BlueTeamSherpa 

953 Followers
931 Following
2.3K Posts

He/him, I share cyber wisdom, humor, and other info. If I’m upsetting Democracy’s adversaries. I’m on the right track. 
As a cyber pro and concert-level pianist, founder of PianoBarCon, and occasional melodica carrier at events. 
My opinions don’t necessarily match my past, present, or future employers, but not for lack of effort on my part.

If you insult me about something that's not true or accuse me of something that I didn't/wouldn't do, then you may get blocked without warning. If you see something that I actually AM doing wrong, I'm very open to feedback. I LOVE to be right, which means I have to be open to changing my position when I'm shown (or figure out) that I'm wrong.

If you really want to get under the hood, enjoy this autobiographical song i wrote called “Without You I’d Not Be Me”.
https://youtu.be/0B_I0Fn1Qoc

#Cybersecurity
#Piano
#Humor
#Jokes
#Politics

Having #PianoBarCon come up and not currently being on the job, I took the time to actually develop a new karaoke list for the performance at #BlueTeamCon. These are the top 13 things I learned (some having an infosec/IT leaning)

1) I can work steady through lunch and work on a song list for five hours.

2) I've forgotten a LOT of the music I knew from 25 years ago; the 1,600 song list has to go.

3) I still remember a lot of music.

4) It's harder to work on this when using an old computer (the new one is in the shop getting a new motherboard under warranty) but based on proper contingency planning I was still able to get at my file archive.

5) After all these years, I figured out to put the favorites in bold type, so they are easier for people to see.

6) Considering the size of the party and that it is a two-hour (anticipated) gig, I think 25 printouts is enough.

7) It's really cool that I got rid of my 15-year-old Brother laser printer to upgrade to one that would print on both sides of the paper. There was nothing wrong with the old one, but I decided I deserved an upgrade last year.

8) You can legibly put 270 song titles across 4 printed pages, even if over 100 of them are in bold type because they are more popular.

9) I easily could have put more songs on the pages, but really that's way more than enough. Figuring 3-4 minutes a piece, a two-hour gig should be no more than 40 pieces. I've had "two-hour gigs" go four or five hours (sometimes it happens), and one has to figure that not everyone is going to like every piece I can play, so one needs more pieces. I should still be well set, especially since I could have put easily another 50 pieces on there that if someone requests them I can do.

10) It is appropriate to put some instrumental only pieces on this list so if someone wants to hear Linus and Luch (Vince Guaraldi) or the Pink Panther Theme they know that I know it.

11) ChatGPT is excellent for normalizing the song titles and the entity related to them but still has to be checked (I fixed some mistakes).

12) People are bound to find mistakes I didn't catch in the list, I'm bound to have a brain freeze and not be able to play something on the list that someone is going to request, and in spite of that we'll all (or most of us, anyway) will have a good to great time, and we'll raise hundreds for charity while doing it.

13) Brother may still make rock-solid hardware, but their marketing has gone way over the top. I will still buy their products, but apparently their products are so solid that they have to (or chose to) resort to making money through their marketing efforts.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at #blueteamcon Saturday night by the Sober Party Room at 8:30 PM.

Note: If you falsely accuse me of being something I'm not, auto-block (maybe without an explanation; in some cases it's not warranted).

If you point out an area where I'm actually wrong, I'm definitely open to being corrected/taught. Just come with proper reasonable behavior when you do so.

