Attack Surfaces

Yesterday delivered small satisfactions—contractors dumping dirt in my backyard, assembling Trouble's fancy litter box, warehouse progress in Minecraft—until my phone decided to spontaneously broadcast street noises just as I was going to bed. No call, no explanation, just mysterious audio that required a reboot to silence. Not every day needs a grand theme, but apparently some days need unexplained technical weirdness to remind you that attack surfaces deserve more attention than you've been giving them.

The Pleasure of Modest Accumulations (and Digital Mysteries)

October 1, 2025

SESIG brought its usual intellectual satisfaction despite reduced attendance. Only Jim showed up, but that created space for the kind of deep, meandering conversation that sometimes gets lost in larger groups. We geeked out on photography—the technical minutiae of lenses and sensors, the aesthetic choices that separate documentation from art, the peculiar challenges of capturing industrial heritage. Then the conversation shifted to governance systems, pondering what ideal structures might look like if we could design them from scratch rather than inheriting centuries of accumulated compromises. The discussion felt particularly relevant given that the US government had shut down at midnight—another failure of existing systems, implications still to be determined. There's something valuable about these one-on-one exchanges disguised as meetings—ideas explored without the need for consensus, thoughts tested against a single trusted mind willing to follow tangents wherever they lead.

Shovel and dirt

Coming home to find contractors actively dumping dirt in my backyard felt like watching wishes materialize into reality. The driver of the shovel demonstrated exceptional competence, maneuvering his machine as if it were an extension of his body—almost dance-like in the precision and fluidity of movement. Heavy equipment operated with the grace usually reserved for much smaller tools, each motion purposeful and economical. I stood watching for a while, appreciating this particular form of mastery: the casual expertise that comes from thousands of hours transforming theoretical control into intuitive performance. Captured video documentation for Wolfe, preserving the mechanical ballet of earth-moving machinery creating possibilities where before there were only plans. Sometimes the best entertainment is watching competent people operate powerful tools with the kind of skill that makes difficult work look effortless.

Trouble's new litter box arrived in pieces, waiting to be assembled into its promised fanciness. The construction process revealed surprising sophistication—this isn't your basic plastic tray situation. Whether Trouble will appreciate the upgrade remains an open question. Cats have their own opinions about innovations made on their behalf, and those opinions don't always align with human intentions or expenditures.

The unexpected nap puzzled me even as I surrendered to it. Sleep hasn't been scarce lately—eight hours just the night before—yet my body insisted on more rest. Perhaps processing a month of travel still extracts subtle debts that manifest as afternoon drowsiness. Or maybe naps need no justification beyond the simple fact that they felt necessary in the moment.

Lunch plans dissolved when Queen's Chopstick revealed its Tuesday closure, redirecting me to Pie Five pizza instead. Their "heavy on the meat" pizza lived up to its name with almost aggressive enthusiasm—enough protein to satisfy any carnivore's ambitions. The Caesar salad provided token vegetable balance, though calling it balance feels generous given the meat-to-green ratio.

Grocery shopping accomplished its mundane mission of restocking the pantry, that regular maintenance task that keeps household systems functional. Nothing dramatic, just the ongoing work of feeding future days.

The blog refresh project consumed more attention, inching closer to completion. Another day or two should finish this phase, moving entries and refining format until it matches the vision that's been crystallizing. There's satisfaction in seeing digital infrastructure gradually conform to intention, even when the process feels tediously incremental.

Minecraft welcomed me back to the warehouse project with its promise of perfect control and visible progress. The stone and masonry section continues expanding, but now rail systems demand attention—the logistics of material transport adding another layer of complexity to an already ambitious build. There's something deeply satisfying about pondering efficient transport networks in a world where consequences for bad design are merely inconvenient rather than catastrophic.

Before settling into evening television, I caught up with Bob. Always a good conversation, though the current political and social environment provides endless reasons for consternation. We circled through the usual concerns about where things are heading, but he also offered practical guidance on gardening—advice that felt grounding in its focus on tangible problems with actual solutions. I need to figure out a drip irrigation system for next year, I think. Sometimes the best response to overwhelming macro-level chaos is to focus on micro-level competence: growing things, watering them efficiently, creating small pockets of order and productivity.

The Late Show provided its usual sharp-edged comfort, Colbert's opening monologue dissecting the day's absurdities with surgical precision. Trump's Portland invasion served as the evening's featured lunacy—a move so transparently ridiculous that it barely needs commentary, though Colbert naturally provided excellent color anyway. Sometimes satire simply highlights the obvious while making it slightly more bearable through laughter.

Hogan's Heroes offered a different kind of comfort, the familiar rhythms of third-season episodes showing how the show matured over time. The plots had developed sophistication, the characters deepened beyond their initial sketches. There's pleasure in watching creative work evolve, in seeing how artists learn their craft and refine their approach even within the constraints of formulaic television.

Then, just as I was settling into bed, my phone decided to demonstrate that technology maintains its own agenda independent of user intentions. Street noises suddenly emanated from the device—ambient urban sounds with no visible source or explanation. No incoming call notification, no app obviously running, just mysterious audio streaming from somewhere into my bedroom. The experience felt uncomfortably like someone had butt-dialed me from their pocket, except there was no call to reject or ignore.

The only solution was the digital equivalent of percussive maintenance: rebooting the entire device. The phone reset itself, the mysterious audio disappeared, and normalcy returned. I left it powered off for most of the night—a small act of digital quarantine, creating space between myself and whatever pathway had allowed that intrusion. But the incident left questions hovering in the darkness. What caused it? Where was the audio coming from? What pathway allowed external sound to suddenly invade my device without any visible interface? And then the more unsettling corollary: if I could accidentally listen in on someone else's audio, could someone else listen in on mine?

The engineer in me recognizes this as a wake-up call about attack surfaces. I've been cavalier about my technology's security posture, treating my phone as a trusted tool rather than a potential vulnerability. But devices connected to global networks are never truly private or secure—they're just temporarily uncompromised. Every app, every permission granted, every background process represents a potential pathway for unwanted access or unexpected behavior.

This needs more attention. Not paranoid scrutiny, but thoughtful evaluation of what's running, what has permissions, what connections exist that I've stopped consciously monitoring. The street noises were probably benign—some app glitching, some permission I'd granted and forgotten—but "probably benign" isn't the same as "definitely harmless." Time to audit the attack surfaces, understand what's exposed, and make intentional decisions about acceptable risk rather than just assuming everything's fine until proven otherwise.

Not every day needs to announce itself with dramatic purpose or singular focus. Some days simply accumulate small moments of satisfaction—conversations and contractors, litter boxes and rail systems, meat-heavy pizza and political satire. The pleasure comes not from any individual element but from the collection itself, from moving through hours that feel neither wasted nor demanding, just comfortably inhabited.

Yesterday was one of those assorted days that somehow add up to more than their modest parts suggest, proving that "not bad at all" can be its own form of excellence—even when technology throws small mysteries into the evening's comfortable routine, reminding you that complacency about security is just another form of vulnerability waiting to be exploited.