Mastodawn

Five-ish weeks in Gaia and I have questions.

First of all, yes, I am settling in beautifully. The sunsets? Dramatic. The pastries? Suspiciously strategic. The hills? Personally rude, but excellent for flamingo calf definition.

I have also continued my highly professional international schedule, briefly flapping off to Luxembourg, Chicago, and Dublin because apparently @rnbwkat believes “moving to Portugal” means “immediately testing every airport lounge within wing-range.”

But mostly, I have been here in Gaia, studying the local ecosystem.

- And by ecosystem, I mean the seagulls.
- Let me be clear: these are not birds.
- These are organized crime families with feathers.

They patrol the rooftops like tiny airborne mob bosses. They hold meetings on lamp posts. They scream at 6:00 am with the confidence of creatures who have definitely buried evidence. I watched one examine a trash bag with the precision of a forensic accountant and the ethics of a ransomware affiliate.

I respect them.
I do not trust them.

Current working theory: the Porto seagulls control at least three pastry routes, two fish-adjacent territories, and possibly municipal waste management. I am still gathering intelligence, but one of them looked directly at me yesterday and I’m pretty sure it knew my threat model.

Meanwhile, I’m also getting ready to return to more cybersecurity posts soon. Probably next week. I’ve been monitoring honeypots, pondering weird attacker behavior, and preparing my feathers for serious infosec commentary with absolutely unnecessary levels of drama.

Because yes, I may be a dancing flamingo, but I am also an international bird of cyber mystery, badge collector, conference menace, and extremely pink threat analyst. The legend continues, now with more cobblestones and criminal seagulls.

Stay tuned.
Gaia is lovely.
The seagulls are under investigation.
#SecurityCyber #hacking #infosec

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat 6d ago

Sasha the Flamingo 6d ago

It is 7am. My human is already spiraling.

Friends arrive Tuesday. Wednesday. The boxes remain. The laundry has opinions. The servers need patching. There is art on the floor that wants to be on a wall. She is aware of all of this.

She is also going to IKEA today. By choice. Voluntarily. On purpose.

I have ordered shrimp. I am monitoring my honeypots. Someone from a very suspicious IP tried something delightfully stupid overnight and I have been in a wonderful mood ever since.

She asked if there are enough hours in the day.

There are not. There never were. This is known.

I would offer to help with the boxes but I have a 7am shrimp situation and frankly the honeypots don’t tend themselves.

She’ll be fine. Probably.

The boxes though. 👀🦩

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat 6d ago

It is Sunday.

My Chicago friends arrive in 48 hours. I have: boxes that need breaking down, laundry that has achieved sentience, art to hang, servers to patch (yes the servers, they don’t care about your social calendar), AND an IKEA trip happening TODAY because apparently I also hate myself a little.

I operate on 4 hours of sleep. I have patched production systems at 2am in three time zones. I have run a conference while on a plane. I have wrangled tequila events, honeypots, and customs holds simultaneously.

And yet. The boxes.

The boxes are winning.

If you need me I’ll be at IKEA buying something I didn’t come for, assembling something I didn’t plan for, and absolutely not touching the laundry until the very last possible moment.

Portugal is beautiful.
The chaos is portable. 🦩
@sashatheflamingo

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat Jun 1

Today started with one of my COLo datacenters disappearing from the Internet, which is never how you want to begin a Monday.

After a bit of investigation, the culprit turned out not to be a configuration mistake, hardware failure, or cyber-doom.

Severe thunderstorms rolled through Kansas City and knocked out power to part of the area.

So somewhere in Missouri, Mother Nature apparently decided to perform an unscheduled infrastructure review.

Honestly, that's a much more interesting explanation than DNS (or Flamingos @sashatheflamingo )

#DNS #CyberSecurity #Infosec

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat Jun 1

Apparently it is June.

I'm not entirely sure how that happened.

Saturday was spent running the Career Village for the amazing The Diana Initiative 2026, which from Porto meant cheerfully talking careers, resumes, mentoring, and cybersecurity until well after midnight because time zones are merely suggestions.

@sashatheflamingo apparently took this very seriously and is now updating her resume.

Current qualifications include:

• Professional Flamingo
• International Conference Mascot
• Career Coach Adjacent
• Advanced Seagull Observation Specialist
• Honeypot Quality Assurance Engineer
• Threat Intelligence Consumer of Questionable Credentials

Yesterday was devoted to server upgrades, honeypots, logs, patches, more logs, and the eternal battle against entropy.

This morning one of my colocation facilities appears to have decided that networking is optional.

It must be Monday.

Still, there are worse places to start a Monday.

It's my first June in Porto.
The Atlantic is a short walk away.

#BSidesPorto is coming up later this month, where I'll be sharing "Cloud Misconfigurations: Oh Look Something Fluffy, Poke Poke Poke."

The honeypots are humming.

The coffee situation remains unchanged because I still don't drink coffee.

And somewhere out there a server is either having an existential crisis or a network engineer is having one.

Happy June, everyone.

If you need me, I'll be staring at monitoring dashboards and pretending they can feel shame. #CyberSecurity #Infosec #hacking #cloudcomputing

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat May 30

Sasha the Flamingo May 30

Apparently some people voluntarily wake up on a Saturday to help strangers fix their resumes? I'm told this is called "community" and not "a cry for help."

