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When Cybersecurity Is an Afterthought

When Cybersecurity Is an Afterthought: The Victoria’s Secret Breach and the Looming Threat to E-Commerce
By Skeeter Wesinger
May 30, 2025

Victoria’s Secret recently experienced a significant cybersecurity incident that led to the temporary shutdown of its U.S. website and the suspension of certain in-store services. The company stated, “We have taken down our website and some in-store services as a precaution,” emphasizing their commitment to restoring operations securely.
While the exact nature of the breach remains undisclosed, the incident aligns with a series of cyberattacks targeting major retailers. Notably, the threat group known as Scattered Spider has been linked to similar attacks on UK retailers, including Marks & Spencer and Harrods. Security experts suggest that the tactics employed in the Victoria’s Secret breach bear a resemblance to those used by this group.
The impact of the breach extended beyond the digital storefront. Reports indicate disruptions to internal operations, including employee email access and distribution center functions. Customers faced challenges in placing orders, redeeming coupons, and accessing customer service.
Financially, the incident had immediate repercussions. Victoria’s Secret’s stock experienced a decline of approximately 7%, reflecting investor concerns over the implications of the breach.
This event highlights a broader issue: the persistent vulnerability of retailers to cyber threats, which is often exacerbated by inadequate adherence to cybersecurity protocols. Despite the increasing frequency of such attacks, many organizations remain underprepared, lacking robust security measures and comprehensive response plans.
Furthermore, the reluctance of some companies to disclose breaches hampers collective efforts to understand and mitigate cyber threats. Transparency is crucial in fostering a collaborative defense against increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals.
In conclusion, the Victoria’s Secret breach serves as a stark reminder of the critical importance of proactive cybersecurity measures. Retailers must prioritize the implementation of comprehensive security protocols, regular system audits, and employee training to safeguard against future incidents. The cost of inaction is not just financial but also erodes consumer trust and brand integrity.

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The Modern Goodbye That Isn’t

Ghosting: The Modern Goodbye That Isn’t
By Skeeter Wesinger
May 26, 2025

So, you’ve known someone for fifty years. Maybe you once loved them. Maybe you just shared pizza, music, and a few bad ideas in your twenties. It doesn’t matter now, does it? Because here in the 21st century, we’ve perfected the art of vanishing. No grand argument, no dramatic send-off—just silence. You ghost them. You cut the cord without explanation, not because they wronged you, but because they remind you of something you don’t want to carry anymore: who you used to be.

They haven’t whispered behind your back or sabotaged your dreams. They’re simply a relic of a chapter you’ve outgrown—or think you have. And in this era of curated feeds and emotional minimalism, that’s reason enough to hit “mute” and never look back.

The term ghosting found its way into our lexicon around the mid-2010s, but it hit cultural pay dirt in 2015 when Charlize Theron reportedly ghosted Sean Penn. One moment, they were engaged; the next, it was as if he’d been erased from the script. Tabloids pounced. Think pieces dissected the move. Suddenly, what had once been known as “dropping off the face of the earth” had a name—and a modern flair. Ghosting became not just a dating tactic but a social strategy.

But what does it say about us when we choose to disappear rather than disconnect with dignity? When did discomfort become grounds for erasure? And what happens to the people left staring at the quiet where a friendship used to be?

Ghosting thrives on avoidance. Psychologists call it an emotional escape hatch—a way to dodge discomfort, conflict, or vulnerability. It’s easier to disappear than to say, “This no longer fits who I am,” or even, “I don’t know how to navigate this relationship anymore.” It spares the ghoster the awkwardness of explaining, but offloads the emotional burden onto the person left behind.

In many cases, the ghoster isn’t trying to hurt you. They’re trying to protect themselves—from awkward conversations, lingering guilt, or the dissonance between who they were and who they want to be. But make no mistake: ghosting is an act of control masquerading as silence. It denies the other person closure and leaves them haunted by questions they didn’t get to ask.

If you’ve been ghosted, especially by someone you’ve known for decades, it’s not just confusing—it’s destabilizing. You’re not mourning a breakup; you’re confronting an abrupt erasure. It’s as if your shared history has been unilaterally redacted.

“The Psychology of Ghosting in Modern Dating” – Delta Psychology

Ghosting doesn’t just end a conversation—it disturbs something deeper. In modern dating, where vulnerability is already in short supply and expectations are vague at best, ghosting delivers a particularly insidious blow. What hurts most isn’t the silence itself, but what it whispers to the person left behind.

