Dark Enlightenment

Wow, I have definitely been seeing the results of these beliefs, but I didn't realize just how bad it was.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

How did such idiotic ideas take hold upon so many rich and powerful people?!?

Fools who apparently think success in one area means they actually know shit about governance.

'Unskilled' Labor

The additional post here on dishwashing in a restaurant really highlights how experience matters, even for what's considered unskilled labor. 

Trying Patreon

The news makes me feel like everything is falling apart, and I get frustrated that there's so little I can do.

Blogging tends to help with that, so I figured I'd give Patreon a try. I'll probably put current event/America specific things there and use this for general rambling. At least, that's the plan right now. I'll have to see how it goes.

Job Hunting is Depressing

 There have been other things on my mind of late, though as happens far too often I have struggled with how to explain it.

It reminds me of something almost 20 years ago now, when I was working in Iraq. I don't remember how I wound up involved with this, but someone I worked with was deeply involved with biometrics in Baghdad.

Or rather, the situation was thus:

Military technology can either be developed through a very long and drawn out procurement process, or the military can be what's called Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) technology, which may not be tailored to military needs but can be purchased and put in use right away.

The issue with biometrics was that there were multiple COTS options, but they served entirely different purposes.

Some wanted biometrics for badging purposes - store a fingerprint, and then use it to verify that the badge was for the person intended.

Others used it for intelligence purposes. Store biometric information, and also attach all the related reports and files.

There were some other technologies with slightly different uses as well, though I don't really recall them right now.

What I do recall was that there was pressure to go with only one biometric bit of technology, except that the higher ups involved didn't seem to really understand the differences and were pushing just the badging technology.

The person I was working with was trying to make the case that we needed the other one, but... it was a failing effort.

We'd brief higher ranking people, but none of them really wanted to get involved. There was some Tiger Team that came down from DC that we briefed, and supposedly got positive feedback on... except that only seemed to last until they got back to DC.

In some ways, this shaped my views on organizational change. Like... top down vs bottom up? 

Honestly, you need both.

Or perhaps a better analogy is this. To throw a good punch, you are supposed to use your whole body. The force comes up from the ground, through your legs, you turn your hips and put it all into the swing of your arm. You can do a quick little jab, with just the muscles in your arm, but it tends to be weaker and used more to distract than to really do anything important. You could also set your feet correctly and put your hips into it, but if your arms flail or don't go where intended then your punch is also pretty ineffective.

Proper organizational change is like an effective punch. It should use your whole body. If it's just the top, then you're arms are flailing around without any real strength behind them. If it's just the bottom, your efforts are misdirected and don't go where they need to.

Anyways, there's always people trying to make change happen. To move things one direction or another. And that was my experience with a failure to get support from the top.

The reason I remember it, though, is because of the slowly growing realization that we weren't going to succeed.

That was a rather minor issue to be honest, but I've run into the same feeling at other times...

Like when Mom was dying of cancer.

There's denial. Resistance. A belief that we can (and should) keep on fighting. Maybe another round of chemo, right? 

Maybe another surgery, that would do the trick, and then she can heal and get better and we can get on with our lives.

And there's cycles to it, moments where things seem better and moments where things seem worse, but the overall trend was down.

Nobody likes being negative - or maybe that's just American society? We do seem to encourage people to 'fake it until you make it' and there's definitely some false positivity.

I don't know, it could also be that I'm just overly critical. I think truth is important - despite everything modern society tells us - and would rather a distasteful truth than an appealing lie.

All of which I have been thinking about, because of all the frustration of job hunting.

I know I can do the work I'm looking for. I know any company that hires me would get their money's worth.

But to get nothing back but politely worded form letter after form letter that looks pretty much exactly like the one described here?

I feel that sinking feeling, the sense that this isn't going to work.

But... do I just have to persist? 

Or maybe if I get that GCIH, that would make the difference?

Is that denial? Resistance? Or is that a fair assessment of the situation?

Hell if I know.

If nobody responds... at what point do I need to start considering alternatives? And what are those alternatives, anyway? Should I give up on InfoSec entirely? Look for a DevOps role? Switch to something else?

Again, hell if I know.

All those years in Catholic schooling remind me of what the faithful teach - stuff like "when God closes a door, Jesus opens a window". "Let go, and let God." 

Have faith... right?

Except is that just prolonging the inevitable? Just a reason to keep doing what I'm doing, hoping it will work out before I am forced to do something else?

More and more I think I'd rather be Doubting Thomas, you know. Don't give me one of those tests where I'm supposed to do something crazy, with no proof and no security, and just trust and have faith that things will work out. 

No, I want to see. I want actual, real world proof and not delusions and imaginations.

Sure, Jesus said blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed... but Thomas was still considered an apostle. It's not like he was condemned to suffer for his doubt.

Give me something. Please. Because I'm coming to a crossroads and I don't know which way to go.

