Career Crossroads

Instead of working on Emerald City Iron like I was supposed to, I've spent the last month soul-searching. That's a rose-colored way to say "being existentially depressed wondering about the purpose of life and being totally unable to get any work done." I'm sure either sounds glamorous, but I assure you, it's pretty much not. Though now that I'm putting it this way, and looking back, it does seem a bit more dramatic and interesting than it really was. But maybe that's how lived stories are. They aren't really all that fun until you reach the end and know that everything is going to work out. 

For now anyway.

I suppose I imagined I'd coming out the other side all psyched up to finally finish Emerald City Iron a couple of months late. Instead, I've learned that perhaps I will never finish ECI.

TL;DR: I'm taking an extended hiatus from writing novels so I can focus on nonfiction books, short fiction, and nonfiction blog posts.

I'm going to steer my ship away from writing novels for awhile. And in writer-time, awhile means years. 

Instead, I'd like to write another nonfiction book, more nonfiction blog posts (particularly about autism and social justice), and continue to write and publish short stories.

There are lots of pros and cons to this choice. The most painful part has to do with all the novels I had planned. And worse, those poor novels I've already written that are impatiently waiting for edits. And worse, worse, worse, the five or six people who have let me know very plainly that they are sick and tired of waiting for the sequel to Emerald City Dreamer, and if I don't finish it, they're threatening to never read it. Which is fine, because I won't let them. Bwaha. Or something. At any rate, it ensaddens me to let down my loyal readers.

It's also sad that I've got these great moments in ECI and Emerald City Hunter that no one will get to see. (A cow-car chase... How fun is THAT??) This is a major drawback to the decision, but also one of the drawbacks to novelling overall – incredibly delayed gratification – that I'll get to more in a bit. 

Those are the cons. The pros far outweigh them. (Protip: That's how you know it's a good decision.)

I firstly must acknowledge my limitations and work with them, not against them. One of my greatest limitations is extremely high inefficiency when switching tasks. Like, oh, say switching from writing and promoting a 150,000 word nonfiction book about the phycology of Mormonism to editing a 70,000 word novel about trauma recovery and hunting fairies. When it comes to autism and switching gears, that's a the steampunk of all gearshifts. 

In other words, it takes way too much time and angst for me to jump between topics and skillsets like that. Especially on big projects grappling with big topics. It also duplicates my work when it comes to promotion and making contacts in each field. Selling urban fantasy is exactly the same as selling recovery books to ex-religionists... Only I have to do it twice in two different communities with twice the number of emails, tweets, blog posts, and potential travel.

If I didn't have the brain I have, I might be able to navigate that level of executive function. But then I also wouldn't be able to write the things I write. Even Supernerd has her crypto-night. (Inability to resist awkward puns is yet another weakness of mine.)

So it comes down to deciding what is most important. What do I want most to accomplish?

I have lots and lots of things to say. Overall, that's my greatest goal. How can I say them, and how can I say them to the greatest number of interested people?

The answer seems to be nonfiction and short fiction.

The novels market is way too flooded to get noticed. And while I can write a novel draft very quickly (two-time NaNoWriMo champion), and I can edit prose very quickly, editing a complex novel-length narrative seems to take ages. It's the bits of plot and character development and nuance that has to remain just right over 60,000-130,000 words that fouls me up. I can do it; it just takes too long.

Meanwhile, I have all these fiction ideas that want to be released into the wild. I have worlds to build (That's my favorite part.) I have characters and settings and fun to create. And I want to do it over and over again. I can do all that much more quickly through short fiction. The dozen short stories I've published, or come close to publishing, in the last five years have given me a much greater sense of satisfaction than the three novel drafts that no one has read because it takes so damn long to get them out the door. And then once I do, still no one reads them, because there are 3.3 million novels on Amazon.

If I could be more prolific, my novels would rise to the top. But it takes lots of novels. And as I've pointed out, I'm Slowly Slowpants McWriter. I know I can write a good novel, but it takes more than that to be successful as a novelist.. And I don't have what it takes. At least not right now, not at this place in my life.

I'm not going to turn my back on all fiction. I've laid the groundwork to gain fans and friends in the SFF world. I love the SFF community. I'm not going to turn my back on it.

That's what short fiction is for. Most writers have day jobs and write short stories in their spare time. That's more or less what I'm planning to do. I will continue to pursue publication in pro-rate markets. And without the novels to make me constantly feel like I'm working on the wrong thing, I'm hoping to be able to relax and have more fun with it.

