Author's posts
Mar 26 2021
Stallman and Tor
This may be controversial. Yesterday, a member of the Tor relays mailing list posted the following to the list: “I’ve been running a relay/exit node for many years. Tor user since ~2004. To the extent that my voice means anything at all here, I would like to strongly condemn the Tor project joining the attempt …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2021/03/26/stallman-and-tor/
Mar 23 2021
irony bypass
Foreign Secretaries may come and go, but their inability to spot irony seems to be consistent. Back in February 2014 I commented on William Hague’s apparent concern about press restrictions in Egypt at a time when the Guardian newspaper in the UK was reporting on the threats of Legal Action they had received from the …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2021/03/23/irony-bypass/
Feb 12 2021
filling the void
Mark Pesce wrote a column in El Reg this week relating the story of how a friend of his had stumbled upon an example of the phenomenon noted by social media researcher Danah Boyd and Microsoft’s Michael Golebiewski as a “data void”. The particular void that Pesce’s friend had entered was around details of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2021/02/12/filling-the-void/
Jan 31 2021
no spy cameras
I have written in the past about some of the persistent requests I get for guest posts or sponsored links on trivia. I suppose I should be flattered that some people seem to think that trivia has a wide enough readership to make that sort of thing attractive (to either party), but I’m not. As …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2021/01/31/no-spy-cameras/
Dec 20 2020
Merry Christmas 2020
Shit – what a year. But let’s not go into all that. I’m a little early with this post this year. I normally mark trivia’s birthday (Dec 26th) on the day itself. This year I may not actually wish to even leave the duvet on Boxing Day so I thought I’d take the opportunity today …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/12/20/merry-christmas-2020/
Dec 01 2020
VPS comparison
My last post highlighted the astonishingly good deal I have just had from racknerd. I’ve been running VPS systems for some time now so I thought I would look back over my archived email to see what I could find about my earliest experiences. I found an invoice for a system I first rented back …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/12/01/vps-comparison/
Nov 30 2020
an even bigger bargain VPS
At about this time last year I wrote about my impressively cheap new VPS on ITLDC’s network in Prague. Prices of VPSs continue to come down and I now have several dotted around Europe which each cost me around three euros per month. But I am always on the lookout for a new provider and, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/11/30/an-even-bigger-bargain-vps/
Nov 18 2020
from russia with malintent
Just to prove that ‘bots really are stupid, my last post below has just been hit by a spam bot. And this is what whois has to say about the source address: inetnum: 92.127.16.0 – 92.127.31.255 netname: WEBSTREAM descr: OJSC “Sibirtelecom” remarks: Kemerovo branch of the OJSC “Sibirtelecom” remarks: broadband service country: RU remarks: Direct …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/11/18/from-russia-with-malintent/
Nov 15 2020
comment spam irony
I am very careful about how, or even if, I allow comments on trivia. For example I disallow all comments on any post after a set period of time, I also refuse all comments until I have had time to read and thus moderate them. This cuts down on the type of rubbish often seen …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/11/15/comment-spam-irony/
Oct 27 2020
braindead mail service
Back in early 2019, I wrote about a problem I was having with mail from my system going to BT based accounts. At the time, BT was rejecting my mail as potential spam. As I wrote at the time, I was pleasantly surprised when the BT postmaster replied positively to my request that they investigate …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/10/27/braindead-mail-service/
Sep 11 2020
laws are made to be broken
We here in England must now limit our social interaction to the “rule of six”. Our dear, delusional, demented, certifiable, mendacious, law breaking Prime Minister says that I cannot meet in my home with more than six people – despite the fact that I can go to the Gym, or a Supermarket, or a Pub, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/09/11/laws-are-made-to-be-broken/
Jun 06 2020
encrypting DNS on android
My previous two posts discussed the need for encrypted DNS and then how to do it on a linux desktop. I do not have any Microsoft systems so I have no idea how to approach the problem if you use any form of Windows OS, nor do I have any Apple devices so I can’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/06/06/encrypting-dns-on-android/
