Cliff Barbier
cliffb-infosec.bsky.social
Cliff Barbier
@cliffb-infosec.bsky.social
I do infosec stuff.
A #Kickstarter for a #Technofascism survival guide. Looks interesting. I recommend it for all of the #Technofeudalism and #anti-AI people out there.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/kim...
January 30, 2026 at 7:48 PM
The Coalfire Labs physical #pentest ordeal is finally over.

Over 6 years after being falsely arrested, maliciously prosecuted, and publicly defamed by a Sheriff who wanted to get into a political power struggle with the state judicial branch, there is a civil settlement.
County pays $600,000 to pentesters it arrested for assessing courthouse security
Settlement comes more than 6 years after Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn's ordeal began.
arstechnica.com
January 29, 2026 at 11:02 PM
If @linusmediagroup.com has no haters, I'm dead.

But conditional on actual cable (pin & data rate) testing, I'll give them props for their new cables. Good packaging, quality jackets, labeled for rates (I usually do this). Much better than the usual white labeling they do.
January 29, 2026 at 12:17 AM
Me: I thought since this was a global role at a global company, the fact that my meetings would be 80%+ virtual means that it doesn't matter where on the globe I sit.
1/3
January 27, 2026 at 6:12 PM
It confuses me that some people are unable to make the mental pivot to cloud.

The cloud is (mostly) the same things as available on-premises. The only nuance is how much is abstracted away.
January 21, 2026 at 4:17 PM
The wildest thing about this graph is that it says that CEOs and other execs are the ones who can most easily be replaced with LLMs, not line-level employees or middle management. 😂
January 21, 2026 at 4:15 PM
The @bsky.app #Android application is so buggy.

In addition to it randomly jumping the scroll position back and forth, now scrolling back an hour has it jump back 12 days. I can't even see things on my feed last night, anymore.

Does anyone use their app at all?
January 20, 2026 at 2:56 PM
What is even up with opening files on #Ubuntu?

`xdg-mime query` says that one program opens WEBPs
`gio mime` says that a different program open WEBPs
And double clicking one in Nautilus opens A THIRD program for WEBPs

😖😱
January 19, 2026 at 3:03 AM
Gah! I missed the release date of @drkallschmidt.bsky.social's book by nearly a MONTH!

I've been waiting for The Unwritten Rules of Work since the start of 2025!

I just grabbed it from www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/... and it has leapfrogged to be my current read (excepting certification study).
January 15, 2026 at 3:46 AM
Oh, I like the way this guy thinks and turns a phrase

> To spell this out clearly, the reason RAM has quadrupled in price is that a huge quantity of RAM that hasn't been produced yet has been bought with money that doesn't exist to populate GPUs that also haven't been produced to go in datacenters…
mhoye (@[email protected])
To spell this out clearly, the reason RAM has quadrupled in price is that a huge quantity of RAM that hasn't been produced yet has been bought with money that doesn't exist to populate GPUs that also ...
mastodon.social
January 14, 2026 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Cliff Barbier
You think the right strategy is to provide specifics of what you want, to minimize the other party's effort. But that is counterintuitively wrong. People are bursting with things to say, but no outlet.

They already volunteered. A scene has been laid.

Just...give them permission to fill the stage.
January 12, 2026 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Cliff Barbier
Irony is #GoogleDocs not supporting the insertion of #WEBP images... You know, the format that #Google themselves created in 2011? 🤣
January 1, 2026 at 10:09 PM
@merriam-webster.com Question... You've got other socials linked at the bottom of your website, but not BlueSky. Maybe add that?

Also, what about your Mastodon account? You joined in 2016 but made only one post in 2022. Maybe start using it also (and link to it)?

mastodon.social/@merriamwebs...
December 30, 2025 at 7:14 PM
You know you're getting old when the specific definition of the word you want to use has been tagged by @merriam-webster.com as "archaic". 🤣

versant (adjective) - 2 (archaic) : experienced, practiced

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/v...
* You must be at least moderately tech versant (def: experienced, practiced) to run these things. If you are new or not versant, you'll have a bad time.
* In my current opinion, these are good if and only if you create a good spec.
2/5
December 30, 2025 at 7:10 PM
I've been playing with Google's Antigravity (VSCodium fork with Gemini agent embedded). Here are some initial thoughts.

* I get the "vibe coding" perspective. I wouldn't call it "a vibe", personally, but I see where it frees you from tedium.
1/5
December 30, 2025 at 7:05 PM
How do I tell people that the ampersands and em-dashes in my resume are not from an LLM, but are because I actually have a clue how typography works with grammar, and that it has been an interest of mine for decades? 😂
December 29, 2025 at 11:37 PM
I am very proud by how many times I need to prove to Cloudflare, Google, etc., that I'm a human.

That means they're unable to correlate me. Which means my browser privacy settings are tight.
December 29, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Cliff Barbier
This is probably the so-called "mystery cold" that's been popping up everywhere where symptomatic people are testing negative for COVID, flu, and RSV.
This is kind of unexpected.

There's been a big December surge in enterovirus D68 in every single West coast sewershed we track (mostly CA and including a few not listed), but nowhere else in the country.

Everywhere else there was a surge in Fall that has since died out.
December 28, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Job security!

I'll write down my security requirements in a way your AI can consume properly.

But since your "Senior engineers" don't know how to write a requirements document, they'll state things later on in an unnecessary conversation that overwrite my security requirements.
The upside to all these companies replacing junior engineers with AI is that cybersecurity will remain a growth industry for at least another decade.
December 28, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Reposted by Cliff Barbier
Mind you, most of the companies announcing that they're replacing coders with AI are lying. They're hiding the layoffs they have to make due to their softening top-line growth behind a fable of efficiency and forward-thinking.

Either way: investors should be shorting the hell out of these companies
December 28, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Reposted by Cliff Barbier
The upside to all these companies replacing junior engineers with AI is that cybersecurity will remain a growth industry for at least another decade.
December 28, 2025 at 10:45 PM
"Location: City, ST hybrid highly preferred. Will consider 100% remote."

That's all we're asking. Sure, prioritize the people local to your office. Give them hybrid, I encourage it! But be open to the high performer who won't step foot into an office ever again, for national or global roles!
December 28, 2025 at 1:15 AM
It is time for my annual masochistic practice known as "renewing my ISACA membership"

I complained about this last year, someone from #ISACA reached out, saw where I have repeatedly opened tickets (unanswered) with them about how trash the renewal process is, and told me how to get engaged with
1/9
December 26, 2025 at 12:15 AM