fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Salvation Army Donations
By: Matt Keene
Tags: Clothes, Salvation Army, Authenticity, Bureaucracy, Retirement

The best thing about retirement is wearing whatever goddamn clothes I want to. Nothing grated on me more during 21 years in the Foreign Service than getting dressed in the morning. Swinging open the wardrobe doors greeted by a line of pedestrian business suits, off-the-rack and frequently ill-fitting dress shirts, and a collection of khaki pants either black, gray, blue or tan made me nauseous. You might make the sensible argument that if I hated my clothes so much, I should simply shop for new ones. I did. Repeatedly. And time and again I bought the same shit, usually from J.C. Penney, Jos. A. Bank, or T.M. Lewin, and always on sale.

Thing about the stuff on sale is that you’re rummaging through an inventory of sizes and colors that didn’t sell at retail. I always managed to find functional — if not particularly inspiring — pants and shirts suitable for work. Mission accomplished with minimal damage to my wallet.

But why buy clothes I hated wearing? Why not spend money for the spiffy stuff on the website landing page or sported by the stiff, compliant mannequins in the window display?

Truth is I hated them all. Whoever coined the cliche “Clothes make the man” likely wasn’t aiming at irony but squarely hit the target. In my experience, high style compensates for a deficiency in substance. That’s not really true; I know plenty of hyper-competent, supremely capable people who dress well. But I have to admit that I am instantly skeptical of anyone who walks into a room dressed in an outfit that costs as much as I make in a week. It just screams inauthenticity.

That’s complete nonsense. I’m projecting my own issues with authenticity on to Mr. Brooks Brothers. The reason I hate my wardrobe — the reason I hate any clothes that would be considered appropriate for inclusion — is that they aren’t expressions of my individuality; they’re costumes.

Ugly, hideous, conformist straitjackets.

Whenever I could get away with not wearing a suit, I skipped it. In the later years of my career when I no longer gave a damn as to whether appearance affected my prospects for promotion, I deep-sixed ties as well.

Clothes did make the man. Or more accurately, made a mockery of the man. Rather than express my personality, they concealed it. And the wrong clothes warp behavior. Without a doubt. I uttered things the real me would slap someone else for saying, and acted and moved with a milquetoast bureaucratism that makes me retch if I think too much about it.

When I opened the drawers this morning, I pulled out a favorite t-shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans. I swung open the closet and snatched a navy blue flannel off the hanger that predates my diplomatic career. None of it is particularly fashionable or attractive.

So what. I’m not wearing these clothes for you or my boss or the office. I’m wearing them because they are comfortable and relaxed. I’m wearing them, because they feel like home. I’m wearing them because they accurately express who I am.

Clothes that make the man are tyrants. Man must make the clothes.
7 reasons to immediately sell your car
By: Retire At
Tags: Investing, Early Retirement, Cars, Retirement

1. Your car is an instant source of potential capital growth.

If you sell your “piece of junk” right now, you can earn more than 100 dollars in dividends every month!

2. Make sure to compare correctly

⭕ your car VS subway + cab

⭕ your car VS subway + public transport + cab + carsharing

3. Having your own car is like a “vacuum cleaner” for pumping out time and money*.

⭕ Traffic jams — 500+ hours/year. 20 days of your life!

⭕ Fuel — starting from $80/month.

⭕ Car insurance — from $850/year + 1 wasted day/year.

⭕ Fines — some people manage to reach up to $140/month.

⭕ Car wash — starting from $50/month + 3 wasted hours/month.

⭕ Parking — from $14/month + the time you spend searching for parking spots.

⭕ Depreciation — 10% of the cost every year.

⭕ Tire replacement — from $60/year + 2 wasted days/year.

⭕ Tire storage — from $850/year + 2 wasted days/year.

⭕ Loan payment — from $850/month.

⭕ Maintenance and minor repairs — differs, but let’s say around $45/month.

⭕ Taxes — from $70/year.

⭕ Search for additional funds to buy a new car — $7,500 every 5–10 years.

4. The car is not so comfortable anymore.

When was the last time you took the subway train? Have you seen public transport with WiFi and 2-meter ceilings? Have you taken a ride in electric buses?

5. A car = stress.

Where should I park? What if it is stolen? What if a tow truck takes it away?

6. What about the children? And the bags? And the sudden cold? And the summer house?

It is useful for children to walk more often than sit in the car. You can carry the bags or order delivery. Summer house? Why do you need a summer house?

7. A car is not “cool” anymore.

In a decent society, people who love showing off have long caused mockery or pity.

*The prices are true for a typical Russian car owner. It may vary across different countries accordingly.

Subscribe to the most non-boring investment telegram channel “Retired at 35”
Roth IRA — Growth. Just a quick post before bed, this is a…
Tags: Retirement, Stocks, Investing, Roth Ira, Finance

Just a quick post before bed, this is a sneak peak into my Roth IRA (View the link below). The purpose of this is not dividends, but instead growth.

I have 2 other sections within my Roth IRA, one through M1 Finance called; “2055 Aggressive” (95% all Vanguard funds) and another that consists of $SCHD, $VYM and $VNQ, in which all 3 compound through dividend reinvestment.

