Author's posts
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/
Jul 15 2019
more password stupidity
A recent exchange of email with an old friend gave me cause to revisit on-line password/passphrase generators. I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would actually use such a thing, but there are a surprisingly large number out there. On the upside, most of these now seem to use TLS encrypted connections …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/07/15/more-password-stupidity/
Jul 10 2019
add my name to the list
At the tail end of last year, Crispin Robinson and Ian Levy of GCHQ published a co-authored essay on “suggested” ways around the “going dark problem” that strong encryption in messaging poses Agencies such as GCHQ and its (foreign) National equivalents. In that essay, the authors were at pains to state that they were not …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/07/10/add-my-name-to-the-list/
Jul 07 2019
openvpn clients on pfsense
In my 2017 article on using OpenVPN on a SOHO router I said: “In testing, I’ve found that using a standard OpenVPN setup (using UDP as the transport) has only a negligible impact on my network usage – certainly much less than using Tor.” That was true back then but is unfortunately not so true …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/07/07/openvpn-clients-on-pfsense/
Jun 26 2019
one unbound and you are free
I have written about my use of OpenVPN in several posts in the past, most latterly in May 2017 in my note about the Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill. In that post I noted that all the major ISPs would be expected to log all their customers’ internet connectivity and to retain such logs for so …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/06/26/one-unbound-and-you-are-free/
Jun 11 2019
back to the gym
Having just returned from a family holiday which included too much food and drink and nowhere near enough exercise (well, that’s what holidays are for) I needed to get back to the gym in order to work off some of the excess. My local gym has recently undergone a major refurbishment and equipment upgrade and …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/06/11/back-to-the-gym/
Mar 21 2019
more in the “you couldn’t make it up” dept
The UK Parliamentary petitions site is currently hosting what appears to be one of the most popular it has ever listed. The petition seeks to gain support for revocation of article 50 so that the UK can remain in the EU. Personal politics aside (though in the interests of transparency I should say that I …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/03/21/more-in-the-you-couldnt-make-it-up-dept/
Feb 16 2019
postfix sender restrictions – job NOT done
OK, I admit to being dumb. I got another scam email yesterday of the same formulation as the earlier ones (mail From: me@mydomain, To: me@mydomain) attempting to extort bitcoin from me. How? What had I missed this time? Well, this was slightly different. Checking the mail headers (and my logs) showed that the email had …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/02/16/postfix-sender-restrictions-job-not-done/
Jan 24 2019
postfix sender restrictions
I mentioned in my previous post that I had recently received one of those scam emails designed to make the recipient think that their account has been compromised in some way and that, furthermore, that compromise has led to malware being installed which has spied on the user’s supposed porn habits. The email then attempts …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/01/24/postfix-sender-restrictions/
Jan 23 2019
congratulations to BT
I have been running my own mail server now for well over a decade. Whilst the actual physical hardware (or actually VPS system) may have changed once or twice during that time, the underlying software (postfix and dovecot on debian) has not really changed all that much. However, what has changed over the last decade …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2019/01/23/congratulations-to-bt/
Dec 24 2018
always keep the address
I normally post a “happy birthday trivia” message at this time of year. Indeed I have been doing this for 12 years now. Of late my posting has become less frequent which is somewhat odd since I now have much more free time than I had back when I started trivia. But no matter – …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2018/12/24/always-keep-the-address/
Dec 12 2018
wordpress 5.0 editor error
When I posted yesterday I noticed that there was a new version (5.0) of wordpress available for installation. So I decided to spend a short while today upgrading as I always do when a new software version is released. But I hit a snag – a big one. The new version of wordpress includes a …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2018/12/12/wordpress-5-0-editor-error/
Dec 11 2018
well I never
It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with GCHQ, but ex GCHQ Director Robert Hannigan’s recent comments in an interview with the BBC Today programme struck a chord. Hannigan headed GCHQ from April 2014 until his resignation for family reasons last year. Whilst in post he pushed for greater transparency at the SIGINT agency. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2018/12/11/well-i-never/
Jul 07 2018
re-encrypting trivia
Back in June 2015 I decided to force all connections to trivia over TLS rather than allow plain unencrypted connections. I decided to do this for the obvious reason that it was (and still is) a “good thing” (TM). In my view, all transactions over the ‘net should be encrypted, preferably using strong cyphers offering …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2018/07/07/re-encrypting-trivia/