Epstein and MAGA

 I don't know what to think about the current MAGA/Epstein news.

First of all - Epstein was pretty nasty, child sexual abuse is horrifying, and the powerful people around Epstein all look pretty damn ugly. It seems hard to believe they didn't know what was going on, if not participated in it themselves.

I, too, find it hard to believe he committed suicide. There's too much incentive for one (or more) of those powerful people to try to silence him. 

But... 

It's not like we have actual evidence, and we have enough conspiracy theories going around. If it was a murder, if powerful people silenced him and tried hiding a client list, they were clearly too powerful for justice to be done.

And as time grew on, it became clear that the issue was being used to manipulate gullible people.

By which I mean - I am absolutely sure that there were people on Epstein's list from both political parties. There's also plenty of red flags indicating Trump could be one of them, though again I've refrained from acting as though it's fact. Anyone who wants to know why can easily find the pictures of Trump and Epstein, or find the quote where Epstein claimed he was Trump's "closest friend".

Which means I figured anyone sincerely upset about Epstein would have known that there was no way in hell Trump cared about or would follow through on any promises of releasing a client list or evidence about Epstein's death.

I thought that the easily manipulated fools would probably continue to be manipulated, and support Trump regardless. And the ones who understood Epstein pimped out vulnerable children to corrupt and powerful men knew that list of men probably included Trump, and others in his circle of friends.

So I will admit I was not expecting this issue to cause such problems in MAGA land.

Did they honestly not expect this? How could it come as a surprise? The indicators were all out there, easy to find...

Hell, that's just one small part of why Trump is so unfit for office. 

I almost want to say 'we told you so', but I just don't see the point in it. It's too late. Those suckers voted that PoS into office, and we're barely halfway into his first year.

I don't like feeling defeated or hopeless, but damn.... this all would have been so much easier if people had done some basic research.

Update and Ramblings

 Well, a week ago it sounded like we were headed for WWIII, and now the news cycle has shifted and we're back to 'normal'.

Actually, it reminds me of when my Mom was dealing with cancer. How her health fluctuated up and down. 

Sometimes she was in the hospital, sometimes she was home and 'normal'... but despite the cyclical ups and downs the overall trend was down.

This time, we had a sitting President bomb the sovereign territory of another nation - without the usual 'treaties' and agreements that allowed us to take action in the other places we've bombed, without a declaration of war from Congress, without all the usual fakery. And the usual people point this out and complain, and the usual people shrug and move on, and it's hard to say that it actually matters.

Except it's an ocean tide sweeping away another swath of sand from the beach called 'rule of law'. Another hefty bit of erosion ruining it all.

*sigh*

And here I am, still looking for a damn job.

It's frustrating, of course. I am 100% sure that if I got hired as a SOC Analyst (what I'm currently applying for the most) that I could do the job, do it well, and the company that hires me would not regret it. I've been studying regularly, working towards the GCIH and doing rooms in TryHackMe, and I'm pretty confident I can do the job.

I am not, however, confident at all that whoever is hiring will ever look past my resume (with a dearth of actual InfoSec experience. Though, honestly... are ELK stack searches when troubleshooting an application in DevOps truly that much different from a SIEM search? Or building a dashboard in either? I think the basic skills are the same, and it's just a matter of using the right keywords and syntaxes and filtering tools... but whatever.)

It is very frustrating, and depressing, and I after so many applications with either the polite e-mail saying they're proceeding with other candidates or the usual black hole of nothing, I am wondering if I need to change up what I'm doing somehow.

I don't really want to change the type of job I'm applying for, even though I'm sure there are other jobs in IT I might have an easier time getting. Idk, I had put off seriously trying to do any sort of bug bounty hunting because at the end of the day I'm far more interested in tracking an incident through massive log searches (with maybe a bit of malware analysis and/or dfir) than I am with actually hacking into things, but at least if I did the bug bounty hunting I wouldn't have to deal with trying to convince hiring managers that I'm their best candidate.

Though maybe I should pull back and consider an even bigger change. Still, I think I'd face the same sort of problems no matter what I tried. 

I mean, blogging still sometimes comes to mind... I do like thinking and writing about things, and it'd be hella flattering if people were interested enough in hearing my takes to actually pay for it.

But it's not like I have a fanbase to build upon, and trying to build a following would probably mean trying to figure out what people want to hear (which would change things considerably) and would also probably take time to get sustainable (if it ever did).

So yeah, probably about as likely as my deciding to take a vow of poverty and join a convent or something. 

Not Directly About Trump Bombing Iran, Though Perhaps Because of It

One of the questions so many of my non-supporting friends and family struggle with is why people just don't seem to care when Trump breaks every rule, norm, and guideline.

Like - do I really have to explain why Jan 6 (and all Trump's lies about the results of the 2020 election) undermine the Constitution? Is it not obvious? 