When someone disappears without explanation, the mind doesn’t default to peace—it defaults to self-blame. Was I too much? Too little? Did I say something wrong? You’re left constructing meaning from a vacuum, and in that silence, the self-esteem you brought into the relationship—tentative, hopeful, hard-won—begins to corrode. It’s not just rejection. It’s invalidation without context.

Psychologically, ghosting activates attachment wounds—especially for those already sensitive to abandonment. It echoes childhood experiences of being ignored or misunderstood, triggering the fight-or-flight system in the brain. Over time, repeated ghosting can recalibrate a person’s expectations: you start to assume people won’t stay, won’t explain, won’t care enough to end things honestly.

This erosion of trust doesn’t stay confined to the realm of romance. It bleeds into friendships, family dynamics, and professional relationships. You might begin to withhold, anticipate loss, or brace for rejection before it happens. Ghosting, then, becomes more than a personal slight—it becomes a behavioral blueprint, teaching people to expect detachment where intimacy once was possible.

And here’s the cruel twist: the more it happens, the more normalized it feels. What once would have been seen as cowardice is now reframed as a “boundary,” a “vibe mismatch,” or simply “how things are done.” But make no mistake: when you’re ghosted, your nervous system doesn’t care about semantics. It just knows someone left you in the dark—and that hurts.

The mind doesn’t default to peace—it goes hunting. It digs through old texts, replays conversations, dissects every emoji, looking for the moment it all went wrong. You’re not just abandoned; you’re drafted into a private investigation with no clues and no suspect. And while the ghost has moved on—posting sunsets and gym selfies as if you never existed—you’re left doing forensic work on your own self-worth. Was it your laugh? Your honesty? The way you trusted too easily? You don’t get answers, just algorithms. You don’t get closure, just quiet. And in that quiet, something starts to shift: not just your view of them, but your view of people in general. Trust doesn’t break with a crash—it erodes in silence. And the next time someone says, “I’m here,” you’ll wonder how long they mean it.

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Two Paths into the Valley of the Little Big Horn

Two Paths into the Valley of the Little Big Horn: The Stories of Lieutenant Donald McIntosh and Private Walter O. Taylor
By Skeeter Wesinger
May 25, 2025

In June of 1876, the U.S. 7th Cavalry rode out from Fort Abraham Lincoln on a campaign that would end in blood, confusion, and legend. Among those troopers were Lieutenant Donald McIntosh, an officer with deep roots in both American and Native heritage, and Private Walter O. Taylor, a young blacksmith from Rhode Island. Both served in Company G—one as its commander, the other as a soldier in the ranks. Their fates diverged sharply on the banks of the Little Big Horn River.

Lieutenant Donald McIntosh
Born in Montreal in 1838, McIntosh was the son of a Hudson’s Bay Company trader and Charlotte Robinson, a direct descendant of Red Jacket, a famed Seneca chief of the Six Nations. His father was killed by Native warriors when Donald was just 14, a loss that shaped much of his early life as he moved between fur posts and western settlements before settling in Oregon.

During the Civil War, McIntosh served as chief clerk to Brigadier General Daniel Rucker—more ledger than saber—but by 1867, he was commissioned in the 7th Cavalry. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1870, he was tapped by Custer to command Company G during the 1876 campaign.

At Little Big Horn, Company G was one of three companies under Major Marcus Reno ordered to cross the river and assault the southern edge of a vast Indian village. McIntosh’s men dismounted and formed a skirmish line, holding it for perhaps fifteen minutes before being driven back into a stand of timber near the river. When Reno’s Arikara scout Bloody Knife was killed, splattering blood across Reno’s face, the major lost control. He ordered an immediate retreat up a nearby coulee toward the high bluffs.

McIntosh was among the last to leave the timber. He never made it out. Knocked from his horse in the chaos, he was killed and later found horribly mutilated. He was initially buried where he fell, later moved to Fort Leavenworth, and eventually reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery in 1909. His widow, Mary, who received a pension of $30 a month until her death in 1910, was buried beside him. A ring bearing their initials and wedding date—a wedding band lost at the scene—was unearthed in 1995 near McIntosh’s memorial marker and now rests in a private museum in Garryowen, Montana.

