based communications systems. I don't want to give any spoilers, but it was cool. I went, "Oh, so that's how that started!" Other nice things for me were images of some of the old tech, including test equipment, in their original headquarters. There were some technical absurdities - again, I don't want to give any spoilers - but some of us will easily be able to say, "That part was pure fiction!" because the writers/producers got it so wrong it literally couldn't have happened. But overall, a believable reenactment, good casting, and fun to watch. #Netflix #Blackberry #Internet #telecom

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 16, 2026

My primary domain was down for about 4 hours today, and my work email went down with it. Having no email for 4 hours is not cool! (I know, you're probably one of the people who prays to the Almighty for freedom from email).

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 15, 2026

Operations Manager: “There’s a beeping sound coming from the server room.” Business Owner: “No worries, it’s the UPS. You’ll see a button that says Mute. Just press the button and it’ll stop.” A full week went by, and then the Ops Manager called me. “Bob, the server is wonky. Can you come take a look at it?” I told her yes, and drove to the client’s office. The server was indeed “wonky.” It didn’t come back online correctly after a power glitch. But wait – what’s this? The Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) was displaying an error code: E02. I downloaded the manual to my smartphone to see what the error code meant... E02: Charger Fault – No Charge This explains the power glitch! I talked to the Ops Manager and she told me about the phone conversation with the Owner. I wondered how long the UPS was failing? Well, at least long enough for the Owner to develop a routine of muting the alarm! I installed a replacement UPS the next day. Next, I’ll troubleshoot the old UPS and see if its cost effective to repair it. This particular error message usually occurs when the batteries fail. If the charging circuitry is fine and the batteries test bad, I’ll replace them. Otherwise, I’ll recycle the whole thing. THE LESSON If your UPS starts beeping, don’t just press the mute button – call Tech Support! There’s a reason it beeped, and that reason needs to be analyzed.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 04, 2026

Replying to @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange

The point of this post is to highlight the absurdity of some of the certification exams. You and I both know intuitively that the best people at network penetration – and the best people at network protection – didn’t learn their real skills in a cybersecurity course. The white hats and black hats both become expert by studying network protocols, network infrastructure, file storage systems, and coding. And psychology. Don’t forget psychology. #cybersecurity

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 04, 2026

Cybercriminals who have never been arrested, help us out: which certification exams did you take to become experts at cybercrime? It seems to me that if we want to be great at cybersecurity, we should take the same certs that made you masters of network penetration. #humor #cybersecurity

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 03, 2026

Replying to @catmisgivings@stranger.social

@catmisgivings@stranger.social You're correct about this, but I'm not sure people who were born in areas with heat and high humidity are aware of it. When my wife and I moved to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station on the Gulf of Mexico, we had never experienced anything like it. Pulled clothes out of the closet, and they felt damp to us. But after three years there, I'm not sure we still noticed.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 02, 2026

A couple of weeks ago a new small business client signed up for firewall monitoring service. After I got set up with remote access, I started poking around and discovered that they were paying for licenses for features that had never been enabled. I didn’t cost them any more money – I just had to flip the toggles on the dashboard and activate the features. Then, for a couple of those features, there were some choices to be made and settings to adjust to refine the operation. THE LESSON Buying hardware or software to protect your system is only the first step. That hardware appliance or app has to be configured correctly in order to do its job correctly. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422 #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 02, 2026

“OSCP+ has a ~30% pass rate.” In that case, the exam is shit, and the official approved study materials are shit. Background for those not in cybersecurity: OSCP is Offensive Security Certified Professional, a penetration testing exam by OffSec. Someone on LinkedIn, who sells OSCP training, provided that 30% statistic. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but a quick check on Reddit makes it seem likely. I asked OffSec for their pass rate, and they declined, saying they don’t publish that information. If it is around 30%, there’s a big problem at OffSec. For comparison, CompTIA, another IT and cybersecurity certification company, looks for a first-time pass rate of about 70%. The rationale goes like this: If the pass rate is too high, it means the exam is too easy. On the other hand, if the pass rate is too low, it may indicate poor courseware or a poorly written exam. When I was teaching the CompTIA courses at a local community college, I used to submit exam inaccuracies for A+, Network+, and Security+ to CompTIA. Some of them resulted in changes, some didn’t. The exam questions that drove me the most crazy were the questions that were vague or ambiguous – not definitively incorrect. And those were the ones they rejected my recommendations on. My guess was they were trying to keep that first-time pass rate from getting too high, and the vague questions were intentionally vague. Leaving CompTIA, and back to OffSec: I just looked at their website. The current price for the OSCP+ Standalone Exam is $1,699, and includes 2 exam attempts in a 90-day period. With a 30% first-time pass rate, that means a fair number of applicants are buying a second package. Maybe it’s all about the money. #cybersecurity