But on to a more recent post from one of my social media friends.

To set the context - when people I follow post about politics on social media, I take what they say with different levels of credibility. Some of them seem to just parrot whatever the party line is, and they share overly simplified memes that don't really add anything new to the debate. I think they're more just a marker of group identity than an indication of any real understanding of the issues.

That goes for both left and right, tbh. It's worth noting what arguments are being spread, but a substantive policy discussion these are not.

Then there are the ones who show some level of independent or deeper thought, and if not explicitly independent tend more towards the middle of the political spectrum. I sometimes get new and interesting takes from what they share.

Like - after Jan 6 when I see certain memes, it's probably just the latest partisan campaign. But when someone more in the middle - or worse, more on the liberal side - seems ready to move on from the events of that day, it seems an indicator of general opinion.

A depressing one, really, because it seems less a sign that they are truly okay with what Trump did and more a sign of cognitive dissonance.

Or (as a book about the impact of Gone With the Wind pointed out) it could be that they care more about reconciliation and not rocking the boat. 

Better to just let it go than risk escalating things, I guess? Idk... I don't really see how the system can possibly last once you start letting sitting presidents ignore the Constitution like that.

And yet Jan 6 seemed to fade from collective memory (except for people like me, and I'm sure I alienate some by bringing it up so often. And if it makes people uncomfortable, good.) and we even, as a nation, re-elected the guy who not only failed to uphold the Constitution but practically led an attack on it.

But back to this more recent post, where one of my more moderate follows made a post about people crying wolf, I thought a bit about it.

The post didn't give a lot of context, so I'm not sure what inspired it. It could be all the talk about fascism and tyranny, all the talks about how Trump is a threat to the Constitution.

Except - he truly, honestly, really is. I'm not saying that as some sort of left-wing activist or liberal. I am saying that with all the weight of my political science bachelor's degree and a master's in public affairs.

And no, I'm not saying that because of some out-of-touch white tower academia crap either.

But I found myself thinking about how the arguments against Trump sound to someone who (for whatever reason) doesn't already get it.

It's true that the complaints can sound like hyperbole. 'The sky is falling!' 'Trump wants to be a king!' 

One of my more conservative follows (to his credit, not one that seemed truly happy voting for Trump) made a post back during the election where he commented that with Trump he figured we just had to get through these four years...

And I felt like I would be wasting my breath trying to explain why that was a ridiculously short-sighted and naive viewpoint.

Nobody seems to care.

Or rather, the ones who care already know. 

But it is true that people have been talking about the threat Trump poses for years now. Over a decade even.

Which might be part of the problem? Some of them might be desensitized by now, and once they dismissed the earlier complaints never revisited their judgement with more recent activity.

I think yet another part of the problem though, is that we never truly know when the consequences are going to be felt.

It's like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back -

Nobody knows exactly when that straw will come. 

Everyone can see the pile of straw building, the weight increasing... but which straw, exactly, will break that back is completely unknown.

If people were to bet on which one it is, some people would place bets well before the camel reaches its carrying capacity, and some will bet much later...

But as long as the straws keep piling on, we all know that we'll reach that breaking point eventually.

This is part of why whenever some world-shaking change happens it's pretty easy to look back and see all the warning signs and the steps leading to that event, but the people living through that time are caught off guard and are completely shocked.

What's one more straw?

People have been predicting a break for ages now and yet life goes on - why would it be any different this time?

So this weekend Trump bombed Iran.

And although many people don't seem to understand this, it's actually a pretty big change.

After all, it is unequivocally an act of war. 

People have become a bit blase about bombings, partly because of all that complicated lawyering people in DC have gone through in order to allow a President to take small-scale military action without needing to go through Congress every time. Whether you agree with them or not, they're the type of thing used to allow us to use a drone strike on an Iranian general back in Trump's first term. 

Said general was in Iraq at the time, and with all our agreements with the Iraqi government at the time was not really considered an attack on Iranian soil, though there was definitely some concern about how Iran would respond.

There's also all the shadow war stuff, where nations highly suspect one another of being behind an attack, but attribution is unclear and it's hard to make a compelling case for going to war.

Trump's recent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, however?

They have none of these obfuscating details. 

It was a direct attack on another nation's territory, just like Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

Whether you think it was the right move or not, Trump has given Iran a casus belli... and he never got Congress to declare war in the first place.

This is a HUGE change, especially when we consider how long George W. Bush spent getting Congress to declare war on Iraq. 

Remember all those weeks of media coverage? The arguments that Colin Powell made (and that destroyed his credibility for some)? 

Yeah... this attack had none of that.

None.

And as we so often find these days - I have no idea whether this attack truly could kick of WWIII, or if it will somehow fade away and become yet another Trump thing that gets overlooked and ignored.

The final straw, or just one more?

Heck if I know.