Null Hypothesis is a blog about Cyber Security and Data Science, broadly considered, with an emphasis on Networking and Software. It’s written by David McGrew, who has worked in cybersecurity and applied cryptography research, development, and standards for over 25 years. Planned topics include algorithms, programming, crypto (in its proper sense), and open source, and their application to the detection of threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks.

Why Blog? My personal web page, which dated way back back 1998, fell off of the Internet when the company hosting it moved out of that business, opening an opportunity to take a fresh approach and to learn a new web platform. I am also inspired by some of the great blogs on technical topics, such as coding (Bartlomiej Filipek), cryptography (Matthew Greene), cybersecurity (Brian Krebs), and public policy (Bruce Schneier).

I want to write about the topics that are important, even when they might not be topical. The tech sector spends too much time chasing chimeras, and not enough time tending to the real animals already in its pastures. I also want to share some of what I have learned, and I especially hope that it can be useful to people who are earlier in their technical careers.

On the name: a null hypothesis is a term from statistical inference. It’s an arbitrary choice that I like in part because it hints at something contrarian (for those with a stats background) and mentions everyone’s favorite pointer (for those with a software background). Also, it is one of the few data science terms that is not already in use as the name of some cybersecurity startup.

Copyright © 2022 David McGrew.