2023 archive

SIS troubles

Yesterday’s i newspaper lead with a report that SIS HQ at Vauxhall Cross could be overlooked from a flat in the new residential property built at St George Wharf. Said flat was reportedly purchased by Russians with links to a Soviet era property in Moscow which is roughly 300 metres away from the “Russian Intelligence …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/12/21/sis-troubles/

custom headers in claws mail

custom header image

My last post described how to add a custom X-header to outgoing email in postfix. But of course this approach is rather a blunt instrument because it necessarily adds the header to all outbound mail which originates from my server. In my particular case that does not matter overmuch, because any and all mail accounts …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/03/23/custom-headers-in-claws-mail/

postfix x-headers

In my post last week about the X-Clacks-Overhead HTTP header I mentioned that I had added the header to my postfix configuration as outlined in the advice given at gnuterrypratchett.com. As it turns out that advice does not work exactly as I wanted. Firstly, and most importantly, using the “header_checks” table is sub-optimal because it …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/03/14/postfix-x-headers/

comment block

Sadly, over the last few posts I have received way too many attempted porn links as comments. They don’t reach the public face of trivia because of my comment policy, but they are becoming tiresome in the extreme and I have to edit the damned things so I have (hopefully temporarily) turned off all comments.

Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/03/10/comment-block/

X-Clacks-Overhead

For some years now I have included the “X-Clacks-Overhead” header in trivia’s lighttpd.conf as a tribute to the late great Sir Terry Pratchett. I am a huge fan of Pratchett’s Discworld series. You may not see the header when you browse trivia, but it is there. Users of linux based systems can easily inspect the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/03/09/x-clacks-overhead/

lost car

cartoon of lost car

Last month I posted an article about the press reports of chinese software and hardware “found” in cars and how that could lead to the cars being tracked by the chinese state (or other hostile agencies). I was therefore delighted to see the cartoon below in issue 1591 of Private eye. I am indebted to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/02/19/lost-car/

mobile (in)security

In my last post, an ex GCHQ staffer is quoted as saying: “If you’re stepping back a bit and saying what cars do park outside GCHQ or somewhere like Porton Down then you have the pool of information there if you ever need it.” which got me wondering about how secure existing protective measures around …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/01/16/mobile-insecurity/

brakes-as-a-service

Some parts of the UK press have been reporting recently on the “discovery” of “hidden Chinese tracking devices” in a UK Government car (the original inews report is behind a paywall). The reports quote a “serving member of the British intelligence community” as telling the i newspaper: “It [the tracking SIM] gives the ability to survey …

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Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2023/01/16/brakes-as-a-service/