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 29, 2026

Today is the culmination of about a week of – what – meditation? reflection? And I came to a realization clear enough that I can now articulate it. I was waiting for the water to heat in the kettle for an afternoon cup of coffee when it finally all came together. Now, with coffee brewed and by my side on the desk, I’m going to write it down while it’s still fresh in my heart and mind. There’s an expression about jumping out of the tree and figuring out how to fly on the way down. Life actually really is kind of like that. Not always, but in certain scenarios that will randomly happen to all of us. You see, there are some things that we just can’t figure out in advance. We can’t plan for them. We can’t map out the route we’re going to take. We can’t see the future, and if there is anything the future is full of, it’s variables. Those variables defy all our desires and efforts to orchestrate things just so. At the other end of the spectrum, far away from learning how to fly after leaping, is analysis paralysis. We don’t leap at all. “If I can’t know in advance how I’m going to accomplish this, I’m not going to do anything. I’ll just sit right here.” No, that’s not good. The weight of inaction grows heavier every day you choose not to act. And every day it gets harder to lift yourself up. Today, in the middle of something big that my wife and I began together about a year ago, I saw the path forward. We had reached an obstacle: “this is what we want to do, but there’s a problem that makes it look impossible to reach our goal.” And today, after about a week of considering this problem, I discovered a solution that is at once obvious, and at the same time impossible to see from a distance. I could never have seen this solution until we got right here on the journey. What if we hadn’t started? What if we sat right there where we were? What if we insisted on having all the answers before we would start our journey? Here’s what I’m trying to communicate to you, something that I’ve learned before, but somehow have to keep rediscovering: your perspective is different when you’re doing it than when you’re thinking about it. There are solutions that you can’t see until you get in the midst of the adventure. Have a little faith in yourself. Keep moving toward your goal, even when you’re not really sure how to traverse the distance from where you are now to where you want to be. You’ll figure it out. Or maybe you’ll realize it’s the wrong goal and you’ll change direction. But you’ve got to start moving before you get to the place where you can see the circumstances with a new perspective. In some ways this post is very vague, I know that. But in other ways, I think there is someone who will read this who will understand exactly why they needed it. It will make perfect sense. Go for it. The answers will appear when they’re needed. The answers don’t come to you. The answers are waiting for you to come to them.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 29, 2026

#introduction (updated) I’m an old guy who chooses not to retire because what I do is so much fun. Why would I stop doing something I love? I’m safe to be around in the Fediverse, regardless of your ethnicity, gender identity, age, whatever. You be you; that’s important. Self-employed since 2003. I do remote English-speaking tech support for small business and residential clients. “Your personal Help Desk.” I do a lot of tech support for the elderly. It’s still a small percentage of my total revenue, but it’s worth mentioning here. If you have an aging relative and don’t have time to take care of their technology questions, I’m happy to help. I charge by the quarter hour, and a lot of problems can be taken care of pretty quickly. My LinkedIn profile has more info. Also, licensed and insured. Taught college courses in IT, cybersecurity, telecom, and wireless engineering evenings and weekends for 17 years in addition to working during the day. I still occasionally teach technology to engineers and technicians at companies around the USA. Sometimes companies need an outside expert, not a full-time hire, with deep knowledge and experience for a few hours or a week to get their internal team pointed in the right direction. Most of it can be done remotely, but I also fly to your location. If you’re not in the greater Seattle area, having me come on site will cost a minimum of $6k/day. And yes, companies really do pay me that. Mostly I toot about the same things I do for money: information technology, cybersecurity (infrastructure, policy, training – not coding), wireless systems, and telecommunications. I’m not here for politics, and no, I’m not flirting with you. Let’s just enjoy technology and humor about technology together.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 27, 2026

