Cross-section illustration of a medieval castle's concentric defences seen from above at a slight angle: moat, outer wall, gatehouse, courtyard, inner keep

The phrase survived. The definition did not.

Consider a medieval castle. It is tempting to imagine that its security rested on the thickness of its walls, and that a besieging army faced essentially one problem, repeated: get past the stone. But that is not how a defended position worked, and the people who built them knew it. A castle was arranged so that every …

July 21, 2026 · 10 min
admin attack surface

The administrative attack surface

A few days after sending an application to the Dutch Ministry of Defence for a senior cyber and information security advisory role, I read an NRC article about publicly accessible details of Dutch military infrastructure. Not leaked documents. Not espionage. Not shadowy dead drops in rainy parking garages. Public websi…

May 6, 2026 · 5 min