Author's posts
Dec 26 2017
Merry Christmas 2017
I’m a couple of days late this year. I normally post on Christmas Eve, trivia’s birthday, but hey, I’ve been busy (it goes with the territory at this time of year if you are a grandparent). This year I thought I would depart from my usual topic(s) and post a couple of pictures marking the …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/12/26/merry-christmas-2017/
Oct 14 2017
multilingual chat
I use email fairly extensively for my public communication but I use XMPP (with suitable end-to-end encryption) for my private, personal communication. And I use my own XMPP server to facilitate this. But as I have mentioned in previous posts my family and many of my friends insist on using proprietary variants of this open …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/10/14/multilingual-chat/
Sep 30 2017
geeks rule
Well, sliderule, actually. The ‘net is a truly wondrous space. I can’t recall exactly how I stumbled across the “International Sliderule Museum” but it is such a wonderful resource devoted to a tool which most people under the age of 40 will never have used that I just had to post a link to it. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/09/30/geeks-rule/
Aug 02 2017
a letter to our dear home secretary
Dear Amber So,”real people” don’t care about privacy? All they really want is ease of use and a pretty GUI so that they can chat to all their friends on-line? Only “the enemy” (who is that exactly anyway?) needs encryption? Excuse me for asking, but what have you been smoking? Does the Home Office know …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/08/02/a-letter-to-our-dear-home-secretary/
Jun 06 2017
it is now
Back in January 2011, I posted a brief note about a site hosted at the domain “ismycomputeroff.com“. I have just had occasion to look again at that site and found that the domain is now definitely off. It is parked at sedo and is up for sale at the ludicrous price of 599 euros. Tell …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/06/06/it-is-now/
May 25 2017
monday in manchester
At around 22.30 last Monday, Manchester was subjected to an horrific attack at a pop concert. As the world now knows, a suicide bomber deliberately targeted young people and their friends and families as they were leaving a concert by the young pop singer Ariana Grande. In that attack, 22 people, including children as young …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/05/25/monday-in-manchester/
May 12 2017
using a VPN to take back your privacy
With the passage into law of the iniquitous Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill in the UK at the end of November last year, it is way past time for all those who care about civil liberties in this country to exercise their right to privacy. The new IP Act permits HMG and its various agencies to …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/05/12/using-a-vpn-to-take-back-your-privacy/
Apr 27 2017
free Dmitry Bogatov
Dmitry Bogatov, aka KAction, is a Russian free software activist and mathematics teacher at Moscow’s Finance and Law University. He was arrested in Russia on 6 April of this year and charged with extremism. He is currently held in a pre-trial detention centre, and is apparently likely to remain there until early June at least, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/04/27/free-dmitry-bogatov/
Mar 18 2017
pwned
I recently received a spam email to one of my email addresses. In itself this is annoying, but not particularly interesting or that unusual (despite my efforts to avoid such nuisances). What was unusual was the form of the address because it contained a username I have not used in a long time, and only …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/03/18/pwned/
Feb 09 2017
this is what a scary man looks like
No, I mean the one on the right – the one Trump is pointing at. General John Kelly is just one of Trump’s controversial appointments (and not necessarily the worst) and I guess that by writing this now, I have finally nailed down the lid on the coffin of my ever returning to the US. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/02/09/this-is-what-a-scary-man-looks-like/
Jan 30 2017
variable substitution – redux
Back in October last year, I posted a note about the usage of variable substitution in lighttpd’s configuration files. In fact I got that post very slightly wrong (now corrected) in that I showed the test I applied in the file as: “$HTTP[“remoteip”] !~ “12.34.56.78″”. (Note the “!~” when I should have used “!=”). This …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/01/30/variable-substitution-redux/
Jan 30 2017
not welcome here
US President Trump has said that refugees and travellers from seven, mainly majority Muslim, countries are barred from entry to the US. Notwithstanding our own dear PM’s invitation to Trump, some 1.2 million brits have so far signed a Parliamentary petition to “Prevent Donald Trump from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom“. I …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2017/01/30/not-welcome-here/