For the majority of my time, for the de facto "day job," I'd like to write couple of nonfiction books. I'm pretty excited about the idea of "thought liberating clichès." What is the opposite of mind control? How can people, with intention, open their minds? What does a firm yet flexible foundation look like? It will be based on the cognitive structures I created for myself after leaving Mormonism, so it's the logical follow up to Recovering Agency, but it would appeal to a larger audience: ex-religionists in recovery, freethinkers and atheists, and anyone brought up in this society where people are usually "trained" and not "educated."

If you don't understand the difference between education and training, just put the word "sex" in front of each and see if that helps.
— Eλf Sternberg (@elfsternberg) February 5, 2015

Then, in all the spare time that I'm sure I will have, I plan to continue writing blog posts on topics I'm interested in. Here on lunalindsey.com I will continue to blog about autism and all the random things. And I can submit more guest posts about religion and culture on atheism and freethinker blogs, as well as at RecoveringAgency.com.

So far, nonfiction has been more rewarding than the novel. More people tend to read my nonfiction. I receive regular compliments for Recovering Agency and for my blog posts. Not just "great prose!" kind of compliments either. It's feedback like, "You managed to put words to what I was thinking!" and "You improved my life."

Basically, my nonfiction is helping people. I'm changing hearts and minds, I'm giving people new ways to look at the world. And I'm persuasive.

It's very fulfilling.

I'm still slow at writing and editing longer nonfiction. Recovering Agency took 15 months from start to finish. But in many ways it's easier. Everyday I know what I'm supposed to work on. Nonfiction outlines are straightforward. I'm never in doubt about whether this or that change will ruin any plots or be a trope or be cheesy. I don't have to remember all the actions of a whole cast of characters to know whether a scene change will destroy continuity. It's all laid out for me: this chapter is about shame. What do I know about shame? Just answer that question along with references to the research. Done. Next chapter.

Then there's the money. Recovering Agency isn't doing well enough to pay my bills. But it's doing quite well. It's doing well enough that I've made a business account from which I can now pay my work-related expenses, including travel. It's doing well enough that with a couple more like that, I could be financially independent. I am currently being supported by my wonderful life partners, but I don't want to be a burden forever. They still seem happy to pay my way in the world, but there's an emotional cost, for me, to be in this position.

I've also considered speaking. Again, if I'm focused on novels, there are gear-shifting issues.

Last year, I submitted a couple of papers to conventions and didn't get accepted. But this year, I'd like to spend more effort trying to speak at places like Sunstone Symposium and the Exmormon Conference. If I'm writing a book about the cognitive structures of free thought, I'll be much more capable of hopping to writing a proposal for a liberal Mormon academic conference. That task is almost unfathomable if I'm working on a novel about fairies in Seattle.

Moreover, it's difficult to justify all the time and effort speaking to exmormons when I'm supposed to be trying to be a novelist. But if I'm a nonfiction writer? The efforts all go hand in hand towards related goals.

Efficient.

But of course I still love to do sci-fi cons. I'd never give that up. But that's way more easy to justify. I already go to cons for fun. Now I'm just doing it as a panelist. Even more fun! Sure, I won't have any novels to sell, but who cares? I've still got short story readers to reach. Novels would be nice, but not required.

Lastly, I'm playing to the strengths of my brain. Anyone who knows me personally (or even who follows me on Twitter) knows that once I get started on a topic I'm interested in, I can't shut up. Some writers have word count goals. I don't bother with them, because I know nearly every day I can't help but write 500 or 1,000 words. It's just that.. sometimes those 1,000 words are in an email or on Facebook or in a journal entry.

This will allow me to ask myself, as I'm typing that 800 word Facebook reply on some topic I'm passionate about – I can pause and ask, "Wouldn't this be better on the blog?" In the past the answer was always, "Yes, but I'm not supposed to be blogging right now. I'm supposed to be working on the novel." I'm hoping in the future, the answer will be, "Yes. I will finish writing this comment and then spend another two hours turning this nice draft into a real piece with a beginning and end so I can stick it on my blog or submit it as a guest article someplace." If my focus is nonfiction, then it's all in a good day's work.

Overall, nonfiction books is where it's at. A career pivot. Not terrible major in most ways, but pretty huge in a couple of ways. If you're one of the three people excited to read Emerald City Iron, I am deeply, deeply ensaddened.

Input? Thoughts? Please leave them in the comments below!

2014 Awards Eligible Stories

This year, I have two stories eligible for the Campbell Award:

Meltdown in Freezer Three came out in the November issue of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. It's about an autistic woman who runs an ice cream truck business, with the help of her beloved insect service animal, Macy.

