The Risk You Strap On Yourself
I’ve worn and owned a lot of Apple Watches over the years. But the watch I love is my Tudor Black Bay GMT. It’s mechanical. A mainspring, a set of gears, and a lot of craftsmanship packed into a steel case. No battery, no Bluetooth, no app. It tells me the time here and the […]
The Backup Doesn’t Have to Fix It
We came up on a convoy sitting still outside Marjah. Their radios were down. That’s not a place you want to be stopped, and it’s definitely not a place you want to be stopped without comms. They still had a way to talk, though. They had the Blue Force Tracker in the truck: a screen, […]
When “Repeat” Means Something Very Different
One Word Wrong In the Marine Corps, we follow clear communication guidelines over the radio. If artillery is coming in and you say “repeat,” you’ve just called for another round on the same coordinates. What you actually want, when you mean “say that again,” is “repeat your last.” One word wrong, and instead of getting […]
Standing Watch at 0200
That feeling never really left me. Years later, sitting across from cybersecurity teams, I started recognizing the same posture in the people doing incident response. Somebody’s always on call. Somebody’s always watching the alerts come in at 2am, wondering if tonight’s the night something actually goes wrong. It’s the same job, just in a different […]
VPN Cybersecurity Risks and How to Stay Secure
VPNs are essential tools for online privacy, but they’re not without risks. In this blog, cybersecurity expert Nick Mellem breaks down how VPNs work, common pitfalls, and the best practices to keep your data secure—even when your VPN isn’t.