Yes, you can buy and sell within a Roth IRA — as long as you DO NOT withdraw from it.

As of Nov. 30th, 2020.

Link to the M1 Finance Roth IRA:

Information on Roth IRA’s for those who may not be familiar: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/103114/roth-iras-investing-and-trading-dos-and-donts.asp

Investing your Roth IRA in stocks allows you to buy them and sell them for capital gains and enjoy dividend income without paying taxes. Neither do you pay taxes on withdrawals nor on the earnings generated by stocks if you wait until you turn 59½. Unlike a taxable account that allows you to sell a high-performing stock, pay taxes on your capital gains and use the money the way you want, a Roth IRA levies a 10% penalty on your earnings over and above regular tax because you do not qualify for an exemption until you hit 59½.

https://financhill.com/blog/investing/reasons-trade-stock-roth-ira
🔥 How to retire at 35?
By: Retire At
Tags: Investment, Retirement Planning, Early Retirement, Retirement

It is not so easy! Not because investing is a complicated science, but rather because people are driven by laziness, ignorance and pessimism.

📖 My book was downloaded over 12.000 times. How many people do you think have finished it? In reality, at the very most — only a third! Well, this book can be completed under 4 hours of reading. It is written using a simple language and includes a step-by-step instruction.

Here is a brief list on what it takes to retire at early age:

⭕ Learn the basics: read a few books and attend a couple of seminars.

⭕ Take a step up the career ladder.

⭕ …or bust your butt off in your own business.

⭕ Invest in your health.

⭕ Put aside 15–50% of your monthly income in the safe for the duration of 10–15 years.

⭕ Keep the family budget on a daily basis.

⭕ Define an investment strategy: profit-based, dividend-based, passive, value-based, buy and hold.

⭕ Visit a psychotherapist on regular basis.

⭕ Get rid of the feelings that affect your investment decisions.

⭕ Do not pay attention to the opinions of your relatives and friends.

⭕ Give up the “old school” valuables — apartment, car, summer cottage, etc.

⭕ Do not act in the same way as everyone else, but rather act exactly the opposite way.

⭕ Explore the nature of luck and arm yourself up with it.

⭕ Explore the nature of crises and be ready for it.

⭕ Do not step on a rake: divorce and property division, mortgage, etc.

⭕ Get rid of overconsumption: clothes, cars, construction projects, repairs.

⭕ Stop showing off: iPhones, jewelry, expensive weddings.

⭕ Reduce your “wasted” time to a minimum: social networks, games, TV.

🤷‍♂️ Where are the advices about the portfolio composition? What about the choice of asset classes? Do they teach such lessons in investment courses?

🔗 Would you like to know more about each bullet point?

Subscribe to the most non-boring investment telegram channel “Retired at 35”
How to Cut Your Time to Retirement by 5 Years
By: U-Ming Lee
Tags: Finance, Financial Planning, Money, Investing, Retirement

However, the 4% rule may not be a realistic depiction of retirees’ behaviour

The ubiquity of the 4% rule begs the question: does it square up with peoples’ actual retirement experience? I’m a little suspicious that the 4% rule doesn’t work as a blanket rule.

As many people with aged family members might tell you, seniors actually tend to spend less on most things as they age.

My mom’s an example of this phenomenon. She’ll be 80 next July. She’s still healthy and can live independently.

She doesn’t eat as much as she did in her younger years as her appetite’s not what it used to be. She says her taste buds aren’t that sensitive anymore, so she feels less motivated to go out to eat than she used to. So, her food bills are way down from where they used to be.

My aunts — my mom’s sisters — are the same. When they go out, they go someplace affordable, and they tend to order smaller meals than younger family members. They view going out as a chance to catch up with one another instead of fussing too much about the quality of the food.

Also, they go to places they enjoy near their homes. Thus, they spend less on fuel than they used to. My mom, for instance, only re-fuels once every two months.

They don’t feel like they need to impress anyone, so they spend less on clothing than they did.

The statistics suggest they aren’t outliers in their frugal ways. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey (“CES”), which surveys American households’ incomes and expenditures, the same pattern of decreasing spending with age can be seen.

According to the CES in 2013, overall expenditures drop with age. Expenditure peaks at $60,524 per year in the 45–54 year age group, falling to $55,892 (55–64), $46,757 (65–74), and $34,382 (75 and above).

Spending on items like food, housing, transportation, clothing, and entertainment drops substantially in each older age group. Spending on health rises — as we might expect — but not enough to offset falls in spending in the other categories.

Further, this trend isn’t restricted to the US. The UK’s Office for National Statistics data shows the same result. In 2018, families headed by 30–49 year-olds spent £666.30 per week. The equivalent spending for households headed by 75-year olds, and above, was approximately half, at £336.10 per week.
“Belarus pensioners demand President Alexander Lukashenko resigns”
By: Voices Belarus
Tags: Minsk, Protest, Belarus, Prayforbelarus, Retirement

Hundreds of retirees staged a protest in the Belarusian capital on Monday to demand the resignation of the country’s authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, who won his sixth term in office in a disputed election.

