Two decades in networking & security. Now with opinions.
syn1cal has been a networking and security handle for over twenty years. What started as a technical outlet is becoming something more personal: still security, still pragmatic, but with more of my own opinion in it.
How I think about security
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Risk first, not fear or fashion
Spend where the exposure is real. The loudest vendor pitch and the latest headline are rarely a risk assessment.
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Proportionate beats maximal
A control that costs more, in money or friction, than the risk it removes is a bad trade, however impressive it looks.
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Unused controls don’t count
A policy nobody follows and a tool nobody tuned protect nothing. Adoption is part of the design, not an afterthought.
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Say the quiet part out loud
Most security writing is careful to the point of saying nothing. I’d rather be wrong in public than vague in private.
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Simplicity is a security property
Complexity is where things hide — misconfigurations, forgotten access, the exception nobody remembers granting.
Latest writing
All posts-
Getting heating, lighting, alarms and cameras to work as one system
Most smart homes are a pile of separate apps, not a system. The difference is one local hub, a handful of routines, and subsystems that react to each other.
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Rebuilding this site
syn1cal started as a technical networking and security outlet over twenty years ago. Here's why it's changing.
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Cloud-native firewalls vs. IaaS firewalls, honestly compared
Managed cloud firewall services promise less ops burden; virtual appliances promise more depth and portability. Neither claim is free. Here's how I weigh them.
This is a personal space
No employer, no client, no house style. What's here is mine, and I'll get things wrong in public sometimes rather than say nothing.