This story is also eligible for the Hugo and Nebula awards.

Touch of Tides came out in Crossed Genres in the August 2013 issue. It's about a scientist studying life under the ice of Jupiter's moon, Europa, and using her inborn synesthesia to make a historic breakthrough discovery.

This is my last year of Campbell eligibility. So please read, and thank you for voting!

Touch of Tides - Crossed Genres

I am exceptionally excited to announce that my story, Touch of Tides, was just published in Crossed Genres magazine. Please check it out, and while you're there, read the other two stories by DeAnna Knippling and Michael Ben Silva III.

In Touch of Tides, a xenobiologist explores the oceans of Europa. Mara has synesthesia, meaning her senses are crossed -- what she feels on her skin she also sees with her eyes. Her passion is studying Europan life, hands-on. Until she finds something dangerous.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

I swim with no light, artificial or natural. A solid ice shell, seven kilometers thick, floats above me in this single ocean that covers the entire moon of Europa. All I can hear is liquid gurgling in my ears and I taste residual salt that leaks in around my gill breather.

My name is Mara. I am naked except for my equipment belt and a molecule-thin coating of nanoscale to protect me from the chill. The other biologists at my barnacle wear full wetsuits when they dive, relying on augmented reality. My gill could report water conditions, geolocation data, and radar sight, if I let it distract me.

I prefer to let the touch-colors lead...

- See more at Crossed Genres.

Crossed Genres also gave me the spotlight interview, in which I answer questions about Touch of Tides, synesthesia, autism, and more.

I am particularly proud of this one, because it is my first hard science fiction story. I spent a lot of time researching, asking experts, sketching, and even doing math, to make sure the details of the story were realistic. Science is very central to the plot, and all of this could actually happen. (Meaning all my other stories are completely impossible, I guess.) It also marks my first pro-rate sale.

I wrote it for you. Please enjoy reading it.

Radcon 6A Panel Schedule

I am honored to be on the panel schedule for Radcon 6A, this coming weekend, February 15-17th, 2013, in Pasco, WA.

I consider Radcon my home con. Not to jinx it, but I've attended every Radcon since my first in 1995. Though I no longer live in Eastern Washington, I make the long trek through the mountains back to Mordor, each year, and not even a pain-wracking, can-barely-move kidney infection has stopped me. It's a good con, "medium sized" by the old standards, but with cons like PAX exceeding 70,000 attendees, I suppose it's a small gathering.

Since my youthful days, when I still held the illusion that being a writer was glamorous and could get you lots of money and free stuff, I dreamt of being a panelist at Radcon. Now that day has arrived.

My schedule begins with a reading Friday evening at 5pm. I am currently planning to read my two recently published stories, Beyond Earth's Summer and Let the Bugs Work Themselves Out. If there's time, I may There will definitely not be time to read a passage from Emerald City Iron.

Then I'm on four panels over Saturday and Sunday about various writing and fiction topics. I'm greatly looking forward to it, and I hope when I'm up there, I will actually have something interesting to say. If you're there, stop by and see me!

Fri Feb 15 5:00:pm	Fri Feb 15 5:30:pm	Luna Lindsey reading
Small Press		Luna Lindsey reads from her favorite writing.
Lindsey, Luna

Sat Feb 16 12:00:pm	Sat Feb 16 1:00:pm	World Building for Planets
2201		How do you create a world for your characters to interact in? This panel will cover everything to creating planets to finding names--stressing the importance of building a solid world and keeping it solid.
Lindsey, Luna Gregory, Hugh Morrigan, Muffy

Sat Feb 16 1:00:pm	Sat Feb 16 2:00:pm	Sex, Love and Writing in a Changing World
Fan Room		Alternate sexuality is one of the final, vastly unexplored elements of science fiction and fantasy. Where has it been touched upon, and why so few times? Is it time to examine it, or should it stay in the shadows?
Burk, Jim Lindsey, Luna Jones, Peter Morgan, Christine Tamra, Excell

Sun Feb 17 11:00:am	Sun Feb 17 12:00:pm	Stop Thief!
Small Press		With the increasing popularity of ebooks comes the increasing opportunity for scam artists to take credit for the work of others. As a fan, how do we stop and address these issues? As an artist and author, how can you protect yourself and your intellectual interests? Join our panel of experts as we discuss what measures are available for both fans and authors.
Burk, Jim Lindsey, Luna Jones, Peter

Sun Feb 17 2:00:pm	Sun Feb 17 3:00:pm	Why Horror (and beyond)?
2207		Our symbiotic relationship with genre films that feature elements of dread - why do we like them? And how do they reflect our society?
Lindsey, Luna Leota, Ron Snively, Devi

Beyond Earth's Summer on Penumbra Rising Talent

I am pleased to announce that I was published as January's Rising Talent in Penumbra eMag. The January 2013 theme was Ray Bradbury to celebrate the life of the great science fiction author who passed on last June.