Over 2,000 pensioners were estimated to have marched down a central avenue in Minsk in what has turned into a regular Monday rally, carrying red and white flags that have become the main symbol of the country’s protests.

They also held aloft portraits of opposition supporter Raman Bandarenka, who died earlier this month after reportedly being beaten by security forces.

Hundreds of retirees staged a protest in the Belarusian capital on Monday to demand the resignation of the country’s authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, who won his sixth term in office in a disputed election.

Over 2,000 pensioners were estimated to have marched down a central avenue in Minsk in what has turned into a regular Monday rally, carrying red and white flags that have become the main symbol of the country’s protests.

They also held aloft portraits of opposition supporter Raman Bandarenka, who died earlier this month after reportedly being beaten by security forces.

“Grandmothers and grandfathers heal poorly from new wounds,” read one of the banners carried by demonstrators. At one point the crowd ran into a police cordon and broke up into smaller groups that went into different directions.

Mass protests gripped Belarus since official results from the August 9 presidential election gave Lukashenko a landslide victory over his widely popular opponent Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. She and her supporters refused to recognise the result, saying the vote was riddled with fraud.

Authorities have cracked down hard on the largely peaceful demonstrations, the largest of which attracted up to 200,000 people.

Police used stun grenades, tear gas and truncheons to disperse the rallies. Thousands have been detained and many of them beaten since the election, human rights advocates say.

Belarus’ Interior Ministry said Monday that 345 people were detained during protests across the country a day earlier. The Viasna human rights centre puts the number at 390.

According to Viasna, at least one person was detained at Monday’s protest.
Invest for “Financial Freedom”
By: Sagar Mathapati
Tags: Financial Education, Financial Planning, Financial Freedom, Investing, Retirement

We all dream of one day, when we no longer have to look at the right side of a menu card on a family date in a restaurant or price tags in a shopping mall or just winning the lottery and putting the daily chore of earning money behind us.

But in the real world, how many can realize this dream?

A small percentage of the entire population!

A lot of people sit on the sidelines of life, hoping that their dreams will come true one day but nothing happens in life unless you take action.

The major difference between those who only dream and those who realize their dream is a simple ‘skill’. Skill to find ways where you don’t work for money but money works for you.

The most common way to make good money in our modern world is to do a job or work hard for someone else. But have you ever wondered why so many people work so hard without ever achieving anything significant financially?

Have you ever noticed that a person who does financially well tends to continue to do it more successfully? And how someone who is in financial distress tends to continue to be a financial failure?

Well, the difference is ‘financial goals’. People with financial goals achieve financial freedom because they know what they’re doing with their money. Others believe that their life is shaped by circumstances and things happen to them.

You may have forgotten, but you are a master of your life. This means that you have the power to make your own ‘choices’.

You weren’t born to live an average life and you all have an infinite potential waiting to be unleashed.

But “for things to change you have to change, if you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got”.

Investing can help you reach big financial goals. You can ‘make use of your money to make more money’ by earning interest, dividend, and capital gain by buying assets that appreciate over time.

It’s never too late to become an ‘investor’.

‘Fear’ can take control if you are waiting too long to set investment goals, but that should go away once you set the plan into motion.

Remember that all investments start with the first rupee, whatever your age, income, or outlook.

One must invest to achieve “financial freedom I. e. to maintain the desired lifestyle without regular a paycheck”.

Sagar Mathapati
Monthly Net-Worth Update — Nov 2020 — Good Month
By: T Minds
Tags: Retirement, Investment, Net Worth, Fire, Stock Market

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Time flies! It is already the end of Nov and we are one month from the end of this remarkable year — 2020.

So another update of our Net-Worth.

Overall, it is a good month. STI finally showed some color!

Net-Worth increase from last month: 24.07K SGD, 1.2KG Gold

The increase is mainly due to the recovery of STI and the bonds we hold.

The currency exchange rate fluctuation is mostly offset as we have both US and China assets.

Investment: 4.63% annualized return, incl. dividend

Compared to last month, it is huge improvement. This is the highest for us since March this year.

Stock market is a bit crazy lately due to US election and vaccine. However, I have concerns about the stock market, especially the developed markets. So I might focus my capital injection, if any, on Asia markets in the near future.

Just my two cents for your consideration.

We plan to do a re-cap of our Total NetWorth for Dec. So stay tuned!
Travel. Is overpaying a must?
By: Retire At
Tags: Early Retirement, Travel, Investing, Financial Independence, Retirement

✈️ Travel is a costly budget item among investor community, and for some reason it is not accepted to save money on such luxury. It took me about 10 years to thoroughly think this issue through. Quarantine situation made it crystal clear for me. 😷

In 2020 I was able to take a vacation 4 times. With a penny budget.🤑 And I received a lot of positive emotions.🤗

🗺️ Before that I visited a lot of countries. At my home there is even a map on which you can mark the places you visited with a special coin. I have never used it.😜

When I go to some city nearby, I get the same pleasure as when I travel to Cairo, Vienna, Munich, etc.

