Last Week: I used FreeBusy to schedule some meetings, there’s still some problems with the way I use it to be ironed out, but I still think it’s been relatively smooth rather than trying to organise multiple meetings simultaneously. I attended BeerCon3, which had an impressively diverse range of mainly “rookie” presenters. I kind of drifted in and out so need to catch up with the recordings once they’re on YouTube. My car was in for an MoT, which was a mess for a variety of reasons… a “wrap around” for the service which appeared to just add a two to three hour delay to all communications, inconsistent interpretations of the MoT criteria, and a vehicle manufacturer embracing the concept of built in obsolescence. No-one to really point the finger at, and I think I’ve found a new garage to use much closer than my previous choice, but still a lot of additional overhead I didn’t need. I had a bit of a rest for at least a day, which might be why this post is so sparse. I often advocate for framing such time as “recharging” to others, so decided to heed my own advice. How I felt over the weekend...

Weeknote 25th October 2021 Taking a cue from Sara Campbell of the Foster writing community, I’ve come up with a more interesting title than “Weeknotes”, but maybe this isn’t the most appealing title. Baby steps. I finished watching The Goes Wrong Show which has to be one of the funniest things I’ve watched over the last decade or so, along with Ted Lasso, and Community. I think I tend towards angry and/or painfully intelligent comedy, but we had to institute a house rule not to eat or drink while watching this, to prevent any unfortunate accidents. I’ve been drained and disappointed by the poor threat modelling that leads to the response to the death of Sir David Amess being a call for less Internet anonymity, and the response to the death of Sarah Everard being a call to contact the Police; but I suspect I’ve been naive about the intention behind those suggestions. I gave that training I mentioned last time, on common threats from the Internet, and only had time to scratch the surface when covering ransomware. I can only see that situation getting worse. I thought far too much about The Chair Game; a very simple idea, but surprisingly revealing in what thoughts it prompts. I look forward to playing and/or discussing it at some point. I fell behind on meetings, then fell behind further while looking at automated scheduling services to help me suggest times to several people, without getting into multiple simultaneous games of “email tennis”. I was disappointed at how many were just simplified clones of Calendly, requiring you to spend time in your calendar interface and scheduling interface simultaneously to manage your avalability, when the aim is to save your time. It took quite a while, But I was finally impressed by FreeBusy; particularly by its Guarded Availability functionality.

Last week Gave some training on common cyber security attacks, moving on to ransomware next session, where the challenge is limiting so much available material. Discussions on exercises with James Bore, other collaborators welcome. Some mentoring of a rookie speaker for BSides London on an interesting analogical approach they’re taking One of my game designs is getting out of hand, I’m regarding a lot of what I’ve done as “design notes” listing intriguing but rejected ideas once I publish something. I’m behind on scheduling meetings so I worked through some automated and semi-automated scheduling services, which just made me more bitter about the state of the technology in general; and also means I understand why virtual assistants are still so popular. I had my last coaching session with a kind of business coach, which has helped change my mind on the benefits of coaching. Get in touch if you want a recommendation. I attended the Autumn virtual meeting of Wargame Developments, a couple of sessions anyway. They/we are putting an updated version of the “WD Handbook” together, to act as a guide and introduction to the group. I’m very interested to see what comes out of that process. For years I’ve had an idea for a kind of “psychic massage” app, something that would give you an emotional boost when needed and/or at random - a lot of people, myself included, find those “you’ve got this” messages inspiuring even though we know how vaccous their source is. But it’s on the big pile of possible ideas, whereas Sarah and Leila have done something with their Feel Better Cards; worth checking out. In having done these weeknotes for a while now, I realise how often I would type out the same thing every week - for example trying to build something to make money, while also needing to earn money doing “day rate” work; also I realise how much I achieve, but also how unrealistic my plans are for what I can achieve each week. I wonder if the bottom of each weeknote should have an “ongoing whines” section, with a counter…

Last week Mostly work I can’t discuss. I’m behind on a lot of meetings, and thought it would be a good time to finally look at automated scheduling services rather than email everyone the same options and hope there’s no clashes. All the scheduling services appear to assume you work in just one way - you’re available unless specified otherwise, and free time is offered to all contacts or none. Disappointing, but I might play around with scripts a little, or search a little harder… A really thought provoking demonstration of a business game, lots of ideas around how it did and didn’t work, and where it could be used. Attended very little of a NATO conference, but got lucky and caught really intriguing ideas on modelling cyber conflict, and python based efforts to run through those models. This fits in with similar ideas I’ve discussed with people elsewhere, I just need to glue them together. And again trying to square the circle where I need a lot of time to work on products and ideas and games that would make money and make a difference, but having to spend most of my time and energy earning money to pay the bills doing “day rate” consultancy has doesn’t have such long term value to me. Suggestions or investment welcome. On a happier note, I had a very wholesome weekend, watching the funny and lovely Free Guy, and it was also my birthday in Animal Crossing… Happy Birthday to me...

Last week Mostly work I can’t discuss. Worked Control for another wargame, lots of thoughts about how to run a megagame with highly variable parcipation. Working with Stone Paper Scissors again. Oh, it’s going to be one of those seasons.

