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About this Blog

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My name is Rick Howard and I am a cyber security geek[1]. I have been thinking about computer security issues for well over two decades now. Like most of my colleagues, one of the things I love about the subject is that it is constantly changing. If you want to keep up, you have to work at it. Many of us do that by reading (among other things). The number of security blogs in my current weekly reading rotation is north of 55. Most of those fall into two broad content categories: News Analysis and Technical Explanation. In the Technical Explanation category, some bloggers review the latest and greatest technical books that hit the market. All of that content is invaluable to the Cyber Security Geek.

What I have discovered in the current manifestation of the blogosphere is a lack of content in three specific areas:

1: Cyber Security Book Reviews regarding
  • Canon (Books that you should have read by now if you are a cyber security professional)
  • Historical Context (Books that explain where we have been as a community so that we can understand where we are going).
  • Intelligence Collection (Fiction and Non-Fiction that explains the current thinking and where the community might go).
  • Novels about Hackers and Hacking (Stories that describe real hacking techniques and the people behind the hacks).
  • Communication (Books that have helped me in my career communicate highly technical information to non-technical people).

2: Assessments of the current state of Actor motivations
  • Espionage
  • Crime
  • Warfare
  • Terrorism
  • Hacktavism

3: Future Mitigation Strategies (Ideas about what we might do in the future to mitigate the cyber security threat).

Instead of News and Analysis or Book Reviews for highly technical topics, I am interested in writing about broader subjects. I still need the other stuff and I am grateful that there are good writers out there addressing those needs. But this blog (Terebrate) will try to fill that niche that is missing in my humble opinion. The word, "Terebrate," is an uncommon word meaning "to pierce" or "to perforate [2]." My intent is to pierce through the fog on some of these cyber security content areas that are not typically covered by the community in blog form.

I hope that you will enjoy it.

Rick Howard
Cyber Security Geek
15 December 2012


SOURCES:

[1]: Websters Online Dictionary, "Speciality Definition: geek," Domain: Computing.
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/geek

[2] "terebrate." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2012. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. <http://www.definitions.net/definition/terebrate>.

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