Are you in need of sunny weather and appropriate climate? Does it have to be a flight to the Maldives? Maybe it would be better to go to Turkey and/or Egypt? 🏖️

🧠 In terms of obtaining hormones of joy there is no difference. The most memorable trip last year was to a city 50 miles away from Moscow. I only spent some money on a train ticket. 🚆

But for a deceived brain this difference is huge. It was imposed on us by marketers and friends on Instagram.🤳

We enjoy bragging and satisfying our ego. We are obsessed with life checkpoints.🏁

🛒 All this can become a shopping habit. Be careful. Think about your vacation trips.⚖️
Structure? Yikes!
By: Marti Wukelic
Tags: Self-awareness, Retirement, Career Change, Senior Citizens, Structure

From the day that I entered Stark Elementary School as an apprehensive first grader until my last day as a laid back UHMC Outreach Coordinator, my life was largely ruled by something I hadn’t considered until about two months ago. For sixty years, the STRUCTURE of my life almost exclusively came from the outside — school or work. Mine, or my son’s.

After retirement, I did a huge relocation and suddenly realized that I no longer had time constraints. I could stay in my nightgown all day, if I wanted! I could play Rescue Team Eight for hours, if I wanted! I could have my groceries delivered and not leave my house, if I wanted! What a great discovery! However, left to my own devices, two things soon became clear to me:

I am not a naturally structured person We freaking NEED some structure in our lives.

So if there is no longer externals forcing me to be structured, does that mean I have to create the structure myself?? Hence, the “yikes” of the title.

Being the work-in-progress that I am, I’ve only come up with a couple things so far. Number one — since I have a little master bedroom with its own bathroom thing (which I love, incidentally) — I do not leave my bedroom unless my bed is made. Number two, I don’t get a second cup of coffee until I’m changed into “outside” clothes.

I’ve also managed to stick with the closest thing to internal structure prior to this phase, which is hitting the gym for thirty minutes, three times a week, EVERY SINGLE week. No, not four times, not for an hour. But did you see the “every single week” part? That is doable and it works for me.

My next challenge is — at least for the moment — to consider M-F as my “work week.” During my work week, I will follow WW (formerly Weight Watchers, but they’re all sensitive about being called WW these days) and I will (oh, this one hasn’t happened yet) write two hours a day — from 10AM until noon. There. I said it. I committed to it.

Structure. I can learn this.
Learning to Pivot
By: Marti Wukelic
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Relocating, Pandemic, Retirement

So here’s another thing about retirement and radical relocation during a pandemic:

For nearly 50 years, I have been very career and avocation forward focused. That’s a lot of movement buildup! Under normal circumstances, I would channel all that momentum into starting the next phase of my life. I would investigate the area, make new friends, join new groups, etc. But — as is true for all of us — there are few “normal circumstances” in 2020. So I’ve tried to channel that energy into fixing up my new home, endless meetings and classes via Zoom and miles of furious pedaling into nowhere on our gym’s recumbent bike.

That’s been good to a point. But lately it’s felt less like starting a new life and more like chasing my damn tail. Under the best of circumstances, I would miss the structure of my 30+ years of living a life on Maui. But during this crazy assed year, it was becoming almost unbearable.

I thought I needed big adventures, new people, new stuff and the Marc Cohen concert I’d had tickets for since last year. I didn’t think I wanted or needed a phase of quiet and solitary time to reflect. But — like everyone — what I wanted and what I got were two different things.

However, yesterday morning I had a series of texts with a friend “back home on Maui.” While I whined my friend sent upbeat, positive reminders that there’s always good stuff, but sometimes we simply have to reframe our thinking (my words, not his, but that’s what I got from it).

Wow. It finally sunk in. So I regrouped.

By yesterday evening, my perspective had shifted. This year did not turn out how ANY of us expected our year to proceed. So what do we do about it?

pivot: the central point, pin, or shaft on which a mechanism turns or oscillates Oxford Languages

Ah, yes, that’s it! It’s up to us, as individuals, to learn to pivot. Or not. Totally our choice.

But for me, it can’t be simply “well, I’ll accept things for what they are” and to let it go at that. I want this craziness to take me someplace better. Not sure exactly what all that means, but one part is to focus on that “habitual forward motion energy” phenomenon I mentioned in the beginning. I’m looking for how to channel it into good stuff (omg, I remember now — I’m a good cook!) but also into letting the energy dissipate a just a little. Kind of like letting a little air out of an overinflated tire. Finding the balance. For example: Upon retirement, I decide I AM GOING TO WRITE. I’ve been mentally obsessed with what I’ll write, when I’ll write it, how, etc. I even have my crazy book idea. But so far … not much writing. I have a little ‘critical parent’ in the back of my brain, continually frowning at me — arms folded and foot tapping — for not following through. But in this new mindset, I just turned around told her to get lost. And poof! She’s gone. Now I think I’ll put on some Grover Washington Jr, have my breakfast and read a fluff book. Oh and look … I’m writing. Funny how that works.

Yeah, I CHOOSE to get really good at the pivot. How about you?
Our humanness can be both messy and beautiful simultaneously.
By: Debbie René
Tags: Vulnerability

Our humanness can be both messy and beautiful simultaneously. Perfection in anything is an unrealistic expectation. Vulnerability makes us HUMAN and gives us opportunity for growth.

