confession

Today, I made a major mistake. Mixing up two bloggers in a rant is not a good idea, nor a credibility builder. Period. Luckily for me, it was discovered quite soon - unluckily for me, it took a reader to discover it. And the only way he got there, was through the RSS-feed, so I know the story is widespread and the disaster may be huge!

What happend?

This morning, I read a rant by Michael Farnum over at An Information Security Place. He was explaining what a Bot is, and how it operates. He got a comment by a user, who questioned his authority in the matter because he had not written any security books. Hey, what a questions is that, anyway? Michael then got caught in the fire, and made a hot reply. I thought this was funny, and tried to make a point that branding and marketing is key if you want to get heard out there. 

What was wrong, is the fact that I mixed up Michael with Marcus Ranum, a security specialist with a high profile. Mixing up like that is a bad mistake. Really bad. On the boarder of being unforgiving, actually. 

Do what you preach, father!

I always tell people to make their research right. Make sure to double check and control again before posting or publishing something. It never looks good to get undressed because you did a shortcut.  

Sometimes I need to take my own pills, I guess. I messed up. I bet I will mess up again in the future. But at least this time I realize the error, and I will make sure to spend more time researching and Q/A of my posts in the future.

So - Michael Farnum, my readers, Marcus Ranum - I am terribly sorry to have messed up your names in my post.  Andy - thank you very much for pointing it out - if you had not, chances are no one would have, and I would have been the standing joke the rest of my time. 

So how can you learn from my mistake?

1. Research research research - make sure you get the story right, and use the right names.

2. Discover an error? Fix it!

3. Learn from your mistake!