Skip to main content



The problem with being a sysadmin and a dad is I accidentally say to my 5yo "All minutes are 60 seconds except for the 61 second minutes"

reshared this



As much as I love writing on it, my reMarkable2 (which has already been annoying me with its response to being caught out in the rain a couple years ago, two laptops and another tablet in the same backpack shrugged it off with no trouble but the rM2 now gets days on a full battery charge instead of months) has a jammed power button and no other way to wake it from sleep, so it's time to retire it.

Samsung makes tablets with the same stylus technology so I picked up one of those, and it's... adequate. At least it's half the price and should be durable enough to handle living in a backpack and not just sitting on a desk and never going anywhere (and if this one dies, for the same price as a rM2 I can get a ruggedized one with a bigger screen)

The device I really want is the guts of the new color reMarkable in an enclosure that's actually as durable as a reasonable person would expect from a consumer electronics device at that price point, but capitalism says nobody will buy that, so I can't buy it.



In light of our praise of the Internet Archive - can we make sure to use Indigo as an example of another org that did the right thing after a databreach?

Took everything down, fixed it, and improved the process.

in reply to silverwizard

I'm not caping for Indigo. I just know people who still haven't forgiven them, and this is the attitude we need to be encouraging, and putting into people's minds as a good thing.

Staying up during a breach investigation should be seen like running with a broken leg.


in reply to David Schuetz

@David Schuetz hmmmm, how do you represent that, you could probably do it wth redirect rules or clever folder structure
in reply to silverwizard

I think it'd be like 255.255.255.3? So the nets are (say) 192.168.1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, and the hosts are ... jesus, this is why nobody's tried this.

Bitwise, it'd be: xxx00, xxx01, xxx10, xxx11

0 net: .4, .8, .12, .16, .20…
1 net: .5, .9..yeah, that makes sense.
2 net: .6, .10…
3 net: .7, .11, .15, .19, .23…

and so on.

This was asked in a meeting with NeXT engineers while I was a contractor at a government agency in the early 90’s. I think their answer was... "We support it...maybe? Why would you want to?”

I've always wanted to try, just for the hell of it, but I suspect 99% of networking gear would break.

in reply to David Schuetz

@David Schuetz I have managed to be mostly self taught, and get into the game after CIDR notation, so I completely never learned actual subnet masks, so I don't fully understand the issue you're even seeing.
in reply to silverwizard

It used to be (I guess this was before CIDR became popular) that netmasks were expressed as literal bitmasks. So a /24 would actually be written as "192.168.1.0, netmask 255.255.255.0” where the "24" represents the leading 24 bits representing the network (192.168.1).

So a /28 would be..255.255.255.240 (11110000).

But it was always a consecutive string of β€œ1” bits, and the hosts were the remaining block of lower-most "0" bits. Usually 8, for a /24, but often smaller (for, say, a small block of public IPs your ISP gives you). I remember the net my office desktop was on in school that was 255.255.254.0 (or /23). That network used 9 bits for 512 hosts. (ish - router and broadcast addresses are still needed out of that 512).

A non-contiguous netmask would mean that consecutive final octets would be on consecutively different networks.

255.255.255.3 would be all 1s, then 00000011, so the NET portion is .0, .1, .2, and .3. So hosts .4, .5, .6, .7, .8, .9, .10, .11, .12... would be on networks 0, 1, 2, 3, 0, 1, 2, 3, 0….

Like I said, I doubt much of anything would support it now. Even when we wrote netmasks as bitmasks, it's likely most gear would've just failed using this approach.

It really is a cursed idea. :)

This wiki page may help, too. Once you see it, it's ... logical? (I won't say "easy”). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnet

in reply to David Schuetz

@David Schuetz Oh, I see, a subnet mask bitmap with non-contiguous 1s - that makes sense.Gross.

So something like 192.168.90.256/192.255.148.45, not just a wall of 1s.