I’ve learned so much this week about trust and responsibility. To trust is to place faith in healing, transformation, peace, abundance, connection, or even forgiveness. To have responsibility is to own what we can, but not worry about controlling what we can’t. At the core of both trust and responsibility is where we find stability and possibly even love. True love is an unconditional space of understanding, for ourselves as well as others. These traits and lessons aren’t easy, and they are a continual process in life. As we evolve, we grow deeper and deeper roots, while shedding the layers placed over us. Can we learn to appreciate the parts of ourselves that we don’t like? Can we learn to love and appreciate those pieces of others when they struggle with it as well? Can we HOLD SPACE for healing to take place? Are we brave enough to transform? If you believe in change, then please know that it starts within YOU. No one else can do it for you.

Healing is not linear. It’s uncomfortable, scary, and intense. It’s THE WORK. It’s the core of where our internal peace is found. It’s what sets us free. And while “healing” is a commonly used word, it’s the road less traveled, and it can feel lonely at times. Regardless, it’s the BRAVEST path of them all. This inner soul work gives us the connection we seek. For those on this path with me. Keep moving forward.
Brief Verses for the Sleepers
By: Iffah Suraya Jasni
Tags: Self-awareness, Poetry, Honesty, Authentic Living, Vulnerability

Photo by Fabian Oelkers on Unsplash

Tick, tick, tick tock,

the cradle will rock

all of whom who don’t

give a fock —

Deep in slumber they remain,

Removed from each pain

of not thinking, of not knowing

who they are and what they be doing —

They who do not give a fock

for their bough-breaking methods of being themselves,

make no reason to jump out of their rock

and into bookshelves.
4 More Drafts to Go!
By: More Drafts To Go
Tags: Vulnerability, Visual Artist, Sharing Stories

A “pressed for time” writer’s journey resumes…

My father was a hobby writer. He always encouraged me to write. I rarely did…till he passed away a few years ago. Since then, sometimes I wake up at night or have these flashes of ideas during the day that compel me to drop everything and write in one go. It’s an emotional, RAW and unedited dump!

I’m a visual artist by profession. I paint, dance, sculpt & teach which leaves me little time to spend on my poems and stories to edit and chisel them to a nuanced art form. I knew I would never be able to spend time with them the way I spent time to hone my skills at drawing and painting so I abandoned them at birth after sharing them with a select few.

It’s 4 years since my father passed away. The only time the public got to see my poems was when I mustered enough courage (with gentle coaxing from my brother) to display a few of them alongside my paintings for a one-woman exhibition of my artwork “An Artist explores Consciousness). The response I got was reassuring but not enough for me to share them to “Posterity” online.

This year I started teaching sketching and painting lessons online. I discovered that most of my students who now were able to access me from as far away as India and California (I live in a small town in upstate NY) were professionals who were unable to develop their passion to their desired level due to the time constraint their careers demanded. I was reasoning with them about how not to judge themselves so harshly. To be patient in their journey. To be gentle and kind with their art. Don’t look for external validation. “Vulnerability helps you grow” …

…And then it struck to me that I was exhibiting the same behavior with my writing. I was happy to express myself, proud that I could write but somewhere there was a shame of being judged that stopped me from sharing. So here I go, opening a member page on Medium. Sharing my writings. Following my own advice!
Cloud-Focused Red Teaming
By: K O M A L
Tags: Security, Cloud Computing, Pentesting, Red Team, Vulnerability

Cloud-Focused Red Teaming

In my Red-Teaming Engagement article, I’ve mentioned about its methodology and difference between Red Team and Penetration Testing. In this article, I’ll be focusing only on the Cloud side of Red Teaming Engagement.

Photo by İsmail Enes Ayhan on Unsplash

Shared Responsibilities for Overall Cloud Security

The below chart shows a high-level view of Shared Responsibilities between Cloud Provider and Customer for the overall cloud security. As sometimes it gets trickier to understand what you can or cannot perform during a pentest or red teaming exercise.

Cloud Companie’s Red Teaming

A cloud provider company covers the following areas for their own red teaming exercise. These are:

On their Tenants, Applications and Data.

On their infrastructure and platforms.

Software as a System (SaaS).

Cloud Providers never targets the user-operated services during their Red Teaming Engagement.

Cloud Client’s Red Teaming

Before engaging into any pentest/red team activities, you must complete the required security assessment form of that particular cloud companies. i.e. AWS, MS Azure.

Customer can only perform Red Teaming Exercise against their own Tenant, applications and Data hosted in MS Azure or O365.

In AWS Services like some areas of Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) Instance (IaaS), lambda, RDS, Cloudfront and the API Gateway configuration are permitted to pentest.

Anything IN SCOPE for your client is permitted.

Configuration and identity of those SaaS services can be tested.

Exclusions
Moment of Choice
By: Andrea Pruett
Tags: Poetry, Written Tales, Life, Vulnerability, Mental Health

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

I beg for quiet control,

a heart that stays in order,

a mind that stays in charge.

I know that I am

Too old

to give in.

Too old

to let my feelings win.

I feel that empty, painful aching.

Silent

as the grave.

Deep

as sin.

But my control slips from my hands.