May 25 2020
encrypting DNS with dnsmasq and stubby
In my last post I explained that in order to better protect my privacy I wanted to move all my DNS requests from the existing system of clear text requests to one of encrypted requests. My existing system forwarded DNS requests from my internal dnsmasq caching servers to one of my (four) unbound resolvers and …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/05/25/encrypting-dns-with-dnsmasq-and-stubby/
May 06 2020
encrypting DNS
Any casual reader of trivia will be aware that I care about my privacy and that I go to some lengths to maintain that privacy in the face of concerted attempts by ISPs, corporations, government agencies and others to subvert it. In particular I use personally managed OpenVPN servers at various locations to tunnel my …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/05/06/encrypting-dns/
Apr 10 2020
zooming in on china
Since my previous post below, I have been reading up on Zoom as a company, its staffing and its worrying security (or rather lack of) track record. When I wrote the initial post I said that “Zoom is a US company funded almost entirely by venture capital. Its servers are US based.”. It appears that …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/04/10/zooming-in-on-china/
Apr 03 2020
zooming in on cabinet
On Tuesday of this week, Boris Johnson tweeted a picture of what he called the UK’s “first ever digital Cabinet”. That picture (copy below) shows that the Cabinet meeting was held using Zoom – the sort of video conferencing software which is currently popular with business users forced to work at home during the Covid19 …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/04/03/zooming-in-on-cabinet/
Mar 11 2020
beware the zombie apocalypse
Tom Scott is a young educational entertainer who publishes fairly regularly on youtube. Back in mid 2004, whilst still a linguistics student at York, he managed to upset both the Home Office and the Cabinet Office by publishing a Department of Vague Paranoia website spoofing the rather po faced official “Preparing for Emergencies” site. Tom’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/03/11/beware-the-zombie-apocalypse/
Feb 27 2020
have I been pwned?
Well, I don’t think so. But for a while I was not entirely sure. Following the move last November of trivia from a VM on UK2’s datacentre in London to our new home on a faster VM on ITLDC’s network I have been making a variety of minor changes and doing some essential housework. One …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/02/27/have-i-been-pwned/
Jan 22 2020
TLS certificate checks
My move of trivia to a new VM last December prompted me to look again at my server configuration. In particular I wanted to ensure that I was properly redirecting all HTTP requests to HTTPS and that the ciphers and protocols I support are as up to date and strong as possible. Mozilla offers a …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/01/22/tls-certificate-checks/
Jan 14 2020
do not ask me for guest posts or links
For the past four years or so I have been receiving increasingly frequent requests for either guest posts, or links to external sites (or sometimes both). The requests have increased in number ever since I started posting about my use of OpenVPN. Many of these requests want me to point to their commercial VPN site. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/01/14/do-not-ask-me-for-guest-posts-or-links/
Jan 14 2020
retiring the slugs
I first started using Linksys NSLU2s (aka “slugs”) in early 2008. Back then I considered them quite useful and I even ran webservers and local apt-caches on them. But realistically they are (and even then, were) a tad underpowered. Worse, since Debian on the XScale-IXP42x hasn’t been updated for several years, the slugs are probably …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2020/01/14/retiring-the-slugs/
Dec 05 2019
welcome to prague
As of today we are now fully functional in our new home in a datacentre in Prague. We also have a new letsencypt certificate. If you see any problems, let me know at the usual email address. Enjoy
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/12/05/welcome-to-prague/
Nov 28 2019
a bargain VPS
I have been using services from ITLDC for about three years now. I initially picked one of their cheap VMs based in the Netherlands whilst I was expanding my VPN usage, and frankly, I was not expecting much in the way of customer service or assistance for the very low price I paid. After all …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/11/28/a-bargain-vps/
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/07/23/fsckd/