“Bob, my printer quality is low. Please come fix it.” I drove to the client’s office. It’s a small business, about a dozen employees. The VP fills multiple rolls, something that you’ll understand if you’re in a small business yourself. She’s Head of HR, and also Senior Accountant. When I got there, she said, “I can’t print the employee insurance cards. Look at this mess. They’re illegible.” Thanks, Delta Dental, for issuing insurance “cards” as PDF files where the text on the back of the cards is in about 3-point font. Love you for that. Anyway, to start, the black toner on the laser printer was out. She replaced it with a toner cartridge that was OPEN, out of its wrapper, laying on a counter. When the first cartridge was installed, the printer had a “low toner” message. With the replacement cartridge, the one that was already open, it showed zero black toner. Now it wouldn’t print the insurance cards at all. She looked around and found a box with new toner cartridges in it. All four: black, magenta, cyan, yellow. The box still had the form fitting Styrofoam package filler, and each toner cartridge was sealed in plastic. I thought, “Now we’re getting somewhere!” But no. No, we were not getting closer to a solution. We put the new black toner cartridge in the printer, closed the top, and the LCD screen said, “Insert the black toner cartridge.” It didn’t even recognize it. Can you guess now? They bought a box of off-brand of toner cartridges to save money. I said, “Okay, there’s nothing more to do here until you get good toner cartridges. I recommend sticking with the manufacturer’s cartridges for the most reliable print quality.” The VP said, “Those cost too much! I’m not paying for those cartridges!” So I didn’t fix the company’s printer problem, and I’m fine with that. I correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed an effective cure. There comes a point when you can’t blame your problems on Tech Support. You have to own your decisions. It’s your responsibility when you decide that you won’t take action, or won’t spend money on proper repairs. THIRTY MINUTES LATER... While I was working on a different problem for one of the other people, about thirty minutes later the VP came out of her office and said, “I just ordered two brand-name black toner cartridges. They’ll be here Monday.” She just had to mull it over for awhile, I guess, and wrap her head around the idea that quality is worth paying for, if it brings the desired results. THE LESSON It’s not always about fixing the technology. Sometimes, it’s about fixing the decision maker. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422 #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 25, 2026

“Bob, one of my employees can send email from his iPhone, but he’s not receiving any emails.” Well, that’s backwards – usually I see problems the other way around; they can receive, but not send. I tried working with him on a phone call yesterday morning, but when you can’t see the screen, tech support is more difficult. The client’s main business location is in a town less than an hour from my office, so I went to their location after lunch to work on it in person. Oh, so many details were left out! It turned out that he wasn’t receiving emails on his iPhone, his iPad, or his laptop – but he could send from the phone and the laptop. And... the problem started in March, and was continuous from then until now! Okay. First things first. Let’s log into Outlook on the web and see whether that works. I’m starting to have a hunch that I’ve seen this problem before, with other clients. Outlook on the web looks the same. So I went into the Rules settings, and there was the culprit. The rule was named “....” That’s it, the only rule, and the rule name was just four dots. I clicked the drop-down arrow to expand the rule. And the rule said, on incoming mail, move it to the Deleted Items folder and mark it as read! So he was receiving email all along, he just didn’t know it. I looked in the Deleted Items folder, and there were more than 1,300 messages, including my two test emails from earlier in the day. I moved everything back to the Inbox. Here’s what happened. In March someone had started sending email pretending to be this employee. He changed his email password, and the outbound spam stopped. That’s all the company did. They thought the problem was solved. Well, that locked the cybercriminal out, but it didn’t delete the rule that the cybercriminal had created to cover their activity. That rule didn’t get deleted until yesterday, June 24. THE LESSON If you believe your email has been compromised, after securing your account, log into each device, and especially the web instance, and look for rules you didn’t create. If a device was compromised, the malicious rule may be in Outlook’s rules on the device. This scenario can also happen in other email apps, like Thunderbird, and in other web-based email accounts, like Gmail. Whether it’s web-based or app-based, look for rules or filters that you were unaware of, and delete them. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 15, 2026

Replying to @rl_dane@polymaths.social

@rl_dane@polymaths.social Right. That's the joke.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 14, 2026

Merriam-Webster: "When movies were shot on physical film, the film was measured in feet. This is why any recorded thing is now called 'footage.'"

Haseeb Aslam: "@grok is this legit?"

Merriam-Webster: "Where do you think grok gets the info?"

