Tarah Wheeler

For all incident responses from now on, I’m going to get on that Zoom call at 2am and begin by saying “Please state the nature of the computational emergency.”

Just a weekend thought, apropos of nothing. There have been a lot of times I've been angry at not being included in something I was qualified for, and that anger is worse when it's clear that I've been actively *disincluded* for being a woman. I mostly convert that rage into Achievement Fuel, but it also hurts to see it happen to other women. When some group or launch or listicle is billed as a gathering of high achievers or the stars of the industry, and it's a dozen or more white men, any woman or person of color who speaks up faces a double challenge. Are they speaking up because they're sour grapes over not being invited? Or are they not collegial or easy to get along with, as made evident by the fact that they're calling out injustice? If you're a man who finds himself on a manel, speak up. If you're a white woman and you find yourself on a panel of nothing but white women (oh lord, ask me about the egg on my face on this one), speak up. Or better yet, check in advance that the convenor or organizer didn't make a serious mistake without realizing it. There's room for grace over people's mistakes, but there is no room for not admitting you made one.

Orrrr how about you GFY. Hacking is a set of survival skills. I am not a computer criminal, I use my skills to help people, and my only crime is that of curiosity. (Everything else is past the statute of limitations.) #defcon Thanks and credit to @BenDoubleU@mastodon.llyxx.me for the photo

I have a suggestion for folk watching The Odyssey. Treat it like a rock concert and wear earplugs. After the first three minutes I put them in and I heard dialogue much better. The music is So Loud in it, and the dialogue is more intelligible when you’re not wincing.

This Friday at DEF CON I host the @eff@mastodon.social Poker Tournament, and novices are especially welcome. We play Fri Aug 7, noon to 3, at the Horseshoe Poker Room in Vegas, with my dad running a beginner clinic at 11. This is not the ESPN boys' club version of poker. The room is safe, surveilled, and respectful, and the dealers are briefed to teach, not judge. Your buy-in donation is also a full year of EFF membership. Send eff.org/poker to one curious friend. #DEFCON #EFF #Poker

In defense of Reviewer 2. Dear Reviewer 2: Reviewers 1 and 3 snarked uselessly. You, however, did a damn fine job giving me actionable changes, sight reading the missing recall stat from my own graph, pointing out what it meant to my theory, and making my work better. Thank you. Love, someone going to the conference and who has a brand new peer-reviewed publication thanks to your "weak accept". I ain't proud; I'll take it.

I'm just like any modern woman trying to have it all. It's just...I wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade. That's all.

So I hacked my way into being Cyber Policy Initiative Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. I'm workin on rural water critical infrastructure cybersecurity. Do you even hack utilities? Please chat w me. I need to quickly find out where I"m wrong about some of my assumptions. Still very entertained by the fact that I *finally* got into the University of Chicago. :D https://cpi.harris.uchicago.edu/2025/12/23/harris-cyber-policy-initiative-taps-top-hacker-to-design-new-security-model-for-water-utilities/

@letsencrypt@infosec.exchange They’re operational again as of 14m ago.

@feorag@wandering.shop that aubergine satay wrap is for real.

@wendynather@infosec.exchange @evacide@hachyderm.io I’m trying so hard to get to “Québécoise?”

@cstross@wandering.shop some of my research is around hapax legomena, words that appear only once in a text. It refers to Greek poets deliberately or unconsciously choosing to use Homeric words to allude to specific parts of the Iliad or Odyssey. It’s now a technique to help in authorship attribution in digital humanities.

@rrb@infosec.exchange Sharpie on my Starbucks cup

@deepthoughts10 @neurovagrant I am trying this for a week or two; thank you!

@neurovagrant go in how, precisely? ublock got neutered, I thought

@josephcox v interested in this one

@DBailey635 am literally passing through Exeter rn for hols. Reach out when you all open up again?

@TindrasGrove oh damn yeah gonna text

@Canuckduff does literally anyone know what the Skookumchuck is on the internet but you and me?

@DBailey635 am literally passing through Exeter rn for hols. Reach out when you all open up again?

A hill I will die on: Mexican Wedding Cookies and Russian Teacakes are the best evidence we have for time travel and alien origins of human life on earth. they're. the. same. damn. cookie.

Delve. For when you need a SOC 2 Type √(-1)

isgithubupforeveryoneorjustme.com

SecurityWeek did one of their CISO Conversations pieces on me. Highlights include getting compared to being mugged by my own career and admitting I fail on purpose about 70% of the time. Also some actual substance in there about why we don't have real incident statistics in this industry and why that's a bigger problem than any single breach. https://www.securityweek.com/ciso-conversations-tarah-wheeler-cybersecurity-leader-thought-leader-and-original-thinker/

@ferrix@mastodon.online @LewisWorkshop@mastodon.online recipe?

@me_@sueden.social @a@pdx.social @aka_pugs@mastodon.social it’s going to change everything.