Senator Chris Murphy on what happened in the Senate last night:
We have to tell the truth. The GOP just pushed through a bill that cuts Medicare and Medicaid way back while giving huge tax breaks to the very wealthy…
Last night in the Senate, something really important happened. Republicans forced us to debate their billionaire bailout budget framework. We started voting at 6 PM because they knew doing it in the dark of night would minimize media coverage. And they do not want the American people to see how blatant their handover of our government to the billionaire class is.
So I want to explain what happened last night and what we did to fight back. The apex of Republicans’ plan to turn over our government to their wealthy cronies is a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. And they plan to pay for it with cuts to programs that working people rely on. Popular and necessary programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, are all being targeted. In order to pass the tax cut, Republicans have to go through a series of procedural steps. Last night, they took the first step which requires them to pass an outline of their plan, but with it, any senator can offer as many amendments as we want. So my Democratic colleagues and I did just that.
Now, we knew that Republicans would largely unanimously oppose them, but we had two objectives here. One, Republicans were forced to put their opinion on record — many for the first time — on the most corrupt parts of Trump and Musk’s agenda. Two, as I’ve been saying, I am going to make every process and procedure as slow and painful as possible for as long as my colleagues choose to ignore the constitutional crisis happening before our eyes.
So what did we propose? We proposed no tax cuts for anyone who makes a billion dollars a year. We made them vote on whether or not Elon Musk and DOGE should have limitless access to Americans’ personal data. We made them vote on whether to protect IVF and require insurers to cover it. Every single amendment Democrats proposed was shot down. On almost every single amendment, Republicans universally opposed it. Every Republican voted against our proposal to prevent more tax cuts for billionaires. The corruption and theft is happening in the open here.
The whole game for Republicans is taking your money and giving it to the wealthiest corporations and billionaires — even if it means kicking your parents out of a nursing home or turning off Medicaid for the poorest children. They know what they are doing is deeply unpopular. They are offering a tax cut to the most wealthy that is 850 times larger than what they are offering working people. Oh and by the way, any tax cuts for working people are going to be washed out by higher costs for basic necessities, like health care and food. It’s a fundamental injustice.
Thanks to your pressure and support, many of my Democratic colleagues have joined my effort to do everything we can to make sure they cannot destroy democracy and steal your money in the dark of the night. We are being loud about what is happening. I’m going to continue to grind the gears of Congress down as much as possible to make it that much harder and slower to get away with this corruption. That’s why the votes lasted until nearly 5 AM.
DO NOT PRESS SHARE. JUST COPY THE ENTIRE POST AND PASTE IT ON YOUR OWN WALL.
This is a five-alarm fire. I don’t think we have two years to plan and fight back. I think we have months. It’s still in our power to stop the destruction of our democracy with mass mobilization and effective opposition from elected officials. So we can’t miss any opportunity to take advantage of opportunities to put Republicans on the record and shine a light on what is happening.
And you have a role to play in this as well. I need you to amplify what’s happening, support the leaders who are fighting for you to make sure they can continue speaking truth to power against Musk and Trump’s billionaire cronies, and show up at rallies and town halls. Use every tool at your disposal to send a message loud and clear about how you expect my colleagues to lead and fight in this moment.
Every best wish,
US Senator Chris Patrick Murphy
To my non-Jewish friends, Here's the deal, I don't want you to just check in with me after each attack (be let's be honest there will be more) or offer to hide me etc. What I really want and need from you is to fight for me & Jews in the rooms and spaces we are not in & the ones we are being pushed out of. Stand up for us. Truly stand up. It's time. With love, Your Jewish friend.
Someone called ChatGPT “Grand Theft Autocorrect” and I laughed way too long at that.

If you are looking to help out a USAID person going through a rough patch (stage IV cancer, single parent):

https://gofund.me/020405e9

#USAID
#fuckcancer

This should be on TV every day, possibly multiple times per day…. #AI

My gargantuan presentation about Cold War attacks and intrusions into our intelligence apparatus has now been published. If you didn't catch it at #ShmooCon or #CackalackyCon now you can view it here...

https://youtu.be/-Z_Jv7vuiqg

Enjoy! 👍😁👍

Attacking Classified Safes and Vaults from the Cold War to Now [CackalackyCon 2025]

YouTube
In California, solar panels on farms generates 25 times more revenue than crops. Solar panels on California's Central Valley farms generate an average of $124,000 per hectare annually, a lucrative practice that already powers 500,000 households while saving enough water for 27 million people a year. Some farmers are doubling up, growing shade-loving crops beneath panels or grazing livestock, creating wildlife habitat while maintaining food production.
https://grist.org/climate-energy/farmers-are-making-bank-harvesting-a-new-crop-solar-energy/?ref=fixthenews.com
#ShareGoodNewsToo
Farmers are making bank harvesting a new crop: Solar energy

In California's water-stressed Central Valley, farmers are fallowing land and going solar, providing financial stability and saving water.

Grist