Dr. StrangeClaw or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the AI
Dr. StrangeClaw or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the AI

We have decades of experience with how we give an EA access to an executive’s life. And the entertainment industry is rife with stories of managers taking advantage of celebs by gaining access to their bank accounts and other aspects of their lives. All of this has made me realize that:

GenAI Threat management is just Insider Threat management, but faster and at scale.

European Sovereign Cloud
European Sovereign Cloud
Early next year, AWS will launch one of the largest changes to its cloud product in decades. For the first time, they will launch a new partition, the European Sovereign Cloud (ESC), open to anyone. This article covers why you might want to use it, what are some of the threats to consider, mitgations, and alternatives to consider.
re:Invent 2025 recap
re:Invent 2025 recap
My breakdown of the key announcements security folks should know about from AWS re:Invent 2025.
Threat Modeling GenAI applications
Threat Modelling Cloud Service Providers in 2025
Threat Modelling Cloud Service Providers in 2025
With the US Government acting in an erratic and hostile manner towards its traditional allies, it makes sense for companies not typically subject to US Jurisdiction to reconsider their threat models when using the big three cloud providers. All of them are US-based companies, and all three conduct a substantial amount of business with the US Government.
Implementing Security Invariants in an AWS Management Account
Farris's Three Laws of Auto Remediation
How AWS needs to change
How AWS needs to change
In previous posts, I took AWS to task for not making the customer’s security Job Zero. This offended some sensibilities, so let me lay out my 95 13 Thesis against the current AWS Culture and how it is neither Customer-Obsessed, nor makes security job zero.
AWS pre:Invent 2024
AWS pre:Invent 2024
It’s once again pre:Invent, that magical season where AWS announces new features related to their legacy products (cloud) before they jump all-in on Generative AI magician gimmicks at re:Invent in Las Vegas. This is my 5th year doing a pre:Invent round up. I almost decided not to do one. pre:Invent wasn’t the GenAI wank-show I expected it to be. In fact, some several exciting features and services were announced.
Effective Techniques for AWS Ransomware
Effective Techniques for AWS Ransomware

In order to profit effectively from a ransomware attack, a threat actor needs to have something to offer in return for payment. This blog post outlines a process to encrypt AWS resources and then revoke access to the secret material until the ransom is paid.

Apparently, this post caused some consternation at AWS, and perhaps this technique is too effective to publish here. So, the original post has been revised to remove the actual scripts, include some mitigations, and provide commentary on how both Public Cloud (AWS Included) and Generative AI are dangerous tools in the hands of the general public and need more regulation.

Your AWS Account is a floating cloud of garbage. Mine is too.
The Cloud is Darker and More Full of Terrors - Sec-T 2024

The BabyDragon & vSphere musings…..

$1500 for a new ESXi server for vSphere 4.1 is a bit high. Unlike this guy, I have a lab in the basement so decibles aren’t as important as capex and opex costs. Plus, to have a lab in the basement where I can do things with a cluster would require two of these beasties. Running a second on the iMac i7 probably won’t cut it. Last time I needed a lab for something it was because a network change crapped out 1/4 of my primary vSwitch.

chris sysadmin , Technology , Virtualization
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Virtual Appliances

VMWare ESXi 4.1 looks incredibaly interesting. It has better monitoring functions, better authentication integration and other cool features. I need to upgrade. Sadly, the CPU in my current VMWare host doesn’t support the Intel vt extensions so it won’t run 64bit VMs, and it won’t support ESXi 4.1. So I’m looking at having to drop at least a grand to get a new server capable of running the latest VMWare. My Media Center PC could do it, but sadly, the Shuttle PC I was going to make my Media Center PC has a dead power supply, and Shuttle doesn’t carry accessories anymore.

chris Technology
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So you bricked your iPad

When I decided to un-jailbreak my iPad and remove Cydia, I did a “Erase all Content and Settings” via the Apple Settings App. This however caused the iPad to no longer boot. Apparently it erased lots of data, but it did not restore some of the boot processes. On a Cydia jailbroken iPad, there are two bars of pixled colors during the boot apple screen. These were present on the boot screen after I erased all the content.

chris Mac
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ubuntu preseeding

Preseeds are poorly documented. This is a note to myself on how to reproduce an install sudo apt-get install debconf-utils # It is part of the debconf-utils package. debconf-get-selections –installer > somefile.txt debconf-get-selections » somefile.txt “ via [ubuntu] preseeding installation 8.10 – how to preseed “encrypted directory” prompt? – Ubuntu Forums.

chris Linux , Technology
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Things I didn’t know about myself

Chris Farris Chris Farris has worked on many award winning projects throughout his career. He began as an independent artist in 1984 and was soon responsible for the design and construction undersight of Southern Clambake University’s Main Hall. He is also responsible for the design of the Metro Regional Nerve Center, Lingering Corners Mall, White Bloaks Resort, and the famous Thomas Aquinas Building in downtown Draculaville. Chris earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1996 and a Masters in Augmentation from Southern Fanatics School of Design in 1991.

chris Life
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First thoughts on WordPress 3.0

When I saw the release announcement on WordPress 3.0 (Thelonious), I was excited to see that is was finally integrating in the WordPressMu project allowing one installation of wordpress to handle multiple blogs. I maintain several websites and blogs in wordpress, and have struggled with the operational best practices surrounding it. I was quite excited to see the multisite support so I decided to deploy a VM at the house to test out migration of all my sites to a single install.

chris Technology , Wordpress
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Yet another reason not to trust “the cloud”

Courtesy of Intuit Works to Restore Online Access – WSJ.com: Intuit Inc. said it is trying to restore service to company websites affected by an outage that began Tuesday night, leaving consumers and small businesses without access to online versions of the company's accounting and tax software. Intuit’s products include TurboTax, Quicken and the QuickBooks accounting program used by many small businesses. The online services associated with those products remained offline Wednesday afternoon.

chris Clouds , Technology
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