Every spring, the Norwegian tax department announces the «results» of last year's tax budget. Every taxpayer either gets money back from the government, or has to pay more taxes. Most people tend to get approx. $100 to $500 in return. This naturally causes some stir and excitement. This message also is sent using classic email.

Traditionally, this is a special period for infosec people. Hackers always use this chance to spread targeted phishing, and this problem returns habitually every spring. We always tell people that «the REAL tax department do NOT include links in their emails», but many, many people fall for this scam. Every year.

The tax department is luckily well aware of this, and deserves kudos for never using links in these emails. And this morning, they even appeared on the morning radio news, reminding people about this danger.

I smiled. There is hope. Hooray for the tax department!

#taxes #phishing #email #scam #neverclick #norway #nrk

This year, I celebrate 30 years as a Linux user. I fondly remember downloading around 30 diskettes with gzipped tarfiles on them. The distribution was called SLS. After installing, there was no X. I had to compile X11R5 myself to support my bleeding edge S3 graphics card, plugged into a «VESA local bus».

Calling up my university with a modem and transferring files using sz. IP and SLIP/PPP came soon after. Compiling my first kernel, 0.99.10.

#old #linux #sls #comp.os.linux.announce #kernel #linus #sls #diskettes #geek

#code #comments #programming

Today's task: Give a presentation for people working with #IAM in Norwegian #HigherED. I will talk about our homemade #rbac and how it solves problems and gives insight, serenity and calm. Independent of #masterdata and brand of #IGA.

#introduction

#hello people. Ståle from Norway. I've been doing tactical and strategic #infosec and #irt in #HigherED for the last seven years. It all started with a bunch of diskettes and c.o.l.a. in 1993, and since then I've worked as a sysadmin. Mostly unix-es, but also Windows. This includes project management, #monitoring, #architecture, designing an #operations center and touching a bunch of technologies over the years. I still code a little #shell and #python. Been using #cfengine and #tivoli with a smile.

A memorable moment still is opening 7 xterms and compiling X11R6 for #sunos #solaris #hp-ux #ultrix #irix #linux #digitalunix and managing the configuration and security of tons of servers and clients centrally. This must have been 2000 or so.

These days I tend to like logging and #siem frameworks like #elk, teaching users and management how to make smart choices, general config management and hardening, IAM-stuff and the essential symbiosis between #sysadmin stuff and infosec stuff. #isms. #policies. #architecture.

I also like #photography #lego #rpg #larp #cooking #politics #society #emacs #languages #puns. A lot nicer than the picture. He/Him.

Remember, people - every time you say CYBER¹, a kitten explodes.

[1] without even the slightest hint of irony.

#hype #data #infosec #language #voldemort

So I've been wondering. Many people making the jump from the blue parrot are techies like myself. Do you all juggle several accounts? One for (tech|work) and one for friends and hobbies? But many are both...

I find myself discovering people I want to follow with another account. Avatar. Version. Other self.

What to do?

#mastodon #accountswitch

#Photomonday #Fotomontag

Hello, world.