Author's posts
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/
Dec 24 2015
merry christmas 2015
It’s trivia’s birthday again (9 years old today!), so I just have to post to wish my readers (both of you, you know who you are….) a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Much has happened over the last year or so which has distracted me from blogging (life gets in the way sometimes) …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/12/24/merry-christmas-2015/
Dec 08 2015
knees and other jerks
On sunday, the motherboard intially reported that, in the wake of the Paris atrocities of November 13th, the French Government was proposing to ban Tor and free WiFi. As it turns out, this is not strictly accurate. The report was later corrected – thus: Correction: The initial headline and copy of this article suggested that …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/12/08/knees-and-other-jerks/
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/11/28/cameron-meets-corbyn/
Nov 23 2015
christmas present
Like most people in the UK at this time of the year I’ve been doing some on-line shopping lately. Consequently I’m waiting for several deliveries. Some delivery companies (DHL are a good example) actually allow you to track your parcels on-line. In order to do this they usually send out text or email messages giving …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/11/23/christmas-present/
Nov 10 2015
torflow
Yesterday, Kenneth Freeman posted a note to the tor-relays list drawing attention to a new resource called TorFlow. TorFlow is a beautiful visualisation of Tor network traffic around the world. It enables you to see where traffic is concentrated (Europe) and where there is almost none (Australasia). Having the data overlaid on a world map …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/11/10/torflow/
Oct 29 2015
lancashire police fail
This is simply depressing. Today I received a classic phishing attack email – the sort I normally bin without thought. According to virustotal, the attachment, which purported to be an MS Word document called “Invoice 7500005791.doc”, was a copy of W97M/Downloader, a word macro trojan which Symantec says is a downloader for additional malware. So …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/10/29/lancashire-police-fail/
Oct 15 2015
update to privacy policy
As promised in my privacy policy, this post draws attention to the fact that I have amended that policy (very slightly). The amendments refer to the fact that I no longer use Counterize to collect run time statistics. I prefer instead to use Awstats which runs over my log file on a weekly basis. I …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/10/15/update-to-privacy-policy/
Aug 20 2015
update to domain privacy
At the end of last month I noted that I had been receiving multiple emails to each of the proxy addresses listed for my newly registered “private” domains. Intriguingly, whilst I was receiving at least three or four such emails a week before I wrote about it, I have had precisely zero since. Probably coincidence, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/08/20/update-to-domain-privacy/
Aug 19 2015
why privacy matters
Last month my wife and I shared a holiday with a couple of old friends. We have known this couple since before we got married, indeed, they attended our wedding. We consider them close friends and enjoy their company. One evening in a pub in Yorkshire, we got to discussing privacy, the Snowden revelations, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/08/19/why-privacy-matters/
Jul 30 2015
get your porn here
Dear Dave is at it again. Sometimes I worry about our PM’s priorities. Not content with his earlier insistence that UK ISPs must introduce “family friendly (read “porn”) filters”, our man in No 10 now wants to “see age restrictions put into place or these (i.e. “porn”) websites will face being shut down”. El Reg …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/07/30/get-your-porn-here/
Jul 28 2015
domain privacy?
Over the past few months or so I have bought myself a bunch of new domain names (I collect ’em….). On some of those names I have chosen the option of “domain privacy” so that the whois record for the domain in question will show limited information to the world at large. I don’t often …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/07/28/domain-privacy/
Jun 05 2015
why pay twice?
Yesterday’s Independent newspaper reports that HMG has let a contract with five companies to monitor social media such as twitter, facebook, and blogs for commentary on Goverment activity. The report says: “Under the terms of the deal five companies have been approved to keep an eye on Facebook, Twitter and blogs and provide daily reports …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/06/05/why-pay-twice/
Jun 02 2015
de-encrypting trivia
Well, that didn’t last long. When I decided to force SSL as the default connection to trivia I had forgotten that it is syndicated via RSS on sites like planet alug. And of course as Brett Parker helpfully pointed out to me, self-signed certificates don’t always go down too well with RSS readers. He also …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/06/02/de-encrypting-trivia/
Jun 01 2015
encrypting trivia
In my post of 8 May I said it was now time to encrypt much, much more of my everyday activity. One big, and obvious, hole in this policy decision was the fact that the public face of this blog itself has remained unencrypted since I first created it way back in 2006. Back in …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/06/01/encrypting-trivia/
May 14 2015
what is wrong with this sentence?
Yesterday the new Government published a press release about the forthcoming first meeting of the new National Security Council (NSC). That meeting was due to discuss the Tory administration’s plans for a new Counter-Extremism Bill. The press release includes the following extraordinary statement which is attributed to the Prime Minister: “For too long, we have …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/05/14/what-is-wrong-with-this-sentence/
May 08 2015
back on topic
Theresa May hasn’t wasted any time. The Independent reports today that Ms May (Home Secretary in the coalition administration) has said that the new Tory administration will bring the Draft Communications Data Bill, previously blocked by the Liberal Democrats, back to the House of Commons with the intention of getting it passed into law. As …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/05/08/back-on-topic/
May 08 2015
do not be ordinary
The early results of yesterday’s poll are depressing beyond belief. It looks almost certain that the Tory party will have sufficient seats to form the next government. I don’t often make party political points here (though my political leanings may sometimes be obvious) but I was reminded today of Neil Kinnock’s heart rending speech in …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2015/05/08/do-not-be-ordinary/
with thanks to Dr Fun
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