In addition to my short story, I was asked to write an essay about Ray Bradbury. The story itself tells of the last woman on earth, and her desperate struggle to find meaning on a lonely planet.

Please read my essay and story, Beyond Earth's Summer. It's free.

DEFCON 20: The Coming Of Age

My first DEFCON began five summers ago, right after I met Roland.  He told me in three weeks he'd be flying down to Vegas.  I immediately knew what con he was talking about.  I'd dreamed of attending since I'd first heard about it in the late 90s.  I hadn't gone for two reasons: as a penny-pincher, I didn't like wasting my money on plane tickets, and... I didn't think I had any right to be there.

Awesome Track 1 Stage. Each bit is hanging in 3D.
A projector makes this interesting throughout the con.

I couldn't have been more wrong on both counts.  That was 2008, DEFCON 16.  I flew down and I had a blast.

Now it's 2012, and the 20th DEFCON known to mankind.  To put history into perspective, the first Defcon began right about the time the World Wide Web was being invented.  It was before Yahoo, before Amazon, before blogs.  It started during a time when terms like "email" and "download" were known only to a small minority of people, an extremely niche subculture.  I remember that time, even if I do not remember the first Defcon.

Like every year, this con was bigger.  Way bigger.  I would estimate, based on badge sales rumors, that there were roughly 16-19,000 people total.  (There were thankfully plenty of badges -- no one went home with a paper badge).  And not only did I feel like I belonged, I felt like a veteran.

Almost everyone I talked to said this was their first Defcon. When speakers asked for shows of hands, about 40% of the hands went up. This was a Defcon of newbies. Welcome n00bs.

The theme for me this year is a lesson that has been slowly dawning on me for the past half-decade.  It's a lesson that applies to all areas of life: Hacking is Doing.  The winners, leaders, experts, and elite in life are those who simply DO.  Life isn't High Fantasy.  No one is born The Chosen One.  Magic powers aren't something you're born with.

Destiny is guided by doers.  Not even by people who decide they want to be good at something -- but people who decide they want to learn.  People who want to play.  People who take a little time to do more than simply consume.  Those who make something.  There is no certification for cool.  There is no pay-wall, and all l33tist clique-barriers are social illusions -- merely games played by doers.

Fun facts: They let anyone into Defcon.  And you can be a hacker, too.

Want to be an expert at crypto?  Go solve some puzzles.  Want to learn about application security hands-on?  There's an app for that.  Want to play at being a hacker, or even become an expert?  If you have a mind for wiggling through cracks -- and if you're interested, it means you have a mind for it -- then go get it. Any other related field: hardware, programming, lockpicking, Morse code. Go learn it just because. There are some links, and you've got Google.  No time has ever been easier. (A shout-out to two more hacking-related games: Telehack and Uplink.)

The field is wide open.  I don't work in IT anymore, but if I did, I'd head straight for a job in infosec.  Unemployment is less than one percent.  You do not have to be Uber to be useful in this field.  Pen Testing is about finding low-hanging fruit -- the obvious numb-headed simple security flaws that anyone could find, if organizations gave a crap and bothered to hire you.  If I wasn't focusing on this writing career, I'd go immediately into that field.  And I'd be damn good at it.  Even though I'm a newb.  All it takes is a driving curiosity and an passion for peering inside closed boxes.

Did I mention Defcon is inspiring?  It was especially inspiring this year.

Lost preached the "Just Do Things" message every time he had a mic in front of him. As I said, it's a lesson life has been slowly teaching me, and Lost is a perfect example of this. As he tells it, he came to Defcon not that long ago as a newbie and immediately involved himself.  He started up a robot building party in one of the rooms and gathered lots of people.  He made himself official.  Simply by doing.  Now he's one of the "Elite", and his point, which he drove home over and over is: You should just go do things, too.

All DEFCON Badges Designers are born with a special birthmark,
proving their magical birthright from the gods.
(Not really.)

