i haz a grrlz naem an

im in ur emael

i iz straynger

im in ur email

friend request webcam-site spam

friend request spam

funny kaspersky video

found on the NP-Incomplete blog...

is it catchy? sure... it's also blatantly selling a product, but at least it's talking about a whole lot more than simple signature-based scanning...

signature scanning: past and present

found on the panda research blog...

while i don't necessarily agree with the sentiment (because i don't agree with the common misinterpretation of AV), i see the benefit of trying to make people think twice about relying solely on what *they* know of as AV in today's threat climate... it's unfortunate that cartoons like this can backfire from that purpose and actually put people off using AV at all...

no-web webmail phish

what do i mean by meme

got some feedback from a friend today to the effect that i wasn't really being very clear about what i'm talking about when i say meme - that it sounded like i was trying to spread 'ideas'...

strange as it may sound, that kinda is what i'm talking about... ideas are a kind of information and memes are also a kind of information and good ideas tend to be memes - ideas that spread themselves, that are 'catchy' the way a good tune or jingle is catchy (because, after all, those are memes too - generally referred to as earworms)...

also the way the common cold is catchy... memes are sometimes referred to as viruses of the mind - they replicate from one host to another through mimicry/retelling/etc... i made an off-hand remark to that effect in my last post... the simplified description of the way memes propagate is: i see someone do something, then i do it, then other people see me doing it, then they do it, and so on and so forth...

i wasn't so sure how technical i should get regarding memes and memetics in general here and i'm still not sure... i don't want to over-think things or detract from the actual memes i'm trying to present... that said, this memetic lexicon is a pretty good starting point for those who want to know more, as is the wikipedia page on the meme...

security vs. privacy

found at the zero in a bit blog...

not all the memes posted here are necessarily going to originate here... sometimes i'll just be participating, and reposting cute cartoons that illustrate security concepts is definitely participating in a meme (i see people doing it, i do it, other people see me doing it, etc)...

if you think no one needs to watch...

if you think no one needs to watch the watchers then you might be a security idiot...

(inspiration)

patches by email

new meme: LOLThreats

when i first decided to try experimenting with memes for security purposes i started trying to think of possible memes i could use... being new to memes, the best i could manage was meme hacking; that is to take an existing meme and try to derive a new meme from it...

one of the most popular (or at least one of the most widely known) memes on the internet today is LOLCats and corny as it probably sounds i figured the best way to start this off was with a security derivative called LOLThreats that uses screen shots of emails/web pages/etc with captions pointing out how ridiculously obvious that they're bad...

i mean after all, if we enjoy laughing at animals doing silly things we would probably enjoy laughing at bad guys doing silly things too...

come on, tell the truth, you know you want to laugh at the bad guys....

why memes?

the basic premise is this: if we're going to develop a culture of security (which many seem to agree we need) we have to look not just at security and how to communicate security concepts but also at the very nature of culture itself, how it develops and grows, and how to influence it...

as such, if we take the definition of a meme as being a replicating unit of cultural information then it would seem that one of the key pieces of developing a culture of security is memetic engineering...

about this site

the point of this site is simple: my intention is to try and use memes to affect positive change from a security perspective...

i've tried making information available with my anti-virus reference library, i've even trying explaining/'teaching' on my anti-virus rants blog... the next step is to try to inject security awareness/knowledge into our cultural subconscious using memes as a delivery mechanism (ie. to use a spoonful of memetic sugar to help the security medicine go down)...

on this site i expect to primarily be experimenting with memes with a security context... i hope people find them appealing and/or enjoyable...