(I know enough to set subnet masks on weird ancient gear ;), but I almost always am setting 255.255.255.0 and 255.255.255.255 because /24s rule everything around me. But yeah - reasonable)

I just don't know if I have any gear that would parse subnet masks like that enough to confuse it.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

@Jonathan Lamothe @David Schuetz Are you aware of the RFC 864 Compliant Dungeons and Dragons Character Generator I worked on?

@Dave worked on a bunch of it and I need to replace his work (not because I don't like it -but because I want to do the actual work not just crib his, the goal was to learn socket code).

in reply to silverwizard

@Richard "mtfnpy" Harman non-mobile firefox fails instantly.
Tragic. I was hoping I could get firefox to accept my bullshit, but it's correct it doesn't work


Why does the SecTor app contain several trackers?! I mean - I'm not installing it because of this, and that's a pain in the ass?

Shouldn't we, as security people, be able to notice this shit and be better than it?

Unknown parent

@Dave "Wear A Goddamn Mask" Cochran :donor: One day the risk management discipline will manage risk

Uuuug, I'm already so concerned about SecTor, vaxing, nitrite nasal spray, and an N95 mask, baaaaah



When creating a clock display - never forget the sleep in your code >.<


70% of the email I get is Zscaler outage and maintenance notifications

How do people handle this software?!


in reply to silverwizard

The kids helped, they definitely got distracted, but they helped!

They, most importantly, got to see inside a computer and were allowed to touch all the pieces.

My kids have been able to use their computers for lots of little things

in reply to silverwizard

And to be clear:
the 5yo is playing Mario and a few other small games, mostly micro-indie games
the 3yo is listening to audiobooks and lullabies using a device he's built.

This isn't full hacking - this is still kids.

I'm looking at sourcing some classic lego motors to see if I can use these as the brains of a lego robot.



I am looking for a computer, that can be thrown in a backpack, and has a battery. Ideally no screen or keyboard inbuilt.
in reply to silverwizard

depending on what you're doing, the other hackish suggestion I have is to hit up Build-a-Bear for those record-a-message modules they sell for their stuffies
in reply to Michael Brown

@Michael Brown lol - that's also a pretty good option.

My goal is to make an ebook reader that will start playing when a CF card is inserted. And then bulk buy 128MB cards and put books on them.




/usr.slice/user-1000.slice/session-38.scope is not a snap cgroup

Ya know what Ubuntu, I actually don't care.

Just... make my shit work. If you want to make linux a hellscape - at least... function.




The greedflation crisis is so bad, getting the fanciest cheese I can at the specialty cheese store is *cheaper* than buying brie at the grocery store


I wonder if Tim Pool will have to give back his Russian propaganda funded skatepark

This is a sentence I just idly thought, this is a glimpse into madness



Phlogging the paper tape

If you don't know, my SSG supports RSS, Web, and Gopher, all on obscuritus.ca



Thinking about Bandcamp and incentives.

So I just bought music from derinaharveyband.bandcamp.com/… and you should too. You should buy it all and leave a tip. But, let's talk incentives.

So I want to buy Derina's music, because (he way she sings makes me want to scream, weep, join the chorus, and somehow fly. And if she releases a new anything, I want to know one second after, if not early enough I can preorder.

But I don't buy a lot of music, I have extensive ear damage and most music falls flat for me. So I don't care about much other music.

Derina Harvey Band doesn't care what music I buy, as long as I buy theirs (they are probably good people and hope I support their community though, back there in a second).

So Derina Harvey Band and I have a relationship (I want to give them money), but they want to make more, so they use Bandcamp for discoverability. I found their bandcamp before I found their website! So bandcamp is good! It fascilitated a relationship, and I get to hear about the sea.

But now Bandcamp wants to spam me about not-Derina-Harvey, they want me to learn about Nathan Evans or whoever, bands I really don't want to engage with, since I might buy their music. And this has lead me to turn off all communications from Bandcamp. This means I miss when bands I like release music.