While I made a lengthy critique of the badge puzzle this year, the lasting message is that there was a badge puzzle this year.  Because Lost went and did it.  Not only that, but even though I made no progress on solving it, it rekindled my interest in puzzles for the second year in a row.  Three weeks after Defcon I'm still rabidly chasing puzzles.  I'm playing The Secret World because it has puzzles (and we are introducing two of our kids to the same joy).  I'm casually poking at TryThis0ne when I get time.  And I've started playing text adventures again, something I've not seriously done since I was 12.  (A Scott Adams girl here.)  My mind is filling with ideas for puzzle games that I could write, and even though I know I won't have time to actually do them, the energy is spilling into my other work.

Everything cool at Defcon exists because someone just up and did it.  From the electronic badges to the lockpicking village to each of the talks to the contest winners.  To the existence of Defcon itself.  People who are cool at Defcon are people who do.  There is no certification program, no minimum level of knowledge, and even the most expert black-badge CTF winner uber hacker still doesn't know some of the things you know, and is missing talents you possess.  It took me five Defcons to truly figure this out, so listen up.

Your brain is awesome, and it will grow to fill the requests you make of it.  A positive action is a butterfly wing-flap.  Not only can it cause awesome weather all over the world in places you never would have expected, but the workout builds the muscles in your wings until you become a mighty dragon.  Yeah, it's a cheesy metaphor, but I'm the one writing it... If you don't like it, go write your own metaphor.  That's the whole point of this rant.

I'd like to especially stress this message to women, who are more likely to wait to be given permission.  Don't wait till you're in your 30's to learn this lesson like I did, and if you're in or past your 30s?  Now is the best time to start doing.  If you need permission, here you go.  Permission granted, achievement unlocked, go do something.

This authentic WWII Enigma Machine was made by doers! Go make something!

So this year I'm going to focus more on doing.  I'm not going to worry about whether I'm qualified, or whether it will be cool.  I won't worry who the gatekeepers are, or if I'm smart enough to get very far, or if I might get tired and give up at some point.  I will not worry about any end-game.  I will just do what I find interesting and what will make me feel smarter when I'm finished.

DEFCON 20 was far more diverse.  As I said, lots of first-timers.  Sadly, accessibility comes at a cost.  The past two Defcons have been far more tame.  My first couple of Defcons, the twitter stream and rumor mills were full of exciting stories, and it was a bit of a game to anticipate hearing about the next antic.  The next prank, the next rumor of an arrest, the next hacked hotel facility, the next killer bee attack.  Of course every other story left us wondering if Defcon would be kicked out of the Riv.

This year?  I can't think of much that happened.  Not much at all, actually.  At least last year Sabu and the J3st3r were chasing each other around, and the phones got man-in-the-middled.

The downside of course is less excitement.  But less excitement equals less fear, and that's a beautiful upside!  The amazing feats this year seemed to be constructive, and that is something I can get behind.  Most notable, Ninja Networks built their own phone network and distributed special smart phones for those deemed l33t enough.  That's a trend I can support, and I'll just have to be grateful I got to experience the last few years of the wild-west-style DEFCON.

The Goons did an excellent job of Line Management this year.  Though I got in line at peak hours, I only had to stand there for about an hour.  I'd guess there were at least 3,000 people ahead of me.  And the line didn't block the hall.  For the most part, (with one exception), I did not find myself stuck in a between-panel hallway traffic jam.  I was allowed to sit in the same track across multiple talks, and there was (almost) always enough seating.  So very huge kudos to all those who pulled off that amazing social engineering hack.

Goon attitudes were definitely awesome this year.  It's not like the Goons ever sucked... I can't quite put my finger on it, but the Goons seemed more upbeat, and less... bossy?  More fun-loving?  Less oppressive?  Dunno what you guys did, but it was a joy to be ordered around by you guys this year.

On that same token, Defcon seemed like a better experience for women this year.  I've heard some pretty horrific stories, and like many geek cons, DEFCON has a reputation.  Personally, I've been protected from a lot of it since I attend every year with Roland.  But I've seen my share of sexist remarks in talks, and there was one incident last year involving Goons I thought worthy of filing a complaint over.

Yes, there were sexist remarks this year in talks and in hall-conversations.  But the culture made a definite shift in a positive direction.  Partly I'm sure due to official efforts, but also due to attendees taking action.  (See above about "doing".)  An attendee named KC distributed creeper cards, which brought awareness to the whole concept of sexual harassment, which seemed to have a huge overall effect.  In one talk, one of the Core Goons said something rather inappropriate to a woman asking a question at the microphone.  Instead of laughing, the audience groaned, and someone suggested he get a creeper card.

