The night sky ruptures;

Men assume divinity, and manufactured thunder joins the chorus of trumpets.

The stars are rendered mute in the explosions.

Sonic exultation reverberates across the skyscrapers.

We watch each burst, wondering if it is the finale:

Thrashing, crushing, eviscerating the heavens.

then silence...

A New Year begins in Boston.

Dear Pittsburgh Folk:

Don't go to AIELLO'S PIZZA. Despite having a bad experience once before, I decided to give it a try again tonight. I ordered two slices to go. Then, out of nowhere, one of the gentlemen behind the counter decided to stick his fingers into his mouth and start whistling. No reason, no cause -- and no short duration either. He just stood there with his digits in his maw until he decided to take my pizza out. He then commented that the crust had "broken," and grabbed the crust of my pizza slices with his recently-oral hands and started kneading the dough together, somehow I suppose forgetting that the dough was already cooked. I paid my $3.70 and just left. I wasn't going to bother arguing over the money, but I wasn't going to touch that pizza either.

What utter, utter rot is the vast majority of what passes for ``consent'' nowadays. All the consent of a Greek sacrificial lamb, made to nod its head before being offered up to the gods. Indeed, all the consent of Persephone in the rapturous hands of Pluto. Do you want medical care? Then sign these documents letting us disclose your information. Do you want to apply to our university? Then tell us your social security number. Fancy a drink? Then show us your personal-information-laden driver's license. Flying? Yes, your papers, friend. And so we get back to this misbegotten notion that information disclosure is at some point voluntary. We are compelled and required to present our identification and information at innumerable junctures today. My information is disclosed with my consent -- see, I voluntarily signed the HIPPA form.

My first journal article was recently published. If you're interested, I've posted a copy here on my website.

The title is: "A Comprehensive Simulation Tool for the Analysis of Password Policies"

The abstract is: Modern organizations rely on passwords for preventing illicit access to valuable data and resources. A well designed password policy helps users create and manage more effective passwords. This paper offers a novel model and tool for understanding, creating, and testing password policies. We present a password policy simulation model which incorporates such factors as simulated users, accounts, and services. This model and its implementation enable administrators responsible for creating and managing password policies to test them before giving them to actual users. It also allows researchers to test how different password policy factors impact security, without the time and expense of actual human studies. We begin by presenting our password policy simulation model. We next discuss prior work and validate the model by showing how it is consistent with previous research conducted on human users. We then present and discuss experimental results derived using the model.

Download the whole PDF in the Files section.