Todd Sterrett
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mtsterrett.bsky.social
Todd Sterrett
@mtsterrett.bsky.social
Author of False Start. Microsoft CSA in Security. World traveler. Cat dad. This is a personal account.

MTSterrett.com
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I wrote a book and have the second one almost done! Getting here has been an amazing adventure.

www.amazon.com/False-Start-...
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
In every century, cats is the same

(written by Japanese Emperor Uda on 11th March 809; picture unrelated)
December 20, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
I hate how much I enjoyed this

BIG NERD DESIGN ENERGY 🫦
December 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Every time I hear I'll be home for Christmas play my brain autocompletes the the line 'Christmas Eve will find me' ... with 'and in the darkness bind me.' 🙃
December 13, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
Very excited to share the NASA/ESA/STScI press release of our team's work on Apep! It's a terrific writeup, complete with a brand new beautiful visualisation of the nebula geometry.
1/? ⚛️🔭🧪
science.nasa.gov/missions/web...
Webb First to Show 4 Dust Shells 'Spiraling' Apep, Limits Long Orbit - NASA Science
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a first of its kind: a crisp mid-infrared image of a system of four serpentine spirals of dust, one expanding
science.nasa.gov
November 19, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Brain empty. Only bird.
November 19, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
Painful stings like the velvet ants' venom actually evolved to defend them from insect predators, so it's surprising how well they target mammalian nociception ('pain-sensing') pathways.

There's a nice paper on this where they found velvet ant venom caused aversion in fruit flies, mice, and mantis.
Arizona velvet ants are colorful little insects that will DESTROY you. Their sting is described as 'hot oil from the deep fryer'. As wingless wasps, they will drop you to your knees. They will make you call to god. They are the reason countless children are afraid of cute insects.

they are perfect
January 21, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
👋 Folks, I'm super excited to announce the launch of the Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment!

I've been working on this project for the past year at Microsoft with an extended team including our security researchers, product feature teams and docs

Here's what it does
November 12, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
The beautiful chaos of a used bookstore is unmatched.
November 9, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
World's biggest spiderweb discovered inside 'Sulfur Cave' with 111,000 arachnids living in pitch black.

www.livescience.com/animals/spid...
November 8, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!

Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.

Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!

#MundaneHalloween
November 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
It's Patch Tuesday and ASP.NET Core has a doozy, with a CVSS score of 9.9, our highest ever. Let's examine why.

The bug enables http request smuggling, which on its own for ASP.NET Core would be nowhere near that high, but that's not how we rate things...

* Thread- (1/7)
Microsoft Security Advisory CVE-2025-55315: .NET Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability · Issue #371 · dotnet/announcements
Microsoft Security Advisory CVE-2025-55315: .NET Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Executive summary Microsoft is releasing this security advisory to provide information about a vulnerability i...
github.com
October 14, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Got to wake up to the fire alarm this morning. Definitely not my favorite way to start the day. Everything’s fine. Just extra needy cats now
October 10, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
all discourse aside, there is one machine with consciousness. it's printers. they are alive and conscious and they hate you and they'd take your arm clean off if you let them. never trust a printer.
October 6, 2025 at 7:36 PM
October 4, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
If you didn't hear, we ANNOUNCED LOTS OF COOL SECURITY STUFF today:

- Microsoft Sentinel graph
- Build your own Security Copilot Agents
- Microsoft security store

www.microsoft.com/en-us/securi...
Microsoft Sentinel: The security platform for the agentic era | Microsoft Security Blog
Microsoft unveils a new wave of security innovation—delivering an agentic platform to protect organizations at scale. Learn more.
www.microsoft.com
September 30, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
Just finished processing my HaLRGB image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

At ~2.5 million light years away, Andromeda is our nearest spiral neighbour. The pink regions mark hydrogen-rich star-forming nebulae, while the dusty lanes and bright core reveal stunning depth.

#Astrophotography #Andromeda
September 27, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Noodling what it would take to visit Europe again. Some of that's directed, like looking at suggestions from other travelers and seeing what guided tours do. But other things I do are literally zooming in on maps and seeing what a place in an area I'm interested in is like.
September 1, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Just hanging out hoping she’ll get to see another bird. #caturday
August 30, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
Imagine it's 1850 and you've just been flattened by an elite cavalry officer who just yells "SOWWY" as he thunders away.
August 15, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Salt Lake City and Detroit were two airports that I regularly had good experiences in back when i used to travel regularly
Actually, you know what? Let’s stop complaining for a second. QT this with a GOOD airport. Defend that title as much or as little as you like. But let’s hear about airports that don’t suck.
August 13, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
There's a story popularized by Grace Hopper, computer pioneer, about a 1947 failure in the Harvard Mark II computer that was traced to a moth trapped in an electrical relay.

Here's a photo of the operator log, with the attached bug.

Text under it reads:
"First actual case of bug being found"
October 1, 2024 at 9:44 PM
Very much enjoyed the new Superman movie. Krypto was a cute menace 😂
August 10, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
Welcome to Jurassic Pork 🦕🥟🦖
#Delicious #Dinosaur #Dumplings
July 28, 2025 at 9:35 AM
This is a really good thread. Troubleshooting and fixing problems under pressure are super important skills at nearly all levels of IT.
Troubleshooting walkthrough: Cascade Into Darkness

This is a real issue I solved in Windows, the hurdles I faced, and what I'd do differently.

🐥🐥YOU CAN MUTE JUST THIS CONVERSATION THREAD🐥🐥

It starts with the user editing "HKLM\HARDWARE" and misunderstanding an instruction and breaking Windows.
July 24, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Todd Sterrett
July 14, 2025 at 5:11 PM