Dec 24 2016
Merry Christmas 2016
As is now traditional :-) I post today to wish everyone a very merry christmas. Today is trivia’s birthday – indeed it is trivia’s 10th birthday so I have been writing here for a decade. Good grief. If I had known then what I know now trivia might have been still born. As it is …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/12/24/merry-christmas-2016/
Nov 11 2016
if it be your will
A bleak week just got worse. The results of the US Presidential election are, frankly, beyond belief. We now have a xenophobic, racist, misogynistic megalomaniac waiting to move into the White House and become, literally, the most powerful man on earth. And now Leonard Cohen has died. Cohen is one of my all time favourite …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/11/11/if-it-be-your-will/
Oct 24 2016
do not click here
I have just noticed that the getsafeonline campaign’s website contains this wonderfully ironic side bar graphic. Go on, you know you want to.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/10/24/do-not-click-here/
Oct 22 2016
NFC? NFW
As is our custom on a Saturday, this morning my wife and I went out to a local cafe for breakfast. We know the proprietress so I was chatting to her whilst paying for the meal. Part way through the chat, the cafe proprietress tore off the receipt from the POS terminal and removed my …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/10/22/nfc-nfw/
Oct 19 2016
variable substitution in lighttpd
I’ve been a lighty user for many years now, having junked apache when it became obviously overweight for my target devices (the slugs in particular). Trivia is, of course, powered by lighty as are all my other websites. Lighty’s configuration file syntax is reasonably simple to understand, and is well documented on the Redmine wiki. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/10/19/variable-substitution-in-lighttpd/
Jul 13 2016
show me yours
As Theresa May moves from the Home Office to Number 10, it is perhaps timely to reflect on public attitudes to surveillance as evidenced in Liberty’s campaign film “Show me yours” in April of this year. In the film (shown below), comedian Olivia Lee pursues members of the public with the intention of taking details …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/07/13/show-me-yours/
May 02 2016
raid performance
I have recently been building a new NAS box (of which, possibly, more later). In fact the build is really a rebuild because I initially built the server about three years ago in order to consolidate a bunch of services I was running on assorted separate servers into one place. That first build was a …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/05/02/raid-performance/
Mar 30 2016
jibber jabber
For some time mow I have been increasingly fed up with the poor service offered by SMS on my mobile phone. I’m not a hugely prolific sender of text messages, and those I do send are primarily aimed at my wife and kids, but when I do send them, I expect them to get there, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/03/30/jibber-jabber/
Jan 24 2016
guest network
Last month Troy Hunt posted an interesting comment on his blog about the problems around the etiquette of allowing guests onto your home wifi network. In his post, Hunt notes that guests can be deeply offended at being refused access. This is understandable. If they are guests in your home then they are probably close …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/01/24/guest-network/
Jan 11 2016
sign this now
I am a paying member of both Amnesty International and the Open Rights Group. Both those organisations, along with many other Civil Rights organisations, technology companies and concerned individuals are signatories to an open letter to Governments across the world demanding that we retain the right to strong encryption in order to protect our privacy. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/01/11/sign-this-now/
Jan 07 2016
idiotic
Today’s Register has an article about the UK Internet Service Providers Association written evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill. I don’t wish to comment on that evidence here, Adrian Kennard has already provided much useful comment on the failings of the Draft Bill. My purpose in this post to …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/01/07/idiotic/
Jan 01 2016
a bad way to end the year
Sadly, I read today that Ian Murdock, the “Ian” in Debian, died on Monday, 28 December 2015. He was only 42 years old. Various reports indicate that he had been distressed for some time before his death. The tweets reportedly from Murdock’s twitter account shortly before his death are very disturbing. Murdock’s contribution to the …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2016/01/01/a-bad-way-to-end-the-year/
with thanks to Dr Fun
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