My will shatters on the street,

fragile as glass,

the shards of my defeat.

The moment of choice ends…

And I have failed again.
JoomlaVS — Joomla Vulnerability Scanner
By: Marcos Henrique
Tags: Scanner, Joomla, 100security, Vulnerability, Joomlavs

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Stop Testing Me
By: Julia Rea
Tags: Fighting, Patriachy, Vulnerability, Dating

He’s going to call me sensitive, I can feel it bubbling up in my bones

Stop testing me

I said

But he didn’t listen

It feels like when a two year old puts their finger an inch from your face and says:

“I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you,”

But he’s over 40

He stirs something inside me that wants to scream

FUCK YOU

For thinking you hold ownership over me

And fuck the patriarchy

Fuck the emotional immaturity people get away with

Their entire lives

No not get away with — bear the burden of

Without realizing — it’s a burden

Thinking instead it is a shield

It’s not even their fault

Our entire society, civilization even

Is stunted

Emotionally…

Disconnected

From ourselves.

And what it is that makes us human:

The beauty of getting it wrong, fucking it up, not being perfect.

We shove these parts of ourselves into a box and hope no one ever sees — us

Through the thin facade of our Instagram selfies

Or the first interview you’ve had in 9 months

Faking confidence because revealing any minutiae of weakness means you won’t get the job

Couldn’t we redefine vulnerability as strength instead of weakness so we can be our most true selves with one another

Wouldn’t that make the world a better place to live?

Or at least an easier one?

Why isn’t this the natural order?

Who wins in the system the way it exists?

He does.
Becoming a Open Book
By: Nicole Spindler
Tags: Open Book, Writing, Transparency, Storyofmylife, Vulnerability

Back in the middle of March, when I got the green-light to commence the writing of my first few chapters of Beyond Life’s Moments, while I had my pen and paper (or an open Word Document) at the ready, I had the faintest, yet persistent hesitation come directly from within me that momentarily kept me from writing my first sentence.



Once I start writing my story, my editors (Karina, Kristen and John) are going to have to read it… in order for them to assist me in transforming my life story up to this moment into a masterpiece, they needed to edit it, share their opinions and read my story… all of it. The details and series of events that I kept secure in my journals over the years would be conveyed in the pages of my book. Eventually, my family, friends, coworkers, professors, and complete strangers would be reading my book… learning from and revisiting my experience, mistakes and reflections with each read… diving into gut-wrenching, uplifting and moving aspects of my defining moments during an entire decade of my life.



Upon coming to this astonishing realization, most people would cease the entire writing process right then and there as a million insecure thoughts and what-if questions would invade their minds.



Yet, I remained committed to the process until the very end. Because if anyone deserved to admire, cherish and appreciate my abilities to be vulnerable and transparent about my life’s sudden plot twists… it was going to be me.



It was always going to be me.



This was MY story, MY life that I have shared- my raw, unfiltered, story of the past ten years filled with laughter, love and light and those webbed in the void of depression, darkness and uncertainty. I had to truly and utterly be vulnerable and transparent about my positive and damaging thoughts, moments and emotions I experienced in order to have my story transcend the pages of my book to inspire my readers to find their light at the end of the tunnel.
今年見つけたFirefoxの脆弱性 (2020年)
By: Muneaki Nishimura, Nihimunea
Tags: Firefox, Vulnerability, Bug Bounty Program, Security

Product Security Track Producer at Security Camp 2020, Japan. Platform Security Group Manager at Recruit Co., Ltd.
Vulnerability
By: Erika Fischer-Laine
Tags: Poetry, Struggle, Poem, Vulnerability, Émotion

Photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels

It is easy to write poetry about emotion.

It is a common thing.

A regular feeling.

A regular routine.

To scrabble and snatch at thoughts and doubts,

To write it down on a swatch of inked lines.

Not easy to let go and to observe those who stare and question.

The writer can lick as many pen nibs,

Bite as many lids

Until their teeth become broken,

Along with their tongue and voice box whenever approached.

But their etchings of emotion cannot be spoken in the right tone.

Not written.

Conveyed.
Take Your Vision Seriously, Not Yourself
By: Yiqing Zhao
Tags: Self Improvement, Shame, Vision, Life Lessons, Vulnerability

A remedy for sensitive high-achievers

Photo by Park Troopers on Unsplash

Last night I performed a monologue at a writer’s group winter solstice event. I’m a quick study and am usually very comfortable with monologues, but that one was supposed to be sung to the tunes of “Revolution” by Beatles.

Next thing I know, I was singing in my bedroom like a mad woman at 1am. I was sweating, trying to fit the words into the music as best as possible.

When it was my turn to perform, I said: “Last time I was singing in front of the audience was last summer. So I’m just gonna wing it.” And it turned out more than OK. My audience liked it, and I felt good.
Naked
By: Andrea Pruett
Tags: Poetry, Written Tales, Life, Vulnerability, Mental Health

Photo by Genessa Panainte on Unsplash

I have almost worn out this smile.

It’s threadbare and faded.

The seams need mending.

Its believability is ending.

It does not quite meet the eye.

It does not quite welcome.

And they wonder why,

if the reason is them.

