Our dear PM seems to have caved in to the obsessions of mumsnet and the daily mail. As someone in the grauniad pointed out today, at least we can be sure that Lynton Crosby has no connections to the pornography industry. Here’s one of my favourites….. It is interesting that whilst Dave thinks pornography on …
2013 archive
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/23/this-one-is-for-dave/
Jul 21 2013
ubuntu forums compromised
Right now (21.00 today), the ubuntu forums site says it is “down for maintenance”. It appears to have been down since yesterday. The site reports: There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums. The Canonical IS team is working hard as we speak to restore normal operations. This page will be updated regularly …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/21/ubuntu-forums-compromised/
Jul 17 2013
save your money – just use tails
I suppose it was inevitable that the Snowden revelations would lead to greater interest in privacy and anonymity. I applaud that. I suppose it was also inevitable that there would be a rash of commercial products emerging from both “entrepreneurs” and the more established “security” companies to take advantage of that increased interest. That, I …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/17/save-your-money-just-use-tails/
Jul 15 2013
nokia lumia 1020
I have been a Nokia fan for many years. Like many people, I guess, my first mobile phone was made by Nokia. I have certainly owned more Nokia mobiles than those from any other single company. One of my favourite mobiles (which I still own as a backup) is the 6500 slide. I also still …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/15/nokia-lumia-1020/
Jul 15 2013
tor and https at eff
For those of you unsure of what might leak where and when using tor and/or https to protect your browsing, there is a useful interactive graphic on the EFF site. As EFF point out, the potentially visible data includes: the site you are visiting, your username and password, the data you are transmitting, your IP …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/15/tor-and-https-at-eff/
Jul 14 2013
base64 gets past omani deep packet inspection
Back in December 2011 Roger Dingledine and Jacob Applebaum of the torproject gave a talk at the 28th Chaos Communication Congress titled “How governments have tried to block Tor“. That talk focused on the arms race between privacy campaigners and technologists working on tor and the actions of oppressive governments. The presentation gave many examples …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/14/base64-gets-past-omani-deep-packet-inspection/
Jul 09 2013
bizarre searches
Today I stumbled across what appears to be a Vietnamese search engine called coccoc. The front page shows the typical search box as pioneered by google, but underneath that box is some text which seems to comprise text terms, mathematical formulae and (perhaps) chemical symbols. Sure enough, passing that page through microsoft’s on-line translator at …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/07/09/bizarre-searches/
Jun 24 2013
more irony
This is lovely. On a whim I have just checked the DNS for the Guardian. I got the following results: MX records: guardian.co.uk mail exchanger = 30 guardian.co.uk.s200b1.psmtp.com. guardian.co.uk mail exchanger = 40 guardian.co.uk.s200b2.psmtp.com. guardian.co.uk mail exchanger = 10 guardian.co.uk.s200a1.psmtp.com. guardian.co.uk mail exchanger = 20 guardian.co.uk.s200a2.psmtp.com. So – all four MX records point to SMTP …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/24/more-irony/
Jun 24 2013
ironic advert
There is a wonderful advert in today’s Guardian. Most of page 6 is taken up with a Microsoft advert saying: “Aston Martin is now on Office 365 – your complete office in the cloud.” Right. An advert for a cloud based office suite from a major US software supplier. Tough sell. Especially in the Guardian.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/24/ironic-advert/
Jun 24 2013
facebook login searches
About 18 months ago I posted a note objecting to facebook’s apparent new policy of insisting that its users hand over a mobile phone number in order to continue using its “service”. In that post I included a png image which I labelled “facebook-login.png”. Oddly enough I note that over the past two weeks my …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/24/facebook-login-searches/
Jun 17 2013
please sign here
This post has nothing whatsoever to do with the usual topics I cover here, but this is my blog so hey I can write what I like. My family has a proud tradition of working in the UK public sector. Despite multiple machinery of government changes by administrations of both major political colours thoughout my …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/17/please-sign-here/
Jun 17 2013
trivial traffic bump
I normally get around 1000 to 1300 hits a day (or 32,000 to 40,000 per month) on trivia. Not a huge hit rate, but consistent and on a slight upward trend over the past year. Today I have seen over double that – most of it this morning. Between 05.30 and 07.00 local time my …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/17/trivial-traffic-bump/