Private Walter O. Taylor
In contrast, Walter Taylor was just 21 years old—a blacksmith by trade, not birthright—when he joined McIntosh’s Company G. He rode into the Little Big Horn not as a commander, but as one of the many enlisted men whose names often slip through the cracks of history. Taylor was there on the valley floor when Reno’s advance stalled and then crumbled. He took part in the brief, bitter fight along the skirmish line, and the frantic pullback to the timber. And when Reno ordered the retreat, Taylor was among those who made it out.

He survived the chaos of the withdrawal, survived Reno Hill, and lived to see the relief column under General Terry arrive. He witnessed what remained of Custer’s five companies—gone. Nearly 270 of his fellow soldiers would not return, including his own company commander.

Taylor went home to Rhode Island after the war. He married Emma King and together they raised eight children. In his later years, he moved to Rockland, Massachusetts, to live with family. He died in 1931 at the age of 75 and is buried in a family plot in East Bridgewater.

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When Trust Breaks Down at the Top

When Trust Breaks Down at the Top: A Lesson in Accountability and Managing Up

By Skeeter Wesinger
May 18, 2025

Introduction

Trust and accountability are the bedrock of effective leadership. When those foundations crack, even the most talented teams can falter. I learned this lesson the hard way a few years ago, through a personal experience that tested my values. I found myself asking a simple question to a leader I respected: “Where are you?” The answer I received wasn’t honest – and I already knew it. In that moment, I realized how quickly leadership credibility can evaporate when trust is broken. This article explores that true story and the leadership dynamics of holding others accountable, maintaining standards, and protecting organizational integrity.

The Day Trust Was Broken

I remember the day vividly. At the time, I was in our midtown office wrapping up meetings before heading to the airport. My regional manager – someone I had hired years ago and paid well – had worked for me for a full decade in a previous venture. I had known him for over twenty years, and I trusted him. That day, I had given him one clear directive: do not visit a particular location in the city during company time. That site had ongoing issues with its staff, and I explicitly told him it was off-limits “while on the clock.” He agreed, and I trusted him to honor that request.
As I was finishing up my day, I noticed he had quietly slipped out of the office. Something didn’t feel right. A short while later, as I was on a phone call with him, I saw him in person – to my surprise – nervously walking back to his company car at the very location I had deemed off-limits. He was exactly where he wasn’t supposed to be. I listened on the phone as he spoke, perhaps thinking I was none the wiser. I decided to ask the question directly: “Where are you right now?” There was a brief pause. He mumbled an answer that did not match the reality I was witnessing. In that instant, he ducked the question and chose not to tell me the truth.

Leadership, Integrity, and Accountability

That brief exchange was a gut punch. Here was someone I had invested in – someone whose career I had helped build – caught in a lie over a basic question. It illustrated a powerful truth about leadership: credibility is everything, and dishonesty can shatter it in a heartbeat. Once people sense deceit or a breach of integrity, their trust evaporates. In my case, all the respect I had for my manager was now on shaky ground. If a leader can’t follow the rules they’ve agreed to uphold and cannot be truthful about their actions, how can their team believe in them?
Accountability and transparency aren’t just corporate buzzwords – they’re prerequisites for trust. When leaders fail to hold themselves to the same standards they expect of others, credibility erodes and cynicism grows. In my situation, the manager’s unwillingness to be accountable for his whereabouts sent a clear message: the rules applied to everyone else but not to him. This double-standard undercut the trust we had built. A leader’s behavior sets the tone – if they break the rules, why should anyone follow them?
Being truthful might seem like Leadership 101, but it’s surprising how often it’s compromised. A leader who lies (even by omission) creates an atmosphere of doubt. In my case, that one dishonest moment overshadowed years of prior rapport. I was no longer upset about the lie itself; I was upset that going forward I couldn’t believe him – echoing Nietzsche’s famous words, “I am not upset that you lied to me, I am upset that from now on I cannot believe you.” Trust, once broken, is incredibly hard to rebuild.

When You’re the One Holding the Line

This incident put me in a challenging position. I wasn’t dealing with someone above me in the org chart – I was dealing with someone I had trusted, mentored, and paid generously, who now worked under my leadership again. And yet, he thought he could slip through the cracks. Ignoring a breach of trust at that level wasn’t an option. Teams take their cues from the top; if they see dishonesty tolerated, morale and engagement erode quickly.
I chose to address it directly and calmly. I let him know I had seen him and reminded him that the expectation wasn’t negotiable. The goal wasn’t to embarrass or dominate—it was to uphold standards. Because leadership isn’t just about direction—it’s about stewardship. It’s about setting a tone others can follow.