So, because there's a broker (platform) who is going to meditate my relationship with Derina Harvey Band, I am going to lose out. Bandcamp turned a new fan into a new customer, but made it harder for a customer to stay a customer.

And, I want to be clear here, there was not even regular Enshittifiation. It's bandcamp Friday, I sent the band slightly over full price for all their albums and they're probably getting, as cash, the full price of all their albums, the platform took nothing. But they band also doesn't have a POSSE style setup, I need to use a platform to learn about tours and releases, and I don't.

I dunno, this is just a tragic story, there's no lesson we don't all know, and there's no solution that isn't to tell a band to manage their own mailing list. The obvious solution is to create a platform that isn't evil, but even then, I don't think that's possible because of all this.

Abolish capitalism so I can revel in a shanty about how capitalism ruins sailing.

in reply to silverwizard

Bandcamp won't let you, but one "PaweΕ‚ Grzybek" has set this service up based on another. It's limited to 100,000 daily requests, so he requests people don't hammer it too much.

pawelgrzybek.com/generate-rss-…

I guess that means you can't get notified the very second another album comes out, but I bet once per day wouldn't strain PaweΕ‚'s limits too much.




I made Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip cookies with my 3yo - and that was a mistake. Now I just want to eat those all day.


Trying to put my 5yo to bed and he said "Does the solar system that Arda is in have a planet called Middle Mars?"
in reply to warren xe/xemvon

@thanos cosmatos Don't worry - we got there. He's being read The Hobbit and he needs pretty deep backstory to stop his intrusive thoughts - but Tolkien has my back.


Zscaler has a hard dependency on systemd on linux

This causes so many issues, any minor change in modules and defaults causes my user's computers to lock up and completely lose internet. A basic local vpn (which is all zscaler is) is trivial to implement without systemd.

By depending on systemd, they are making my life worse as an admin, for no gain.

I don't get the systemd cult.

in reply to silverwizard

it's running as a service or daemon right? So you need a system that controls your daemons....

Like a firewall, or any other service.

How's the tunnel know when to come up if something doesn't tell it?



Does anyone have any experience with syncing a #bandcamp library to a location. I just want to make sure my purchases and my jellyfin library match and automatically download items if they aren't.
in reply to silverwizard

that's the one! I only used it a couple of times, but I was impressed both times.



New funding model for Open Source just dropped.

InfoSec starts screaming about a 9.9 CVSS and then the open source maintainer sells the vuln on the dark web.



The best IMDB pages are these kinds
imdb.com/name/nm0870439/

Just a jobber who has acted in shows I'd love, it's like a To Watch List and a Resume




Ran into family friends from childhood while out last night, and all they could talk about is that my dad had a heart attack a few months ago.

My family is downplaying it so much, and it was the first time I got to talk to someone who took it seriously (except my wife), and it was nice.

in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

@Jonathan Lamothe oh, I don't know if I've mentioned it that much online. And you're mostly an online friend these days. He's doing better, just one of those things.


My friend is watching Past Tense (the DS9 episode about the Bell Riots), and is like "Sisko is in the present. It is all normal"



I moved my work laptop from Devuan to Debian because Zscaler doesn't know you can launch an program without systemd, but somehow Thunderbird on Debian is eye searingly, upsettingly, bad.

All the other Thunderbirds I've seen are great, but Debian is doing something that I can't turn off.



For @Becky 's birthday, our 5yo wanted to make a custom PvZ mod where everything is rainbows.

So our first attempt all the work we did got eaten because the game didn't like the files. So we redid it, and then had to test.

And my son is being a proper game dev, having all his work ruined and needing to fix it

Ben Zanin reshared this.




I have a friend who is being harassed and threatened semi-anonymously via Facebook. She knows *who* it is, but Facebook and Police are characteristically being uselss.

I am kinda useless at this side of deanonymization, but does anyone have advice or resources for deanonymizing enough to get cops to move?