Last week I appeared on the Circuit Podcast, describing the benefits of wargaming in all forms of security practice. I had a sales call that meant I didn’t get the work, just due to me not being the right fit. However the customer thanked me for being “candid”; which is now my favourite descriptive term for my approach behind “external security brain”. I attended some of another CTG Intelligence conference, always interesting to hear what a different aspect of the security industry has to say. I attended the second set of 44Con talks; I was disappointed that this game was cancelled but I’m seeing more and more signals that there’s a strong future in cyber wargaming. It was a particularly busy week, so I combined a business meeting with James Bore’s open office - I like to think that worked out well, and useful conversations were had. I was one of the members of the Control Team for “Last People on Earth”, a megagame set in the 1st century, working with Stone Paper Scissors. I enjoyed watching the third week of the NFL season, although my team were disappointing.

Last week I attended two days of the profesional wargaming conference Connections UK. This was well done, very interactive, with the team figuring out online problems as they went. More engaging than I expected, with some useful and interesting contacts made to take forward. I attended the Fourth Annual Managed Security Services Forum London MSS London. An interesting event to dip in and out of, especially with the reoccuring theme of building relationships and trust between all the parties involved. Also, as cliched as it might be, that the evolution of Managed Security Services is a journey in developing those “soft skills”, rather tnan focussing on technical ability. I also spoke at MSS London, that panel might be online in future. But if you’re in Cyber Security and have limited time, I have to suggest you check out Megan Gooch’s presentation instead, she made many excellent points based on her experience in counter-terrorism. Me looking thoughtful at MSS London I enjoyed watching the second week of the NFL season, although my team managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After falling down a “gas lift” hole last week, this week I spent far too much time trying to find a piece of hardware that will support quad displays for VGA over DB15 on a single monitor, more to follow…

Last week Enjoyed watching the first week of the NFL season, my team had a relatively calm beginning. Helped a friend think through their new PC options, details here. Lots of moving around cables and computers, to basically try and fit more objects in the same amount of physical space. Reasonably successful, so depending on the state of the world I should update talk on my home setup at some point. More work than usual coming up, so some time spent on getting up to speed on the project, and planning on the best way to deal with it. Having to learn far too much about the different types of gas lifts available for office chairs, after an organisation I bought a new chair from was a little “optimistic” about seat height. This and this were useful.

I’ve just been helping a friend think through buying a new “home office” PC, mainly because I’ve got through a similar set of thoughts myself recently, rather than having specialist knowledge anymore. So on their suggestion I’m putting those questions up here, so they’re easy to refer to in future… “Pre-flight questions” Can you upgrade your existing machine instead? RAM upgrades, or moving to an SSD, can make a substantive difference What is the actual requirement? For example, if you just need more storage, buy a NAS instead? Criteria Budget - how much can you spend? This is usually the most intractable limiting factor Case - this affects a couple of factors fans, can you run several large and slow ( and therefore quiet ) fans rather than smaller noisier ones? for a Micro ATX case, for example, this will affect where ports for cables, and fans sit Future requirements - what else might the system be used for? Photo editing? Streaming? Graphics - do you need a dedicated “GPU”? Watch for the new AMD Ryzen processors, only some have a graphics capability As far as I can tell, online streaming is CPU intensive, not GPU intensive Noise - Do you want a quiet PC with passive cooling, or are fans OK? What do the other people in your shared space think? Operating System - do you want Windows, or would a ChromeBook be the best option? Portability - apart from a laptop, will it be useful to move the system around the house to change your working environment? Space - how much space do you have? Do you want a micro PC, a desktop, or a tower? Surroundings - a few things to consider: think of all the cabling that will have to go in and come out, will there be space around the system? where are the air intakes and fans, will a PC under the desk be warming your feet? Upgradability - how easy is it to improve the system in future, when you have increased budget or demands? the number of memory slots will affect what memory you add to the system in future. the number and location of SATA or M.2 ports will decide how many disks you can add in future. Where to buy it from - that’s a whole different conversation… Resources Trying to figure out which processor or graphic card is the best is difficult due to the sheer variety ...

Thanks to Phil Huggins for putting me onto this episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Dan discusses his background in miniature wargaming and then talks to one of the architects of a popular Second World War themed video game about the genre, its development, growth and challenges. Do listen if you: Just want to listen to someone with a great podcast/radio voice. I’ve not listened to Dan Carlin before, but within 30 seconds I knew he was a professional. ( I’m reminded of meeting Dave Lewis a few years ago at BSides London ) If you want to learn more about the new WW2 video game Hell Let Loose that I mentioned a little while ago. It’s an interesting idea, especially that players are attacted to such a constrained environment compared to the popular Battle Royale format Right now I can’t justify the time the game appears to demand, and don’t have the computer power - if you can’t either this is a really good insight. The highlights for me: Kriegsspiel being described as the Germans’ secret weapon in the 19th century; echos of Matt Caffrey's theories Carlin made a good point on modern gaming taking the arguing out of miniatures, it being much better to let the computer figure it out Maximillian Rea, the lead developer of Hell Let Loose, made a great point on modern computing finally being good enough to have massed players, and a more realistic size for the battlefield. As fun as that format this, this isn’t CoD's Nuketown It’s the briefest of mentions, but what you can discern from the naming schemes of militaries involved in WW2. Rea’s point that the infliction of pain isn’t the appeal for the majority of players, it’s more about strategy and tactics and out-playing an opponent. Unfortunately this interview ended just as they were getting into expanding this idea… imagine a game where your battle could be won through logistics