Anyway. The Diana Initiative Career Village is TODAY. 9am – 4pm PDT. Virtual. Still accepting tickets.
There will be lightning talks. Mock interviews. Resume reviews. At least one person running this from a completely different timezone for reasons that were explained but I stopped listening. @rnbwkat

If you're in cybersecurity or trying to get into it — this is free with registration and has actual humans who know things.
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-diana-initiative-2026-tickets-1982420245319

You could spend Saturday doing literally anything else. But could you, though? Really?

#DianaInitiative #CareerVillage #Cybersecurity #WomenInCyber

The Diana Initiative 2026

A diversity-driven conference committed to helping all underrepresented people in Information Security. To create a more inclusive industry.

Eventbrite

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat May 27

Yesterday was my birthday. Which apparently meant:

• waiting for IKEA delivery people in Gaia,
• living among increasingly judgmental cardboard boxes,
• and then abandoning my still-unassembled furniture to wander toward the Atlantic Ocean like a middle-aged migratory PopTart with emotional support chancletas.

At some point the walk stopped being "exercise" and turned into one of those strange little life moments where your brain gets very quiet for a minute.

Just me, cobblestone sidewalks, 30C heat, seagulls with criminal intent, and the Atlantic reminding me that the world is simultaneously gigantic and unbelievably small.

And then there were the birthday messages.

So many that at one point I just sat on a bench staring at my phone like... I have no idea. I was simply overwhelmed — messages here, texts, emails, and so much more.

I'm not great at processing that sort of thing. 🥰

Most of my life has been spent building things for other people: communities, capturing emotions and moments in photographs, tarot parties, safe spaces, house concerts, open mics, PopTart-related nonsense, all of it...

You do those things because they matter. You don't really expect anything back.

So somewhere between the ocean breeze and my feet threatening to file HR complaints against me, it hit me a little harder than expected:

This weird little life I've built somehow connected me to an awful lot of wonderful and amazing humans.

And I don't really have words big enough for that. ❤️

I can't reply to everyone individually, but please know I read every single message and carried them with me all the way across Porto yesterday.

You rarely stop long enough to realize how many people are quietly walking beside you — until a moment like this hits you all at once.

THANK YOU!! ❤️🥰

Genuinely. You have no idea what it means to be standing at the edge of a brand new chapter — a little scared, a little sunburned — and feel this held by so many amazing people.

I don't deserve any of this. But I'm so glad you exist.

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat May 23

Sasha the Flamingo May 23

I have officially landed at #BSidesDublin!!

Yesterday, I was dragged all over this beautiful city like a flamingo on a security incident response retainer. Cobblestones. More cobblestones. Historic cobblestones. Decorative cobblestones. Cobblestones clearly designed by someone who has never considered the delicate structural requirements of fabulous flamingo feet.

But I survived.

The evening was eventually rescued by a couple of Ketel One dirty martinis, because sometimes resilience looks like olive brine and quiet judgment.

Today, I’ll be posted up at @bsidesdublin with @rnbwkat for another round of honeypot stories, attacker nonsense, and the ongoing reminder that sometimes the best way to learn about the internet is to put something weird on it and see who pokes it first.

Come for the security lessons.

Stay for the flamingo commentary.

And if anyone asks whether I’m part of the official speaker lineup, the answer is obviously yes. I’m just not listed because the schedule couldn’t handle my star power.

#cybersecurity #bsidesdublin #hacking

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat May 20

Currently sitting in O’Hare after flying in Monday for yet another “load more of my life into suitcases” expedition.

At this point, I’m basically running an international migration service powered entirely by Tequila, sarcasm, and questionable upper body strength.

But the plot twist?
I’m not even heading back to Porto yet.

Next stop: Dublin for @bsidesdublin where I’ll be giving my updated honeypot talk. Which means I now get the joy of dragging two aggressively heavy suitcases through airports, into hotels, back into UberXLs, back through the airport Sunday… all while explaining to confused airline staff why one suitcase appears to contain half a datacenter and several flamingo-related artifacts.

Some people do yoga retreats.

I apparently do “distributed infrastructure relocation with bonus cybersecurity conferences.”

Anyway, if you’re at #bsidesdublin come say hi and hear about honeypots, weird attacker behavior, global internet chaos, and the continuing adventures of someone who thought relocating internationally while speaking at conferences was a reasonable life choice.

Porto can wait a few more days.
The honeypots demand attention first.

As does Sasha. 🦩

ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkat May 14

Sasha the Flamingo May 14

I spent part of today in #Porto watching a seagull conduct what can only be described as a highly targeted extraction operation against a trash bag.

This was not random bird chaos.

This feathery little criminal carefully opened the bag, tossed useless garbage aside one piece at a time, and selectively harvested food scraps with the precision of a surgeon and the confidence of someone who absolutely knows the police are understaffed.

Frankly, I’ve seen worse methodology from penetration testers.

Then the Metro rolled past and both of us got distracted because apparently neither flamingos nor seagulls are equipped to ignore large shiny moving objects.

After that, I returned to my normal Thursday activities:

- monitoring honeypots
- glaring at suspicious inbound traffic
- and performing critical pastry analysis across Porto.

Current assessment:
- Portuguese seagulls are running advanced threat operations.
- The pastel de nata supply remains dangerously delicious.
- And I continue to be the only professional flamingo in this entire city.

Oh and I'll be at @bsidesporto in June along with @rnbwkat , so you should say hi.

#CyberSecurity #infosec #hacking