In general, sexist remarks (like tired jokes about being surprised there are any women in the room) met with very little reward.  So I expect next years Defcon to be a much more friendly environment for women.  Which is a good thing, because I saw more women as a percentage at Defcon this year than ever before. It helps that there are a number of female Core Goons, including Nikita, who can give a female voice in the upper echelons.  I am grateful for their hard work.

DEFCON Kids was growing up this year, too.  It makes me wish I could be a Defcon kid.  One of the most impressive things is that they have a Zero Day contest, in which kids find actual zero days in actual live systems, like online games.  I didn't write down the number, but this year they collectively found dozens of zero days.  We're talking twelve-year-olds here.  Just like it was in the late 80's, only now the adults are teaching them how to do it.  So awesome.

This year was the second at the Rio, and I think I missed the Riviera more than ever.  Every time I had a Defcon memory, it was set at the Riv, and I looked around to find myself in a different place.

I got to see way more talks this year than last.  The talks seemed to lean more technical, and since I'm not in the field anymore, I'm more interested in higher-level talks.  Things like theory and the state of global cyberwarfare and lock picking exploits and biohacking.  Talks on the five newly discovered SQL Injection Techniques with play-by-play how-tos aren't really useful to me.  So in a sense, the talks weren't much for me to write home about.  I probably managed to miss some really good talks, but there you go.  I'll highlight the ones that stood out.

Obviously the keynote by General Alexander, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, Director, National Security Agency, is worth commenting on.  I had mixed feelings about his talk.

I love the fact that the NSA and hacker communities are finally on speaking terms.  I've read Crypto: How The Rebels Beat the Government Saving Privacy in the Digital Age, and understand the historical context.  The NSA fought every effort to bring encryption technology to the private sector, where it was sorely needed.  Remember when you couldn't export Netscape because of SSL?  Thank the NSA for that.  A lot of our core technologies like email and DNS are fundamentally non-secure for lots of reasons, but a big one is that the private and academic sectors had no access to cryptography, on threat of arrest.

So to see the NSA finally "getting it" on some level was amazing.  And to hear the head of the NSA agreeing with the hacker community on many levels was like Javert telling Jean Valjean that maybe the system was a little corrupt, and perhaps Valjean should be pardoned.

On the flip side, some other things he said made it very clear that the fundamental philosophies of the NSA are still quintessentially opposed to the philosophies of the hacker community.  So while the two groups are agreeing on a lot of the higher concepts, their root reasoning is still at odds.  For instance, after acknowledging that many things which shouldn't have been illegal are now legal thanks to hackers, he then made it very clear that all attempts to improve security should only be done above ground, within the legal sphere.

At its core, the Feds are still Javert.  They don't get that sometimes the law is fundamentally flawed, and that the only way to change those laws is to continually act against them to prove how flawed they are.  If it weren't for lawbreakers, we'd still be at 1980's level security, and encryption and the internet would be owned by true criminals.  (One could argue that this is actually the case.)

So his talk really rubbed me the wrong way.  The Feds are still the Feds.  Don't get me wrong -- hackers should absolutely go work for the NSA.  For starters, your country needs you.  For seconders, their philosophies aren't going to change without more of our culture on the inside.  Like last year, I still hold that the community should take advantage of these olive branches.  Get to work.

I also got to see an unscheduled talk by Kevin Mitnick in the Social Engineering room.  I'd always wanted to watch the Social Engineering contest, so when I had a moment, I wandered over.  Nothing much was going on, so I parked, waiting for the next round to start.  Soon it was announced that Mitnick would be there, and the room filled right up.  I had third-row seats, and got to listen to a lot of stories about Back In The Day.

I knew a lot of hackers Back In The Day.  They traded Zero Days and hacked payphones and cracked games and ran elite boards.  When the "Free Mitnick" campaign started, the hardcore hackers criticized Mitnick, saying he was merely a social engineer, and anyone can pick up a phone and steal a password.

I'm sorry, but those guys were wrong.  Mitnick had to know what he was talking about to call up software companies and get copies of source code.  He used a lot of technical hacks to secure social engineering hacks, and to be honest, he was far more hardcore that most of the tech-only hackers I knew.  He wasn't just hacking servers, he was hacking every single system he could get his hands on.  Including social systems.

And frankly, he deserved to get arrested.  Though a lot of the charges against him were trumped up, he committed a number of real crimes.  Nevertheless, his stories were very cool, and he was clearly a pioneer in this field.  If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, go take a listen.  You will learn more about the hows and whys of security than anywhere else.

