This weeks edition of the weakly link has got some fire in it: First on the menu we’ve got a report that tries to tell us that if there’s an AI bubble, that’s a good thing: The AI Wildfire Is Coming. It’s Going to Be Very Painful and Incredibly Healthy Instead of a bubble, the post tells us of one dinner guest at a CEO dinner in Silicon Valley who argues that instead of a bubble it is more like a wildfire.

This post is a mixture of AppSec, vibe coding and cryptography. SPOILER ALERT: This post describes how to complete the Capture-The-Flag exercise “Encrypted Pastebin” (Hard) on Hacker101. Over the last few days I have had a lot of fun with a padding oracle. But let’s take a step back: I have been looking at Hacker101 CTF exercises. The premise is simple: You’re given a website The website has flags hidden.

Every week I come across some interesting, ridiculous or astounding content related to security and tech around software engineering. And I post it on the company Slack, sometimes on LinkedIn and often on BlueSky or Mastodon. (I deleted my Twitter account a long time ago. No Nazi bar for me.) And yet, I often forget all about the content. And because I closed my browser with 200ish open tabs once too often, I thought, why not write about the things that interested me, then I can look back on them and maybe someone else might find them interesting too.

BSides Newcastle is probably one the most anarchic of the BSides I’ve been to so far. So much so that the fascists organised a protest. Well, not really, but there was a far-right and counter-protest not far from where the conference was. Thankfully, the organisers were on top of it and kept is all up-to-date with advice: “Punch Nazis” (for the benefit of the tape, nobody endorsed violence). Aaanyway, aside from a really early start I was ready to dive in and hope to share some of the experiences with you.

Have you ever wondered how hard it is to make an AI talk to an API? Wouldn’t it be great if I could talk to a machine like Captain Picard does to his computer? “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot!” would have to sent to the replicator subsystem with the correct instructions. But how would that actually work? I suppose, the Starship Enterprise-D made its first appearance on the airwaves in 1987. So at the time I guess we could expect a replicator to be programmed in C.

I’m on the plane returning from a Scan Agile conference that was just joyful. What made it that way? Was it the setting in the gorgeous looking Paastorni conference centre, was it the fact that the hotel was next door or was it because the speaker dinner the night before the conference set just about the right tone? Erm, of course that all helped, but I think it was the people.

In January 2024, my comfortable tenure at Equal Experts came to an end and I went from 6 years of being a Java/Scala/AppSec consultant to being a head of engineering at a Middle Eastern fintech. This piece of writing explores what this means. I had been a tech lead before and certainly had plenty of experience of sitting at the table where decisions are made and have never had any qualms about sticking my beak in where it might not belong.

Have you ever struggled to find time for a workshop or a decent conversation? Because when you open your calendar it looks like this? Is it full of 1:1s Status Update Calls Readiness Calls Syncs Standups Project Updates Weekly meetings Biweekly meetings Sometimes it feels like “am I even doing any work”? I jest of course, because all these things are important. Without 1:1s we can’t build personal relationships, which helps us find the person behind a role.

I. Want. To. Scream. Not so long ago, I reviewed about 1,000 CVs (resumes). 500 for a frontend developer position, about 500 for a backend developer position. You might think I was crazy, why don’t I let an agency do the sifting for me? Well, that wasn’t the thing that made me scream. I spearheaded an initiative to reduce the TCO by 10.35% Or some such drivel. “Spearheading”. What is it with that word?

This post is all about sustainablity. And communication. And agile. Let me start from the beginning. I’m sat on the train, coming back from Lean Agile Scotland 2024 and I’m thinking about what I’ve heard, seen and done. The conference was great, and allowed for catching up with old and new friends, finding kindred spirits and having good food. Yes, the older you get, the more important the question of “where shall we eat?