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 05, 2026

Replying to @kottke@mastodon.social

@kottke@mastodon.social I just thought of it as remote work, self-employed, working from home, etc. I've done it for years, and didn't realize it had a name. But it's good to have a name for it, because it's not those other things. Someone doing remote work for an employer may have rigid in-the-seat hours, so microshifting really is it's own thing.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 04, 2026

If your experience in the Fediverse seems to be deteriorating, and you're thinking, "This isn't as fun as it used to be," there's a solution, and I don't mean dropping out.
1) Unfollow a person if their posts are starting to be unpleasant to you, even if you've been following them for a long time.
2) Look around a bit and follow someone else when you read a post you like.
Your experience in the Fediverse is intimately related to who you follow.
#fediverse #SocialMedia

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 02, 2026

Replying to @tychotithonus@infosec.exchange

@tychotithonus@infosec.exchange Hacking has always existed!

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Apr 29, 2026

Replying to @tylersticka@social.lol

@tylersticka@social.lol Oh, you have it already! Back around 2008 I was teaching CompTIA A+ at Bellevue College in Washington State for a few years. I used to go to a PC recycler place and buy old laptops for $5 each, and have the students disassemble/reassemble them in class. It was better if they broke some plastic tabs and clips practicing at the college, before they were doing it for money. General rule of thumb: there's at least one screw underneath a label somewhere. If you can't get it apart, take off the labels.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Apr 29, 2026

Replying to @tylersticka@social.lol

@tylersticka@social.lol Here's the link to the manual at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/manualsbase-id-249998/mode/2up You can download the manual from there. It says, "The battery should only be exchanged by authorized service personnel," it doesn't include detailed disassembly instructions.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Apr 23, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

@paco@infosec.exchange I'm sorry your mother experienced that, and I'm glad she's got you to help her through this. As a cybersecurity person, I’ve spent hours and hours tracking down malware and malware loaders. It’s great experience, I’ve enjoyed doing it, and I’ve learned a lot. BUT... Professionally, it’s not cost effective. Reformat the drive and reinstall the OS and all apps. For relatives, loved ones, or friends, it’s not safe. Reformat the drive and reinstall the OS and all apps. Last thought: professionally, when payment for services is involved, I give them an estimate of the cost to have me wipe and reload, so they can compare that against the cost of a new computer, including the cost of me installing their apps and transferring their data. Especially if the infected computer is an older one, you have to wonder how long before the drive stops or something on the motherboard fries. Maybe you fixed the malware problem with a wipe and reload, only to have the older computer develop an electronic failure that makes it economically beyond repair shortly thereafter. Oftentimes, the best course is to replace the computer with a new one instead of cleaning it.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Apr 10, 2026

Replying to @sammypanda@aus.social

@sammypanda@aus.social You’ve nailed it. There are a lot of small businesses, and there’s a lot of variation in the quality of the leadership teams. Your mileage may vary, let the buyer beware, look before you leap, and all that. But when you remember what average means – half of the small businesses are above average, so you’ve got a decent chance. I remember one auto insurance place where my wife worked. She had her insurance license, but chose to work in customer care because she didn’t like selling. It was a small office with two agents and four customer care people. One time I was talking to the owner and he told me about the pressure he felt: “I’m not just providing for my family, but by running this business I’m providing for six families. When business slows down, it weighs on me heavily.” That’s very different than working for a CEO of a company with 2,000 employees who says, “Profits are down. Let’s lay off six percent of our staff.”

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Apr 10, 2026

Given the abusive policies, poor working conditions, and job insecurities of working for many large corporations, here’s my recommendation: if you’re looking for a job, look closely at Small and Medium-Sized Business (SMB) opportunities.

Mega-corporations are no longer the goose that lays golden eggs. They are shedding jobs and shredding souls.

If you have the personality for it, I encourage you to start your own business, but I know that’s not for everyone.

“But Bob, I can’t make as much money if I don’t work for a mega-company!”

Okay, it’s time for some serious introspection. What do you want out of life? What will create your contentment and peace? It may be time to reduce your spending, reduce your stress, and walk away from the superficial trappings of success that are causing you stress, not inner calm.

If you want to make a difference, and be more easily recognized for the difference you make, work in a smaller company where you can shine brightly.

#jobs #employment #security #planning #goals

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Mar 30, 2026

Replying to @brian_greenberg@infosec.exchange

@brian_greenberg THANK YOU for saying this out loud and explaining it so clearly.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Feb 25, 2026

Replying to @lordkhan@social.cologne

@lordkhan@social.cologne A lot of companies are managed by fear. I wish it wasn't true, but it is.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Feb 25, 2026

Want to reduce "alarm fatigue" caused by false positives? Then quit alarming the wrong stuff. Here’s how to decide what needs to be alarmed:

If it requires immediate human attention, it's an alarm. Otherwise, it's a log entry.

