Big Blog Conspiracy is lying to you, embrace Infodump

Big Blog Conspiracy (BBC) has trained everyone to think they need a personal story, an intro, a conclusion and some kind of journey just to write one post, when all that readers want is only the information. Stop the slop and start giving readers what they want.

Infodump is a style of writing I made up, which condenses only usable information without adding unnecessary data to your posts. Even in cybersecurity and deeply technical topics, people tend to think that a blog post MUST have structure for it to be good. Instead, try to shorten information, removing any personal experience or opinions that are not relevant to the information you are trying to convey.

Example:

“While researching HTTP Desync Attacks, I found I needed to send a group of HTTP requests within a tiny time window, to minimize the chance of someone else’s request landing in the middle of my attack and interfering.”¹

This message gets the point across, but readers still end up just skimming through the text, trying to find information that actually matters. Why force them to do that when you could just say:

You may need to send many HTTP requests in a tiny window, so requests of other users don’t interfere with your testing.

It’s way shorter and holds the same information. This way you value your own and reader’s time more.

Try to treat your posts as if each word you write costs you money, and adopt the general attitude of writing posts not for someone else, but for yourself, from the past or even the future.

Your posts don’t need to do anything other than give the information to the reader. It’s that simple.