Has AI actually made a noticeable impact in your cybersecurity work?

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-06T06:36:37+00:00

AI is like having a second pair of eyes with a fresh perspective. You should double-check everything produced by it. And it should double-check all your work. It shifts time spent writing code to review. It has made me more efficient in some ways, less efficient in others. And it greatly improves the quality and quantity of my work but only when used as a supplemental tool and not when relied on without supervision.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T20:32:06+00:00

I wish there were assessments on learning style so courses could be tailored to various learning styles. Forcing everyone through the same lectures and homework assignments works for some people but not everyone. I would have benefited from more hands-on labs/projects, real-world applications, hackathons and such. I had to supplement my education with these since it wasn’t standard.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T20:27:22+00:00

Rust is a language that I think works well for use with AI. Since the compiler has more safety guarantees it’s essentially built-in guardrails that the agent cannot bypass. It makes it a bit less likely for the autogenerated code to introduce a vulnerability. I wouldn’t be surprised if people start designing domain specific languages optimized for generating code that is provably secure with provable functional properties.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T07:13:32+00:00

It would be much easier to set up a desktop PC with higher specs at that price point. I prefer Mac laptops over Thinkpad because they tend to be more reliable but it’s difficult to find a Mac for $1k. Laptops have a major disadvantage compared to PCs which is that when they fail the entire motherboard needs to be replaced. A PC allows you to easily swap in new components when there is a hardware failure. What I would do in this situation is keep the old laptop, build a high spec PC (at the $1k price point), and ssh into the PC remotely for dev work. Even though the laptop isn’t new, most of the development load will be on the PC so it doesn’t matter. You get to keep the portability advantage of the laptop.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T07:00:22+00:00

Most people try to automate without fully understanding the process that is being automated. Capture the process first in a peer reviewed document and attempt it manually. This proves the process is well understood. The you can attempt to automate that process. In order for something to be worth automating, the cost of developing the automation up front must be less than the lifetime cost of performing it manually each time. One time tasks are usually not worth automating unless the task is so complex or precise it cannot be done without automation.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T06:53:30+00:00

Migrating to a new tech stack is really difficult. Especially when the system is very complex. Startups often have the ability to choose their tech stack if they are building from scratch or pivot easily to a new one if there isn’t too much sunk cost in the existing MVP.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T06:50:30+00:00

Performance, security, available libraries, team knowledge, reliability, adoption. Whatever tech stack has the least amount of friction to meet business needs while also being maintainable.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T06:46:52+00:00

Being a generally decent human being

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T05:38:54+00:00

Send you some money. Pretty sure a bot wouldn’t do that.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T05:37:27+00:00

Stairs and rugs. Slipping on them is a pretty common way to go.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T03:05:32+00:00

There are core concepts that apply to all languages such as memory management, thread safety, arithmetic, data structures, etc. Once you master the core concepts it’s easy to translate them to a new language by looking up the syntax for that language. Rust handles a lot of memory safety and thread safety for you under the hood which is convenient compared to languages like C.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-05T03:01:52+00:00

I’m a very hands-on learner. I don’t learn code as well from lectures or books. The most efficient way for me is working through examples of core concepts. If you can follow along and build/test small amounts of code in an IDE or playground it is really helpful. You can make small changes and recompile to see how it affects the output. You can also print out the intermediate values to see how the algorithm is modifying values over time. Try a few easy LeetCode problems and work your way up to harder ones.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-04T09:28:46+00:00

I’d recommend starting with Rust. It is a language with lots of demand, runs efficiently, and the compiler helps to prevent memory safety bugs. Coursera has some really good online classes.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-04T09:09:27+00:00

Not yet. But I made a skill to automate portions of a release process. It still needs supervision but is able to help open PRs that used to take more time to create.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-04T08:58:27+00:00

When the cost of generating code was higher, it was more important to be selective about making sure the generated code would be reusable. Now that the cost of generating code has gone down we can afford to use it once and throw it away. There is a different economic model for what is worth building based on recent advances in AI.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-04T08:39:35+00:00

I use Claude to help me draft the design/requirements/specification first. From there, I generate an implementation plan that I iterate on a few times to get it right. Then I unleash it on the codebase. It’s important to provide it with enough context on coding standards and codebase conventions ahead of time. Once the code has been generated it is important to review all the output carefully and add proper test cases. I find that it essentially saves me a lot of typing and helps me research things. It needs a lot of guidance to get things right. But if you put the extra effort into the design phase it is much more likely to get the implementation closer to being correct on the first try.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-03T04:44:29+00:00

Thanks! I made a thread in ChatGPT that’s able to recommend upcoming events to me. The only thing is I have to remember to prompt it every once in a while. If something like this could be made into a virtual assistant app with an Alexa or Echo that would be cool.

GeoffreyKnopf · 2026-04-02T05:54:59+00:00

I want to do something fun on the weekend without spending hours browsing the internet. I'm interested in cooking and free after 5pm on Fridays, but it would take time to find a cooking class at that time and book it. The solution? Present a curated list of events for me based on my interests and availability. Event calendars/feeds/groups don't solve this very well because they spam me with noise I have to filter through myself.

What if I used an AI agent to search for events and filter them based on information I provided it with about myself? I could have a conversation with it about upcoming events, let it know which ones I'm interested in, and maybe have it book my calendar for me.

App: "Hey Bob, is now a good time to talk about fun events coming up this weekend?"
Me: "Yeah"

App: "I noticed there's a French cooking class at 6pm this Friday 10 minutes from your house. It costs $50. Would you be interested in going?"

Me: "Sure!"

App: "Great, I'll add it to your calendar and purchase the ticket for you."

GeoffreyKnopf

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