This is one of the most common mistakes I see in the field when I’m working with clients on streamlining their operations and reducing downtime. There is a strong (super-strong!) tendency to say, “I’m not sure, so I’d better make this an alarm.”

In many organizations, there’s also a fear factor: “If I decide not to alarm this, and then we have a critical system outage that could have been prevented, I’ll get blamed for not enabling this alarm.”

The cure for this is twofold: (1) alarm-or-log decisions should be made by a team, so no one person has the weight of the company’s downtime on their shoulders, and (2) the manager over the alarm-or-log team needs to review and approve the team’s plan and take full ownership of it. The manager needs to have the kind of personal integrity it takes to say, “I’m responsible.”

SIDENOTE: In the Navy I was taught, “You can delegate authority, but you can never delegate responsibility. You are responsible for everything your team does.” In the civilian world I’ve seen a lot of bad managers rise in power by blaming a subordinate, and then “fixing” the problem by firing and replacing the scapegoat.

This environment of fear results in everything being alarmed, and the result is that nothing is effectively alarmed.

THE WRONG SOLUTION TO ALARM FATIGUE
The wrong solution to alarm fatigue is excessive automation. Listen to me: there is no automated detection system in a complex network that can evaluate every combination of events. The speed and scale of automated monitoring systems is essential in large networks, but they augment the human agents, they don’t replace them.

#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422

Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Feb 16, 2026

My brother just called me to check up on me. He received a text message from Indigo Urgent Care asking him to fill out a form for me. They used my correct name. Except I'm not in an urgent care facility, I'm in my office, working, doing fine. Be careful with any unexpected message about a friend or loved one's emergency condition. It may very well be a scam like this one.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Feb 15, 2026

Replying to @evemassacre@mastodon.social

@evemassacre@mastodon.social This means so much to me! For years I've been saying that audio enthusiasts are wasting their money on equipment that doesn't affect the human listener's experience of the music. We have the ability to precisely measure electronic signals at levels of accuracy far beyond what matters to the human brain.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Dec 29, 2025

Replying to @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange

UPDATE: I'm sure a few readers have been waiting with 'bated breath - "What happened to the ice cube?" We were gone four days, and upon our return I rushed excitedly to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and ... the ice cube was intact! The microwave clock wasn't blinking, either, so there was no power failure longer than a flicker the whole time.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Dec 24, 2025

PROBLEM: How do you know if there's an extended power failure when you're out of town? Will your meat in the freezer spoil and refreeze before you return?
We're flying to Las Vegas to spend Christmas with our son. We'll be gone for a few days. The weather report at home is for high winds and power outages.

SOLUTION: I put a single ice cube in a glass in the freezer. When we return, if the ice cube is still shaped like an ice cube, any power failures were of short duration and without harmful consequence.

#Travel #PowerFailure

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Nov 07, 2025

Replying to @rmondello@hachyderm.io

@rmondello@hachyderm.io Ricky, that was an excellent talk. I'm glad I watched it. I'm one of those people who still has serious reservations about adopting passkeys, and I was hoping you'd provide new information that changed my mind. My main reservation centers around the huge number of people who only have one device. If their only device breaks, and If they deleted the password authentication option, Then they experience permanent account lockout. I help people globally with tech support, including account recovery. I have a “no fix, no charge” guarantee. I’ve seen this problem first-hand. One device, broken or stolen, and accounts from Microsoft, Google, Apple, are gone forever. You asked in your talk for collaboration and input, so here’s my recommendation: any adoption of passkeys, any implementation of passkeys, needs to include “error checking” that prevents a user from ever having only one way into an account.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Oct 10, 2025

Replying to @darkuncle@infosec.exchange

@darkuncle@infosec.exchange "Though the storm be all around me, the storm is not in me." Develop the quiet mind to the state where you can live it anytime, anywhere. No. I'm not there yet. But I'm closer than I was last year, and the year before. It's a growth of process.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 03, 2025

There is never a viable business where security must be sacrificed to obtain profitability. Over and over again I’ve watched business owners sacrifice security to obtain convenience.

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · May 10, 2023

Replying to @mcnees@mastodon.social

@mcnees@mastodon.social l learned a non-obvious lesson from this toot, and I want to thank you for it. The lesson I learned is, how to write good alt-text. I would have written, "Picture of Cecilia sitting at her desk." But you just taught me how to write alt-text that allows people with vision disabilities to really experience the wealth of information contained in a picture. So, thank you. My alt-text will be better now.

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Bob Young

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