Conclusion – What Would You Do?

Experiences like this underscore that leadership isn’t defined by titles or salaries, but by character and actions. Trust and accountability go hand in hand: when one slips, the other tumbles. In the aftermath, our working relationship was never quite the same. I remained courteous and professional, but a veil of caution now existed.
So let me ask: What would you have done? If you saw a longtime colleague or employee duck accountability in real time—how would you handle it? Would you confront it or let it slide?
Have you had to hold someone accountable when it was personally difficult to do so?
Share your thoughts. I’d love to hear how others navigate these gray areas of leadership.

When Trust Breaks Down at the Top

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When the Dead Speak

When the Dead Speak: AI, Ethics, and the Voice of a Murder Victim
By Skeeter Wesinger
May 7, 2025

In a Phoenix courtroom not long ago, something happened that stopped time.

A voice echoed through the chamber—steady, direct, unmistakably human.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me: it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances.”

It was the voice of Chris Pelkey, who had been dead for more than three years—killed in a road rage incident. What the judge, the defendant, and the grieving family were hearing was not a recording. It was a digital recreation of Chris, constructed using artificial intelligence from photos, voice samples, and memory fragments.

For the first time, a murder victim addressed their killer in court using AI.

Chris’s sister, Stacey Wales, had been collecting victim impact statements. Forty-nine in total. But one voice—the most important—was missing. So she turned to her husband Tim and a friend, Scott Yentzer, both experienced in emerging tech. Together, they undertook a painful and complicated process of stitching together an AI-generated likeness of Chris, complete with voice, expression, and tone.

There was no app. No packaged software. Just trial, error, and relentless care.

Stacey made a deliberate choice not to project her own grief into Chris’s words. “He said things that would never come out of my mouth,” she explained. “But I know would come out his.”

What came through wasn’t vengeance. It was grace.

“In another life, we probably could’ve been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have and I still do.”

It left the courtroom stunned. Judge Todd Lang called it “genuine.” Chris’s brother John described it as waves of healing. “That was the man I knew,” he said.

I’ve written before about this phenomenon. In January, I covered the digital resurrection of John McAfee as a Web3 AI agent—an animated persona driven by blockchain and artificial intelligence. That project blurred the line between tribute and branding, sparking ethical questions about legacy, consent, and who has the right to speak for the dead.

But this—what happened in Phoenix—was different. No coin. No viral play. Just a family trying to give one man—a brother, a son, a victim—a voice in the only place it still mattered.

And that’s the line we need to watch.

AI is going to continue pushing into the past. We’ll see more digital likenesses, more synthesized voices, more synthetic presence. Some will be exploitative. Some will be powerful. But we owe it to the living—and the dead—to recognize the difference.

Sometimes, the most revolutionary thing AI can do isn’t about what’s next.

It’s about letting someone finally say goodbye.

Let’s talk:
➡ Should AI have a role in courtrooms?
➡ Who owns the voice of the deceased?
➡ Where should we draw the ethical boundary between tribute and manipulation?

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The Fall of Saigon

Fifty Years Gone: Saigon and the End of America’s Long War
By Skeeter Wesinger
May 4, 2025

This week marks fifty years since the fall of Saigon—though in truth, the city did not fall. It was abandoned. On April 30, 1975, a North Vietnamese tank breached the iron gates of the Presidential Palace, and the war America had fought, debated, televised, and tried to forget came to a shattering close. It was a scene not of triumph, nor of reconciliation, but of exhaustion—ours, theirs, everyone’s.

For those of us who remember it, the day belongs on a short list of American cataclysms. It is spoken of in the same breath as the day Kennedy was shot, and the morning the Challenger fell from the sky—moments when the national spirit broke mid-sentence, and even those far from the epicenter felt the tremor in their bones.

We watched Saigon not fall but flee, beneath the thudding blades of overloaded helicopters evacuating the last Americans and desperate allies from rooftops. On the ground, South Vietnamese citizens begged for an escape that would never come. Inside our borders, we watched it unfold on television—grim, chaotic, and final. No one cheered. There was no ticker tape. No “Mission Accomplished.” No applause from the Senate floor. There was only silence and a gnawing sense that something had gone irreparably wrong.