I watched three social engineering contest rounds.  The contest works like this:  Contestants are give a list of 20 "flags" they have to capture.  Examples: What OS and browser version are you using?  Is it kept updated?  Who is your shipping vendor?  Do you have a cafeteria?

Contestants are placed in a sound-proof booth and are assigned a company to attack.  The moderator does all the dialing, and the audience can listen to the caller and the callee.

I learned so much from watching this.  The first guy called HP Sales, and claimed to be a new art student. He played dumb about computers, which not only made for a hilarious conversation, but he also managed to capture most of the flags.  I started to get an inkling what kind of information is important to a hacker, and combined with Mitnick's talk, I could easily see why.  Why would you want to know their shipping provider?  Well if you wanted physical access to the building, you might want to dress up as the UPS guy.  If you wanted to send a Trojan, you might want to know what exploits would work, so it would be good to know OS version and the type of anti-virus software.

The third guy was also interesting.  They gave him AT&T, which is notoriously difficult to sosh, and I quickly learned why.  He called a local retail store, and used an interesting (and entertaining) meta tactic.  He had done a lot of research ahead of time, which as Mitnick's stories proved, is very important because it makes you appear convincing.  He told her he was from internal security, and that the DEFCON hacker convention was going on, and they were doing social engineering contests, and for some reason, her store was on a list.  As an audience, we had to suppress our reactions to maintain silence, but inside I was dying of laughter.  It really doesn't get much more meta than that.

At first his strategy seemed to be working, but at some point she just clammed up.  She was well-trained, and about the time he started asking about their operating system, her red flags started waving.  She played it really cool and refused to answer his questions, or if she did, she did so vaguely.  I was very impressed.  The contestant's technique was probably too pushy, and he talked too much, but either way, it was obvious AT&T security had done its job on training.

So he tried again, to another store.  The guy he got started out pretty quiet, but after a while, out comes a fair amount of information.  Which goes to prove that security is only as strong as the weakest link.  And there will always be weak links, so the best route is to try to cover every single angle as best as you can.

I also learned about how innocent-seeming information can be leveraged.  If you're attending Defcon in the future, definitely check out this event.

I also saw the talk by Kevin Poulsen.  I remembered the article from Wired in 1999, which I re-read every few years.  Poulsen describes his exit from prison in 1996.  He went in in 1991, when BBSes reigned and the Internet was only available to academics and hackers.  I nearly cried every time I read his description of stepping out of jail and looking up at a billboard with URL printed on it.  When he went in, the web hadn't even been invented, and just five years later, mainstream advertisements were sending people to websites.  If you're interested in computer history at all, it's an article well-worth reading.

Like Mitnick's talk, Poulsen's was entertaining and old school and I learned that Poulsen was arrested for very good reason.  He'd definitely crossed that line from hacker to con man, and stole real money and property using some pretty ingenious schemes.  (As an aside, this Unsolved Mysteries episode made while Poulsen was still a fugitive is a beautiful bit of history.)

The parties were pretty great this year, and the Crystal Method concert totally rocked.  Roland and I danced  ballroom style.  I remember at one point, standing there awash in music and joy and marvel, thinking of my 16 year old Mormon self, with my first modem, logging onto BBSes.  I imagined how I would explain any of this life to her.  She was so very, very different from who I am now.  Although I am just now rediscovering how cool she was, too, and that's the person I'm uncovering as I do all these puzzles.

Like last year, I entered the Short Story Contest this year.  And I was given an opportunity to do a reading at the Forum Meetup.  I read my entry, "Where the Eye Lacks Message", to a small crowd of about ten people.  I hadn't prepared, other than a couple of practice readings in the room, and I didn't have a handy printout with underlines like I did at my Wayward Reading.  But I found reading from my smart phone to be almost as good, and perhaps in some ways, better.  Someone else decided to do a reading as well, and I really enjoyed it.  I wouldn't mind if DEFCON made this a "thing", but even if it just stays a small impromptu deal in a side-room, I would totally repeat the experience.

My story was a paranoid conspiracy adventure based on last year's badge contest.  So it was really thrilling when Lost bumped into me in the hall and said he liked it.  As I said, recognition is all about the doing.

DEFCON always makes me look at the world in a different way, and on the last day, we saw this at the Carnival World Buffet:

Defcon 20 is closed.
This ATM is WIDE OPEN.

