Off the Cuff on Rietta Cybersecurity

Julia Parsons, USN, Enigma Code Breaker Dead at 104

Fri, 02 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The New York Times has published the obituary of Julia Parsons, US Navy, who passed away at 104 years old. She operated the Bombe to break Enigma codes during World War II. The obit includes a photo of her in uniform in 1942. This is an important chapter in computer science history, a tribute to the women who stepped up and performed remarkable work, and those who did this work will be completely gone in just a few years time.

Google Search Results are Increasingly Disappointing as AI Results Are Pushed

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

My professional career and this website (first published in 1999) have grown up through the entire Google adventure. From the upstart clean search page that offered no distractions and good results, compared to the Excite@Home and AltaVista pages of the day, to the modern day corporate silicon valley behemoth. I well remember when my RoboGen shareware hit page rank 9! And inbound results have allowed this company to grow to where it is and have fed my family and paid many others who have worked here for a time.

Rietta Makes it Betta Thank You Art!

Mon, 13 Jul 2020 08:00:00 -0500

Joe Winter and C4 Atlanta commissioned Artist Gina Kirlew to paint this beautiful computer on canvas as a thank you for our volunteer consulting service for C4 Atlanta, a non-profit organization. I’m very grateful for all of Rietta’s clients. But must I must say that this is one of the most unique thank you notes that I’ve ever received and is something that will be cherished for many years to come.

10th Anniversary Blog

Wed, 08 Apr 2015 11:59:00 -0400

Today, Wednesday, April 8, 2015, is the tenth anniversary of this blog. I was a Georgia Tech student at the time of the first post. I was a student at Georgia Tech, about to present my research on SQL Injection at the UROC symposium the next week. That research project lead to my first published paper on Application Layer Intrusion Detection for SQL Injection that was accepted as a single author paper by the ACM while I was still an undergraduate student and was instrumental in my decision to pursue Information Security at the graduate level.

The blog itself has had its starts and stops with some challenges settling into a sustainable post schedule. I started this as a CS student, not an author, so some writing disciplines can only be developed over time.

It has had some posts that have been crazy popular, with thousands of readers a month for years, and some that I do not think anyone has ever looked at other than myself. But post after post, readership has increased to the point that we now consistently have more than 9,000 visitors and I hope to cross the 10,000 mark within the year.

Gradually and then suddenly

Sun, 19 Jan 2014 19:07:00 +0000

This month is the 15th anniversary of when I started Rietta Solutions, that has since become Rietta, Incorporated, and has expanded into the company that it is today.

The new City of Johns Creek

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I look forward to voting for the council members for the new City of Johns Creek, Georgia, next week. Our new city was chartered by the Georgia General Assembly in HB 1321 earlier this year. One thing that bothers me about the name of the city is that they have completely dropped the possessive. The city is named after John’s Creek, a stream that runs through what used to be John Roger’s property.

A product website without pricing information is really annoying!

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Looking at the website, of a product in which I am interested, that does not show the price is frustrating! It is frankly amazing to me how many product websites from reputable companies do not make it easy to find out how much their widgets cost. When I cannot determine the price on the same page as the product information, I generally assume it is too expensive and move on. I wonder how many potential customers are turned away by hard to find pricing information.

Less is more! Google offers less talk

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I was visiting my grandmother, who had recently purchased a new computer and wanted to use the Internet. The person who had helped her install her computer had set her up with Juno because it was free. However, my grandmother found it impossible to use because it was too visually distracting. She wanted access to a few things including e-mail, IM, and maps. She and I changed her dial-up service to that provided by her local phone company and then registered a gmail.

The Start of Something Interesting

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have never seriously considered the prospect of creating a Blog, while I have been a frequent subscriber to a number of others. In fact it was only this morning that I realized that Blogger was actually a product of Google, which goes to show how little attention I have paid to it. However, I figure this is as good a place to start as any and makes starting a lot easier than setting up blog software on my own server.