Ramblings of a Unix Geek

There’s been a lot of push recently (especially on some youtube channels) for “The Year Of Linux On The Desktop”.

In December I documented TLS settings for Debian 13.

I got asked a question… this gives me a chance to write an opinion.

Over on Reddit someone commented that self-hosting solutions (eg email, calendars, file sync) was too much like hard work.

These days it seems that AI is everywhere.

Back in 2016 and then in 2020 I described how to get an A+ score with your TLS config.

The recent AWS outage led to a slew of It was DNS jokes.

One of the things you might see a lot on sites like LinkedIn is the recommendation to not ask interview questions for stuff that is easy and trivial to look up.

This is a long long post because I’m providing a lot of configuration files and explanation.

In the past I’ve pushed for automation of server builds, of application configuration.

I have a routine that runs every 15 minutes on my home machine and polls other of my servers and collates the results.

This post contains a lot of code, presented as close as possible to the code ChatGPT gave me.

When I was using a Mac as my media center player I liked that you could “remote desktop” into it; basically VNC and got the existing desktop.

Back in 2018 I was asked about whether someone should become a Unix specialist.

Leaving twitter And my social media footprint shrinks; I’ve closed my twitter account, mostly ‘cos there’s very little left there to read.

So 5 years ago today was the day I told my boss I wasn’t going to come into the office for a while, and would work from home.

Secure messaging A common question I get asked is “what secure messaging app do you use?”

I recently saw a posting on LinkedIn that said something like “with zero trust we can consider all access as privileged access”.

This post may seem odd for this blog; after all, why would anyone be interested in my screwdrivers?

There’s a theme going around that you should create secure products, not buy security products.

One thing I’ve noticed, over the years, is the habit of people blaming technology for the problems rather than taking a look at the processes behind the problem.

Google has been threatening this for a while, but now they’re finally getting around to it; they’re starting to remove Manifest v2 (MV2) from Chromium (and thus Chrome, and likely many browsers based on chromium, which is the majority of the browser space,

For some reason this year a lot more 9/11 denialism has come across my social media feeds.

I’d previously written about the Yubikey 5 and how we could use it to solve various use cases and when to trust it.

I was asked about today’s Crowdstrike issues on Windows.

WARNING: technical content ahead!

This isn’t my normal tech-ish posting; this is a more personal view at how Corporate America and tech startups and the like are abusing their workforce.

When it comes to talking about API Security there are many facets and paths the conversation can take.

We all know what imposter syndrome is.

Recently I wrote about how I got here without knowing what it was I wanted to do.

So I don’t do much “streaming”.

One of the most annoying interview questions is “where do you see yourself in five years time?

A number of years ago I wrote a Hue Bridge Emulator that would let you emulate light bulbs in shell script in such a way that these devices could be controlled by Alexa (and so used in routines and the like).

Else-net there was a discussion on how “security” is generally seen as a blocker; they’re seen as gate keepers and people who just say “no”, or who may be focused on regulatory compliance and not actual security.

Previously I had modified a digital safe to be controlled via an ESP8266; basically a WiFi safe.

Yes, this is a blog about a very old TV show.

The problem I use the Ookla Speedtest CLI in a cron job to get an idea of the speed of my internet connection (Verizon FIOS), and spot if there are problems.

This is one of my infrequent “philosophical” type posts.

I don’t normally write about specific products, but I was asked to take a look at the YubiKey series (primarily 4 and 5) and write up a summary of when and how it can be used.

Recently I was invited to be part of a panel on Microservice Security.

I got asked another question.

I got asked a question… this gives me a chance to write an opinion.

I got asked a question… this gives me a chance to write an opinion.

A while back I wrote about some basic usage of SSH certificates as an authentication system.

What is IP Allow-Listing Typically when you want to access a remote resource (e.g. login to a server) you need to provide credentials.

When people ask me something technical, I frequently find it useful to tell the basics as a story or an analogy.

When people ask me something technical, I frequently find it useful to tell the basics as a story or an analogy.

When people ask me something technical, I frequently find it useful to tell the basics as a story or an analogy.

When people ask me something technical, I frequently find it useful to tell the basics as a story or an analogy.