SwiftOnSecurityDec 29, 2022

I really truly think a social media hack is enthusiasm.

People (maybe a majority) follow me on Twitter who have no career focus on computer security.
I follow farmers on YouTube just talking about their tractor repair tribulations with perseverance. I will absolutely never drive a tractor or put any direct tractor knowledge they give me into practice. But I care because they communicate larger fundamental insights into finding solutions.

This is a magic ingredient. You can't really fake it. And people know when they see it. It's one of those inescapably human manifestations the brain recognizes micro-signals from.

Show threadhannahDec 29, 2022
@SwiftOnSecurity When I did social media as a job toward the end there were contractors involved and I remember trying to explain that over and over again when people were like, why don't these ~campaigns~ do anything can you just help them do what you do?!. If they don't know or care about the subject matter, they aren't going to write anything anybody wants to read. That is step 0, before doing anything else
Show threadKevin P. Fleming

@h_thoreson @SwiftOnSecurity Only partially related, but this made me remember:

Recently I had to 'handle' a couple of email accounts for a relative who passed away. She'd subscribed to 'sale/deals/etc.' lists for a bunch of online stores, mostly clothing and home decorations.

Since she didn't ever delete any messages, I got see what that looks like after years of neglect, and let me tell you it was shocking. Some of those sites sent an average of *more than one email per day * for YEARS to a person who never opened any of them.

Worse, every single email had been crafted to create a sense of urgency (must buy today) or exclusivity (deal just for you) or some combination. While the actual cost of sending and deleting the emails is low, it made me feel quite bad for the humans on the other end who are employed to produce this 'content'; they have to know that 99% of what they produce and send will be ignored, or even hated, and yet the 1% produces sufficient revenue to keep the machine running.

Dec 29, 2022 at 12:38pmWeb
Show threadhannahDec 29, 2022
@kevin @SwiftOnSecurity I have one email that several other people with my last name that I don't know at all have been using for their junk mail and embarrassing purchases for YEARS. This has been going on for so long I replied to SwiftOnSecurity on the old site about it too at some point. Convenient for them, but my utility bills, HOA stuff, job paperwork, blah ends up buried under ads and politics spam.