Jun 16 2013
prism opt-out
In all the noise on the ‘net about the alleged NSA PRISM program, this new site offers an amusing, but nonetheless useful, list of free alternatives to proprietary software. In part the site sort of misses the point about PRISM, but it is still good to see someone taking the time to point out that …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/16/prism-opt-out/
Jun 15 2013
Edward Snowden
The revelations of the past week or so have been interesting to me more for what they haven’t said, than what they have. There are a few points arising from Snowden’s story which puzzle me and which don’t seem to have been addressed by the mainstream media – at least not the ones I read. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/15/edward-snowden/
Jun 13 2013
microsoft windows is conspicuous by its absence
At DigitalOcean – or so says Netcraft in its latest write up on their astonishingly fast rise over the last six months. Apparently, in December 2012, DigitalOcean had just over 100 web-facing computers whilst in June 2013, Netcraft found more than 7,000. That is some growth. But I’m not surprised. I make no apology for …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/13/microsoft-windows-is-conspicuous-by-its-absence/
Jun 12 2013
blimey that was quick
The cable tester I ordered at around 17.00 yesterday arrived in this morning’s post. And jolly good it is too for such a ridiculously cheap item. As expected, the instructions are amusing but pretty clear for all that. It is easy to use and feels fairly robust, despite the price. Now the results. I am …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/12/blimey-that-was-quick/
Jun 11 2013
Emails from PayPal will always address you by your first and last name
Except when they don’t. I have just received a wonderful email from paypal headed “Tim Harrison, your monthly activity is now ready to view online.” Way to go guys. That really inspires confidence.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/11/emails-from-paypal-will-always-address-you-by-your-first-and-last-name/
Jun 11 2013
blimey that is cheap
David’s comment to my post about my gigabit ethernet upgrade prompted me to look for a cheap LAN tester so that I could check continuity through the RJ45 coupler that had caused me difficulty. It would also be handy to be able to check the box full of old patch cables that I seem to …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/11/blimey-that-is-cheap/
Jun 10 2013
PRISM – we had it first
I can exclusively reveal that the UK government had a PRISM database long before those upstarts in the USA. In the late 1970s I worked in the Statistics Division of what was then the UK Civil Service Department. We used a database of Civil Service personnel called PRISM (Personnel Record Information System for Management). I …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/10/prism-we-had-it-first/
Jun 10 2013
slow gigabit ethernet
I have been making some changes to my domestic network of late which I will write about later. However, one of the main changes has been an upgrade from 10/100 switches to gigabit – mainly to improve throughput between my central filestore and desktop machines. For cosmetic reasons (and to keep my wife happy) I …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/10/slow-gigabit-ethernet/
Jun 10 2013
Iain Banks
I first met Frank (the protagonist and narrator in “The Wasp Factory”) in about May or June 1990. I had taken my bike (then an FJ1200) in to the dealer for a routine service and tyre change and had wandered in to a local newsagent to pick up a magazine or two to read whilst …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/06/10/iain-banks/
May 29 2013
another good reason not to buy one
Back in November 2011 I wrote about the TP-Link TL-SC3130G IP camera. I had some trouble getting that device to work properly over wifi so I returned it and got my money back. Today, Core Security released an advisory about this device (and several others from TP-Link) about a remotely exploitable vulnerability arising from “hard-coded …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/05/29/another-good-reason-not-to-buy-one/
May 27 2013
lighttpd graceful shutdown
I run two tails mirrors. One in NYC, the other in SanFrancisco. They each serve around 2-3 TiB of data per month. In common with my other servers, occasionally I need to interrupt those VMs in order to effect a system upgrade. I had to do this very recently with my upgrade of all my …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/05/27/lighttpd-graceful-shutdown/
May 27 2013
LMGTFY is the new RTFM
Back in the day, questions aimed at technical mailing lists or usenet news sometimes attracted the response “RTFM”. Personally, I always found that sort of reply both rude and somewhat arrogant. Often the questioner was obviously new to the topic under discussion and really wanted to know how to solve his or her particular problem. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2013/05/27/lmgtfy-is-the-new-rtfm/