JuxtaposedJaguar

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 54 points 7 months ago (4 children)

It's a nightmare to search for anything about GUID Partition Tables (GPT) now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Free (As in beer and speech!)

Do you live in a utopia where you get as much beer as you want without having to pay for it, or do you live in a dystopia where you have to pay to be able to speak your mind and only in limited quantities?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Thank you for interjecting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The data block would be modified but the signature of that block can’t be recomputed without the key used to sign it

Isn't that also true of an encrypted checksum, though? For some plaintext block q there is a checksum r, but the attacker can only see and modify the encrypted q (Q) and encrypted r (R). How any change to Q would modify q (and R to r) can't be known without knowing the encryption key, but the attacker would need to know that in order to keep q and r consistent.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I'm not a cryptographer (so maybe this is wrong), but my understanding is that although it's possible to modify the cipher text, how those changes modify the plaintext are very difficult (or impossible) to predict. That can still be an attack vector if the attacker knows the structure of the plaintext (or just want to break something), but since the checksum is also encrypted, the chances that both the original file and checksum could be kept consistent after cipher text modification is basically zero.

 

I need to transport multiple very large files over an unstable and untrusted network, and the file contents are outputted as a data stream. I wanted to use OpenSSL for streaming authenticated encryption, but they purposefully don't support that and are preachy about it.

Well, it turns out that XZ has checksumming built-in! It even has different algorithms (CRC32, CRC64, and SHA256). It's part of the same file, within/before the encryption, and automatically verified by the decompression tool. I'm already using XZ for compression before encryption, so this is just super convenient and useful. Also, it seems like XZ supports threaded decompression now, when it didn't before. Thanks XZ devs!

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago (2 children)

In exchange, FF uses Google search by default. So they're also getting direct value from the deal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

The classic gonewild is a bit sexist, though. They say it's for porn of all sexes, but male posts get buried. It's fine to be female-only, but then just say that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I vaguely remember the advice actually being to leave it running but disconnect it from the internet. Although maybe hard disconnect the backups if you can.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (6 children)

The real problem is the government not protecting consumers from such predatory business practices. It's almost certainly not legal, and if it is then it shouldn't be. After 3-4 companies are absolutely destroyed, companies will stop doing it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

...Because no one else wants to write my documentation.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

There was a thread about that on c/selfhosted a few weeks ago. Created by a particular wild-cat-inspired sysadmin, I might add.

But on a more serious note, the interactions between a sysadmin and their servers (that they have enough responsibility for to be able to name) are much more intimate than the interactions between a dev and their variables. The server names also exist in a much larger namespace, so they need to be more unique.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

Ever since we found out that Grindr has been tracking their users' locations at all times and then selling that data to private companies, Grindr has been dead to me.

 

I'm not complaining, but I didn't realize how much work it was. It makes me really respect the people who do it on a regular basis.

For example:

  • You know how to use your software, but other people don't. So you need to write documentation.
  • You can just modify the source files, but it's impractical for everyone to do that. So you need to add a config file.
  • You can just drag the output files into place, but that's impractical for everyone to do. So you need to package it.
  • You trust yourself, but distro maintainers rightfully don't. So you need to package your source code and configure the package to compile it.
  • You will abide by your idea of how the software should be used, but other people might not. So you need to pick a license.

Sometimes I think there must be an easier way, but I can't think of any. I guess it probably gets easier with experience.

 

My main server is named Postulate (an idea that you assume for the sake of argument), my desktop is named Axiom (a proved postulate), and my backup server is named Corollary (an idea that follows from an axiom).

What are your computers named, and why?

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