V-Tek

Cloud services for business. Mostly #infosec retweets. We are big fans of @mikko.

[IT Unprofessional @it_unprofession]

HR informed me I had to conduct a mandatory cybersecurity seminar for all new hires.

Normally I just email them a PDF from 2012 and mark them as compliant in the system.

But our insurance provider required physical proof of an instructor-led session.

I gathered 40 terrified employees in a conference room.

My goal was to ensure none of them ever submitted an IT help desk ticket for as long as they worked here.

I opened the presentation with a slide showing a stock photo of a house on fire.

I told them this is what happens to the corporate network when you restart your computer without authorization.

I explained that our entire infrastructure operates on a fragile ecosystem of asynchronous legacy tunneling.

I said every time a user reboots a machine, it sends a localized EMP spike directly into the primary database.

A girl from accounting raised her hand and asked what to do if her screen freezes.

I told her she needs to wait for the CPU to naturally metabolize the data.

I said forcing a shutdown is the equivalent of digital manslaughter.

Then I moved to the topic of password security.

I told them our new policy requires a 64-character password that must include a prime number, a zodiac sign, and a semicolon.

I said passwords cannot be written down, stored in a manager, or committed to long-term memory.

A guy from marketing asked how he's supposed to remember it.

I told him security isn't supposed to be convenient, it's supposed to be agonizing.

I spent the last 45 minutes explaining the dangers of opening browser tabs.

I convinced them that every active tab drains exactly 4% of the company's total bandwidth.

I said if anyone has more than 3 tabs open at once, they're actively participating in a localized denial of service attack.

The room was dead silent.

They all walked back to their desks like they were navigating a minefield.

Help desk tickets are down 94% this week.

Half the staff is too afraid to even turn their monitors on.

I've spent the last 3 days watching documentaries about the bronze age collapse in absolute peace.

Fear is the most cost-effective firewall on the market.

[IT Unprofessional @it_unprofession]

Our insurance provider forced us to undergo a third-party cybersecurity audit.

They sent a guy named Kevin who carried a clipboard and spoke entirely in compliance frameworks.

Kevin spent his first morning asking for our active directory topology.

I do not have an active directory topology.

My active directory is a chaotic swamp of deprecated user profiles from 2017.

I told Kevin that mapping the network creates a comprehensive blueprint for state-sponsored threat actors.

I explained that we utilize a Schrödinger network philosophy.

I told him the infrastructure exists in a state of quantum superposition where it is both perfectly secure and completely undocumented.

By refusing to map the network, we ensure that if we are ever breached, the hackers will be just as confused as we are.

Kevin looked at his clipboard and asked how we handle routine patch management.

I leaned over my desk and told him we employ a strategy of Darwinian software evolution.

I said we let the applications fight it out, and only the strongest legacy code survives.

He asked if I was joking.

I asked him if he was prepared to accept liability for interrupting an organic security ecosystem.

He crossed something off on his clipboard and moved on to physical security.

I took him to the data center and showed him an empty rack cabinet.

I told him it was an air-gapped honeypot designed to trap localized radio frequency interference.

He just nodded, completely broken, and went back to his car.

We passed the audit with a conditional green light.

If you come into my dojo I'm going to confuse you with buzzwords and fake urgency until you leave.

[David Keyes @DavidMKeyes]

Endless thanks to CIA deputy director, Saul Berenson, for working tirelessly to take the fight to Iran.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it "digital transformation."

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would "10x productivity."

That's not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we'd measure the 10x.

I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards."

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a "pilot success."

Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured "AI enablement."

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We're "AI-enabled" now.

I don't know what that means.

But it's in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed "enterprise-grade security."

He asked what that meant.

I said "compliance."

He asked which compliance.

I said "all of them."

He looked skeptical.

I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."

He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team.

They wanted to feature us as a success story.

I told them we "saved 40,000 hours."

I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.

They didn't verify it.

They never do.

Now we're on Microsoft's website.

"Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot."

The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.

He got 3,000 likes.

He's never used Copilot.

None of the executives have.

We have an exemption.

"Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction."

I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month.

I'm requesting an expansion.

5,000 more seats.

We haven't used the first 4,000.

But this time we'll "drive adoption."

Adoption means mandatory training.

Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.

But completion will be tracked.

Completion is a metric.

Metrics go in dashboards.

Dashboards go in board presentations.

Board presentations get me promoted.

I'll be SVP by Q3.

I still don't know what Copilot does.

But I know what it's for.

It's for showing we're "investing in AI."

Investment means spending.

Spending means commitment.

Commitment means we're serious about the future.

The future is whatever I say it is.

As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

@ubisoftnordic PC

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

@NFL_DovKleiman https://t.co/zPQTl7jkjl

[Marko Mihkelson 🇪🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 @markomihkelson]

Superb speech by a French senator! 🇺🇦

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

@GBNT1952 Ukraine is not winning. They are holding the line barely. And that is mainly because of your support. Europe holds the same values as you do. Yes, EU can do more, absolutely. But if Russia wins, we all loose.
https://t.co/W4UPfYc9aW

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

@GBNT1952 The war is extremely expensive, and Ukraine relies heavily on financial and military aid from Western allies to keep its economy and defense efforts going.

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

@GBNT1952 Ukraine constantly needs more funding because it is fighting a large-scale war against a much bigger and better-funded opponent—Russia.

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

#DDay80

[Justin Elze @HackingLZ]

@mattjay The only way

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

@NTDEV_ well, that's a mess.

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

I follow @mikko's weblinks blindly

[Bad Lip Reading @BadLipReading]

Everything changes once you know what McCarthy and Gaetz were actually saying

#118thCongress #KevinMcCarthy #MattGaetz

[MIT CSAIL @MIT_CSAIL]

An IBM slide from 1979.

[V-Tek @vtekfi]

"Only Finland-superb, nay, sublime-in the jaws of peril-Finland shows what free men can do. - Winston Churchill. - JAN20 1940 - House Of Many Mansions"

https://t.co/5ExwBmopud

#itsenäisyyspäivä
#slavaukraini