#infosec #batsignal

in reply to silverwizard

if you can host a file on a site where you can look at the access logs and then post a link to that file, you might be able to bait them into downloading the file which could give you their IP address in the access logs. A whois search for the IP address.could get you their ISP and geolocation information on the IP could get you the general area.

That's a lot of "ifs" and "coulds", though.

in reply to Jim Jones

here is a Forbes article (that also points to more sources) on how to do it. Beware that it isn't a quick fix, but it can work if they are persistent (and it require some legal action, which isn't always affordable). forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2…
in reply to Jim Jones

from there, if the police still won't do something, it turns to filing court orders to get information from the IP holders about who had the IP at the time of access and harassment.

Good luck.

This entry was edited (4 months ago)


I am reading my kid The Hobbit at bedtime, and this feels like the most authentic and fun way to read it
in reply to Mason Loring Bliss

@Mason Loring Bliss this is making me realize I can use this as an excuse to start The Dark is Rising, a series I never read as a kid
in reply to silverwizard

@silverwizard Oh, absolutely. There's no better excuse in the world. Reading about it, it reminds me of a similar-sounding story I read when I was young, but I can't remember the name now. I'll have to dig around. Something that might help me find it was that it existed as of somewhere between 1980 and 1984.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark…

Unknown parent

djb
@allenstenhaus memories of Cisco CF cards they charged absolutely insane prices for
in reply to silverwizard

I feel like a proper cyberpunk when I manage to pull apart a set top box, pull out the disk, and use that to rebuild my router.


Hobbesian philosophy sounds deep until you say it, "Ain't no claws when you're drinking laws"


Slack, Discord, and all of those all bind /me to italics - and it's wildly annoying because my /me instincts still exist
Unknown parent

@🩷 eva 🩷 See that's the issue! I hate irssi! I can't get my head around it!

People keep recommending me WeeChat but I keep forgetting. One day.

My friends run an XMPP project, soprani.ca/, which has some MUCs if you want to look around!

in reply to silverwizard

@silverwizard @🩷 eva 🩷 I've migrated mostly to XMPP (for the half dozen or so people I know who use it) but I was pretty happy with irssi for IRC. It can even pull double duty and do XMPP, though admittedly a little buggily.
This entry was edited (4 months ago)


Any #FreeBSD folk know why the rust compiler might give me

ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/bin/../lib/librustc_driver-d829a4d8a572ebe4.so: Undefined symbol "_ZNSt3__122__libcpp_verbose_abortEPKcz"

I am worried the problem is my kernel is 13.2 but the rust package claims to be from 13.3? Is this a "just upgrade and stop worrying" situation

in reply to silverwizard

I'm neither a FreeBSD folk nor a Rust folk but that looks like a library version mismatch to me - is your libc++ the one that came with your 13.2 system? The symbol it's missing might be new in 13.3. (Not sure whether there's a feasible way to get a 13.3 libc++ without upgrading the whole system, your path of least resistance might be finding a 13.2 rust package.)
in reply to Dave

@Dave Yeah - in theory this package should be fine for all FreeBSDs - but I have a worry something happened with the package DB accidentally giving me an incompatible rustc binary - which ... shouldn't happen - I think?!
@Dave


Infosec apparently doesn't realize that cheques are ancient technology no one under 40 has seen in over a decade


Remember, the vulnerability in Yubikeys doesn't make them weaker than most sms 2fa

reshared this

in reply to Rivetgeek (He/Him)

@Rivetgeek yeah, so much of the time. someone told me that facebook tells employees to leave theirs in their laptops, which is, at least, funny.

SMS 2FA is mostly because because SMS numbers suck

in reply to silverwizard

The funny thing is mine still isn't plugged into my laptop itself. I just never unplug the Yubikey from where it is. So it's not totally pointless if someone stole my laptop (they'd have a bad time either way considering the hard drive is encrypted).


An important parenting skill is not giggling when you say "What hurts?" and they answer "all of it"
⇧