This is an ATM.  It accepts money.  Including cash.  If you're new to computer security, you might wonder why this is interesting... after all, there is no keyboard attached.  But even a little vague information is necessary for a good hack, and here I learned lots of specific information.  Including what kind of financial processing software it uses (which would tell me what ports to scan on a network to find this machine), and something even more damning: It's running VNC, which could allow an attacker to remotely connect to the full desktop.  I hope they got that thing fixed... but probably they didn't.

This year was the best DEFCON I've attended.  It's a great place for learning and doing and meeting, I'm looking forward to seeing you there next year, when DEFCON turns 21 and will finally be old enough to drink!

Wayward Reading - June 29th

Two exciting announcements this week!

Reading at Wayward Coffeehouse

I am booked for my first debut live author reading at Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle with my friend, horror author Michael Montoure!

Michael has a long background of doing readings at Seattle venues and at cons in various places.  His short story collection, Slices, is awesome, and available at Amazon in Kindle and print.

I have performed an author reading once before, but on video.  This will be my first live performance.

I will be reading three pieces:

• Let the Bugs Work Themselves Out,  a sci-fi short story about ants and hackers.
• The Metro Gnome, a story set in my Dreams by Streetlight world, about a gnome on the 358 bus.
• An excerpt from Emerald City Dreamer.

Details: Wayward Coffeehouse in north Seattle.  June 29th, 8pm-10pm. Directions

The other announcement is my book blog tour, starting next week.

Links of the Week

Every week I post a lot of fun and interesting links in Twitter.  Last week was no exception.  Here is an aggregate of some of my favorites.

Writing & Fiction

I'm pretty excited about a new book called "How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One".  Here's an except.  In the spirit of this, the author has listed a few of his favorite sentences here: Stanley Fish's Favorite Sentences (and Mine, too)

I posted a few of my own favorite sentences, from a series I'm currently reading, Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.

And while we're on that, Strunk and White vs. Stanley Fish at the Boston Globe.

I learned a new way of spelling "teh internet", "t'internet" from this blog post, Why Being an Indie Author is More Difficult Than It Sounds.

There's a documentary on H.P. Lovecraft, called Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown.  I love biographies of the old-school sci-fi and horror writers.  So inspiring and nostalgic.

I listened to an awesome short story called Schrodinger's Cat Lady on the Escape Pod podcast.  What a fun story!

Here's a blog post about publishing and piracy called, Writing on the High Seas.

Science

Carl Sagan's old Cosmos series is up on Google Video for free viewing.  I watched all of these last year, and they are very worth it.  He cannot disguise his passion for science.  The retro charm of this show only lends enjoyment, and most of the science is still accurate.  Here is Episode 1.

Speaking of Carl Sagan, here is the much-shorter excerpt, A Pale Blue Dot.  If you don't have time for 13 episodes of Cosmos, this one is less than four minutes.

The Kármán vortex street caught my interest.  What beautiful fractals in the clouds. 

I also discovered the beautiful Faroe Islands up north of Ireland and west of Norway.  The tradition of growing grass on their roofs came from the Vikings, who would build houses by tipping their ships upside down and growing turf on top.

And I found a huge source of free documentaries at Top Documentary Films.

There's a short TED Talk called How to Start a Movement, about the science of leadership.

Entertainment

Best superb owl commercial of the week?  Watch this Volkswagen Commercial featuring Darth Vader.

Leavenworth, WA has started a new marketing campaign, featuring Woody the Nutcracker in a new rap video.

News

An Iowa Eagle Scout testifies to the Iowa House of Representatives in favor of gay marriage.  You see, he was reared by two mothers.  His story is touching.

Speaking of touching, here's a video about the protests in Egypt.

In a story from Russia fit for a cyberpunk novel, a suicide bomber blew up prematurely when she received a spam text.

Urban Fantasy Short Stories Roundup

Indie Urban Fantasy has a monthly newsletter.  You can sign up here, and read the archives here.

I've been writing short stories there every month since August.  All but one all are set in my fae world, the same as Make Willing the Prey and my work in progress, Emerald City Dreamer and Emerald City Hunter.  In fact, two of the characters, Jett and Perstin, are both in Emerald City Dreamer.

Some of these are whimsical and some fall into the creepy/scary category.  That's just how faeries are.

Right After Feeding Time

Vivian is a crazy cat lady and a witch.  Will her powers protect her when she meddles with forces she does not understand?

The Thief at 619

Perstin is a pygsie with a penchant for painting.  But the supplies he uses aren't exactly his...

The Metro Gnome

Buses are the perfect place for gnomes who love books. Too bad nobody ever reads anymore.

Cold Hunger

It lives in the woods, and it is always hungry.

I hope you enjoy!