And then there was the deck of the USS Hancock, where desperate choices were made. To make room for a South Vietnamese pilot flying a tiny Cessna Bird Dog—his wife and children crammed aboard—American crews pushed helicopters overboard into the sea. It was an act of mercy and madness that defined the war’s end in miniature: sacrifice, chaos, and a brief moment of grace.

The war had ended, but in a way that left every side wounded. The Vietnamese people were forced into the arms of a harsh new regime, or onto the decks of overcrowded boats. Here at home, American soldiers—many barely old enough to vote—returned not as conquering heroes, but as a generation to be pitied, or worse, ignored. Even those who had never served, who had only sat cross-legged on shag carpet while Cronkite or Chancellor intoned solemn truths from behind a desk, were shaped by it. For them, the war was not a memory but a nightly ritual of body counts, jungle footage, and questions that no one in Washington could answer.

In the years that followed, we turned inward. Distrust in government deepened. The myth of American infallibility lay smoldering alongside the burned files on the embassy floor. We began to ask harder questions—about power, about intervention, about what patriotism demanded. And many, too many, stopped asking at all.

It would be decades before any measure of healing began. But even today, the scar remains visible to those who know where to look.

Anniversaries like this are not just for commemoration. They are for reckoning. We remember April 30, 1975, not because it ended a war, but because it forced a nation to look in the mirror—and see not the arsenal of democracy, but a republic uncertain of its own shadow.

Fifty years have passed. The names have faded from headlines. But to those of us who lived through it—who watched that tank roll through the palace gate, who still hear the hum of rotor blades in our memory—it is as vivid now as it was then.

History does not forgive forgetfulness. It requires us to remember—and to reflect—not with romanticism but with clarity. We owe that to the dead, to the displaced, and most of all, to the living, who still carry the war with them fifty years later. In case you missed it.

 

https://open.substack.com/pub/skeetersw/p/the-fall-of-saigon?r=1sp2om&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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Tailspin

Tailspin, by John Armbruster, is more than a memoir of war—it is a painstaking excavation of memory and mortality, told through the dual lenses of witness and chronicler. At its center is Gene Moran, a boy of eighteen from Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, flung without ceremony into the great conflagration of the Second World War. As a tail gunner aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress, he occupied the most vulnerable position in one of the most imperiled machines in the Allied arsenal.

By Skeeter Wesinger
May 3, 2025
On a bombing run over Bremen in 1943, his aircraft was torn apart by German flak. The tail section—Moran’s solitary outpost—sheared off from the fuselage and plummeted to earth. That he survived the four-mile descent without a parachute is not merely improbable; it borders on the metaphysical. His body shattered, his skull fractured, Moran was nonetheless taken alive by German forces and would spend the next seventeen months in the tightening vise of captivity. Hunger, isolation, and a brutal 600-mile forced march across the collapsing Reich marked the twilight of his war. He emerged at last in 1945, not unbroken, but unbowed.

For nearly seventy years, Moran spoke little of these events. His nine children knew only fragments, the silence around them more eloquent than words. It was not until a high school history teacher—Armbruster himself—encountered the tale that the long-withheld narrative was drawn out, session by painstaking session, in what the author came to call “Thursdays with Gene.”
And yet, Tailspin is no simple war chronicle. As Armbruster peeled back the layers of Moran’s trauma, he found himself walking a parallel path of anguish: his wife’s harrowing decline from brain cancer. In this dual descent—one into memory, the other into grief—the author traces a shared terrain of endurance. The result is a book as much about what men endure as what they remember. It is a study in quiet heroism, and in the haunting persistence of the past.

That Tailspin is John Armbruster’s first book is, frankly, difficult to believe. The prose bears none of the hesitancy of a debut work. Rather, it reads with the confidence of a seasoned chronicler—one who knows not only how to follow the thread of a remarkable life but how to weave it into the larger fabric of human endurance and moral complexity. It is, in every sense, a great read—for veterans and civilians alike, for students of history and those merely seeking to understand the cost of silence. In a literary landscape crowded with noise, Tailspin speaks quietly—and all the more powerfully for it.

 

https://substack.com/profile/108665302-skeeter-wesinger/note/c-114148360?utm_source=substack&utm_content=first-note-modal

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