But after all this time,

the armor is finally failing.

Shafts of light cut through the cracks

and she is sick.

Weak. Wailing.

Avert your eyes. Walk away.

You cannot see her in this state.

Without the smile she wears each day,

the girl stands naked in this place.

Stripped bare.

Skin, bones,

and heart exposed.

Her humanity is showing.
Knight Time
By: Dark Angel
Tags: Darkness, Synchronicity, Love And Sex, Life, Vulnerability

Oh Dark night

Embrace me with your fullness

So i may know once more

What wholeness feels like

The fleeting sweet ambrosia

The deluded sirens call

Doesn’t wholly quench the thirst

For the insatiable ˈbæbælən

Chaos gave birth to Aeon

Beckoning for the Elixir of Life

Transcending all arcaneness

Dispelling all ego…in our vulnerability

Becoming…
The Science of Why Friends With Benefits Doesn’t Work
By: S. Cosby
Tags: Relationships, Dating, Love, Vulnerability, Friendship

The Science of Why Friends With Benefits Doesn’t Work

Photo by Bruce Christianson on Unsplash

Up until recently I was floating aimlessly in the dreaded grayzone of a non-relationship.

You know the place. It feels nice at first, maybe you’re happy to be there because it’s better than nowhere.

But inevitably, it begins to feel empty. Small. Vague. Uncertain. Stuck. You try to get out, try to reach the safety of something concrete. But you’re told that’s not possible at the moment.

So you reluctantly stay put, you forget about your needs, your wishes. You push down all the things you want to say until you eventually explode (metaphorically of course).

Sound familiar?

This is the uncertain state, also known as Friends With Benefits.

Here you don’t know who you are. When you are. What you want. You are simultaneously something and nothing.

The thing with the uncertain state is that it cannot last forever. It’s inherently unstable. Though it all might seem fine at first, it eventually causes anxiety, pain, heartbreak.

So why do we do it? How do we end up in arrangements that we don’t actually want?
Damn Vulnerable DeFi — Challenge #6 Walkthrough
By: Peter Kacherginsky
Tags: Ethereum, Solidity, Defi, Blocksec, Vulnerability

The next challenge in the series teaches us about dangers of mixing flash loans and governance systems:

A new cool lending pool has launched! It's now offering flash loans of DVT tokens. Wow, and it even includes a really fancy governance mechanism to control it. What could go wrong, right ? You start with no DVT tokens in balance, and the pool has 1.5 million. Your objective: steal them all.

The governance contract described in the challenge implements two functions to queue and execute action proposals. Action queue mechanism verifies that an actor has sufficient votes as follows:

Notice that _hasEnoughVotes obtains token balance using the same vulnerable ERC20Snapshot mechanism described in the previous challenge. This means that as long as the last recorded token snapshot has sufficient balance, one could successfully queue any action.

Before we hop into the exploit, let’s quickly look at how actions are actually executed:

Queued actions are executed using the executeAction call which simply checks that 2 days have elapsed since an action was queued and directly calls arbitrary address on behalf of the governance contract.

Our goal is to drain the balance belonging to the lending pool and not the governance contract. Conveniently the SelfiePool contract includes just the function we need which can only be called by the SimpleGovernance contract:

Let’s craft an attacker contract to help us queue a new governance action using a flash loan:

The above attack contract will borrow specified amount of funds (need at least 50% of the total governance token supply), record a snapshot and queue a new governance action in a single transaction. The key element in that sequence is to take governance token snapshot in order to pass _hasEnoughVotes verification. Let’s populate the exploit portion of the selfie.challenge.js in order to execute the attack:

Executing the above script allows us to successfully drain the entire pool balance:

Exploitation of governance systems using flash loans happen in live projects. In fact, on October 26, 2020 someone was able to successfully pass a MakerDAO proposal using a flash loan obtained from dYdX.

References
How to Overcome Your Fears and Take the Risk
By: Skylar Rae
Tags: Risk, Take Action, Personal Development, Vulnerability, Mental Health

Let’s go back to the questions from earlier. I am going to go through them one by one so that the next time they pop into your mind you can remember that it’s just fear and anxiety talking not reality.

What if people don’t like it?

No matter what you do there will always be people who don’t like it or who are not supportive of it. However, it’s usually because they are either jealous that you had the guts to put yourself out there, what you are doing makes them feel unaccomplished, or it doesn’t align with their belief system.

Either way, it doesn’t matter where their opinions are coming from. If what you are doing comes from your deepest passions and feels 100% right to do, then that’s all that matters. As long as you love it and are doing it for the right reasons then the hate and nonsupports will be insignificant.

Plus if you love and believe in what you are doing you will begin to attract more people to your idea that will support you. However, you have to be the person that puts that energy in first.

What if I look bad?

How will you know if you look bad if you don’t ever try it? This goes along with the last question as well so you can use most of it for this question.

Additionally, if you are worried about the way you look then your priorities are in the wrong place. To be blunt, if you are worried about how your image will be affected that is an ego problem. I understand it, I had issues with it when starting this blog and other times in my life. However, once you work on getting over the need to fit a specific appearance you will realize how much easier it is to not just take that next step but live life authentically!

