The problems and ideas I keep coming back to — where security meets the physical world, and where people meet security.
Where code meets the physical world — smart grids, embedded systems, and critical infrastructure. Attacks here have consequences you can touch, which makes defending them a uniquely interesting problem.
Finding the signal of an intrusion in oceans of telemetry. I’m fascinated by how statistical methods and domain knowledge combine to catch what signature-based tools miss.
Letting machines handle the repetitive parts of incident response so humans can focus on judgment calls. Well-designed playbooks are force multipliers for small security teams.
Capture-the-flag challenges are the best way I know to teach security — I’ve helped build a 75-challenge program and keep collecting ideas for challenges that teach real skills.
How do non-experts make good calls during a cyber incident? Simulators and tabletop exercises reveal a lot about human factors in security.
From my roots in Mekelle to initiatives like #5MillionEthiopianCoders — I follow and support efforts to expand access to computing education in Ethiopia.
Blockchain beyond the hype — as a tool for shared management of sensitive data between parties that don’t fully trust each other, grounded in the physics of real systems.
The references I used to build this site’s AWS hosting and serverless visitor counter.