What if it’s not as good as I think it is?

Again, how will you know if you don’t even TRY! I know the hardest part is just pushing that one button or making that one phone call to turn your idea into a reality but you might as well go for it!

If it ends up not being as good as you thought, take a step back and brainstorm what you can do better the next time. Getting creative with ideas and concepts is not a one and done type of thing. You will make mistakes and you will need to adjust things as you go. If it’s not as good as you thought it would be then what can you change to get it to that vision?

What if it doesn’t work and I fail?

In its simplest explanation, then you fail. As I said above, the process of taking these creative risks is a learning process. They can’t all be successful because then you would never learn anything new.

Also, failing isn’t truly failing. Your idea might have failed but you haven’t unless you decide to give up. However, failing will always teach you a lesson that will help guide you in your next steps. When looking at it this way failing can never be completely bad.

It also means that what you are currently doing might not be in your highest good for your life’s purpose. So listen to what you need to learn and take that into your next idea.
The Lie
Tags: Lying, Love, Promises, Enmeshment, Vulnerability

Popular wisdom decrees that you ought to never ever lie.

It also states you mustn’t trust a liar.

Basically, lies are evil and anyone who uses them should burn in hell.

I don’t believe that.

I am not encouraging you to go on a lying binge but I am not condemning lying.

If I am here, writing to you is because of a lie, a lie I believed with all my heart.

A lie that was so powerful that by the time I discovered it was a lie I couldn’t do anything but to chuckle and admire the mastery of the so-called liar.

My teacher was that liar.

After months of carefully observing and measuring my teacher, I joined a program in which I’d have a time-slot to meet her on my own.

No onlookers who could judge me, just the two of us.

Hesitantly, I told her my ‘dirty’ little secret.

I told her how much I loved a dude who basically hated me.

I described a torrid love story that involved a variety of altered states of consciousness.

I told her how much work it had taken me to discover the spark he hid under many layers of identities. I told her how I was mesmerised by that spark, how devoted I was to remove those mountains covering it. He was trapped and I was devoured by the hunger to free him.

I begged her to help me help him out of the prison he had built around his soul.

Yes, I used my one-on-one time to request her help on a rescue enterprise I was running for a dude who didn’t even like me.

And she agreed to do it.

Very calmly, she said she’d help me out on my quest.

I can very vividly evoke the relief I felt in my heart, my shoulders and my jaw when I heard those words. Finally, my prayers had been answered.

But it was all a lie.

Of course.

She, very perceptively, knew I couldn’t ask for help for myself.

She could see that the soul trapped under obscuring heaps, begging to be released, was my soul, not his.

She could smell the mirrormask and sniff the one who walked behind the rows.

So she lied, she promised a fistful of help that would never materialise. Then, she proceeded to energetically destabilise the bind my soul had with a few words.

She took a risk and it paid off.

The first domino was pushed and months later I was desperately seeking to release myself from the enmeshment I had with this dude and she was calmly saying it was totally doable.

She said it would take a lot of work, probably years of work.

She didn’t lie this time. It indeed took years but one day, I was free.

Free of the bind, of him, but also free of resentment or hatred towards him. Free.

All because I believed a very deliberate lie.
My Attempt at Authenticity
By: Kayla Labun
Tags: Authenticity, Vulnerability

There’s a few things that I think about on the daily. There’s are things that, whether I like it or not, permeate my daily living. In a way, they motivate me, the drive me to do the things I do. Mostly, they keep me up at night wondering what to do about them.

The first is loneliness. Often when I think of loneliness, I picture a little old lady isolated in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere, not seeing anyone. And sometimes, I do feel like that little old lady desperate for human interaction — especially during this year-long pandemic. However, usually, it’s a loneliness which permeates despite social interaction, and often intensifies because of social interaction. When I get this type of loneliness, I feel as though people are the remedy, but, this becomes a circular phenomenon because they also cause it. Obviously my friends don’t cause intentionally, but this feeling emerges from the lack of depth, attention, or connection I feel with my friends. Usually, that is the cause. Although, I do also think that this loneliness is simply a feeling that people can’t fix.

read more at mikaylajoy.net//
Burn my diaries?
By: Diana Mrazikova
Tags: Real Life Experiences, Vulnerability, Diary Writing, Real Life Stories

Burn my diaries? No!! On the contrary, I have already published some of them and will publish the rest 😂 I even write my @havana.diaries directly openly on Instagram. Sometimes when I don’t write, my followers email me and say: “Hey, I’m waiting for your entries.” They follow not because it’s perfect, but because it’s real & very personal. (My diaries chronicle my life from Slovakia — to Los Angeles- to Africa — to Cuba (sometimes more often, sometimes with the time gaps) and when I read them after years, I smile and laugh and I love this journey I’m on. I think that they just prove the saying — ”Do your best & trust the universe. Everything will work out.” I hope to have a daughter one day, who can inherit them and read as she’s growing up.

Think twice before burning your diaries. Years later, you might feel that it was the biggest mistake that you made. It’s like erasing photos with your ex-partners, or with people that hurt you… I’ve done it once, and now, when emotions are gone, I’d love to have them. It’s all part of our journey.