Centroid.EU Blog

(this blog is mostly encrypted - adults only)

After a long downtime my VPS americas is back

February 11th, 2014

After failing to install FreeBSD 10 on virtualbox (it cored in the installer)... I have requested a jail vps (basic plan) from hub.org. It took a few days but we're back online (for the blog at least). I'm very happy about this. I'm back running wildcarddnsd on the basic plan vps and I don't know why I had disabled it in the past, I can't remember. We'll have to see.

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OS Changes, back

February 4th, 2014

Americas.centroid.eu is really unstable with OpenBSD, and I can't really afford it being down all the time. I'm going to put FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE on it starting tomorrow, hoping FBSD will have a bit more stability. I'm going to have to port the mps software to FreeBSD... ouch.

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Purchased new iTunes Album

January 31st, 2014

I have decided to spend money on 1 album a month on itunes. So last month I got Gappy Ranks - Shining hope and for the month of february I got Morgan Heritage - Here comes the kings. I like reggae music!

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My apology to OpenBSD

January 28th, 2014

I dropped the bomb on OpenBSD by publically announcing a program on a mailing list that at least in my case puts OpenBSD in an infinite loop. I reproduced this condition on another platform today and here is the console output:

So I want to say I'm sorry publically on my blog. I don't know what I was thinking, but I was stressed that my VPS was constantly in this condition, and having to ask the admin of the VPS host to reset my VPS puts strain on everyone. I just hope someone at OpenBSD can fix this because I can't, I lack the skill, and it seems to be a difficult spot where this infinite loop is played out.

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Someone actively probed my MPS tunnel (MITM)

January 24th, 2014

My closed-sourced mpsd was probed by an unknown mitm attack, and it hung up.

Jan 24 13:48:51 americas mpsd[21598]: len too long

At the same time I saw that my host was unable to be pinged past 99% packet loss. What's interesting to note here is that mpsd has a TCP tunnel open so there is sequencing and checksums involved, those were actively forged by the attack.

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FreeBSD 10.0 released!

January 21st, 2014

FreeBSD 10.0 has been released. I look forward to making use of this on and off work. Congratulations to the FreeBSD Team. In the past I have donated money to them including 250 dollars last year, we'll have to see what I can do this year, but it's too early in the year to judge how much I want to donate. Right now it's celebration time for most of the BSD's!

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The Apple magic wore off

January 19th, 2014

Yesterday I found myself looking through PC mainboards and Intel CPU's. I also inquired about whom to donate / hand-down my other PC to when I get the new one. So I likely won't be getting the Mac Pro even though it's a nice machine. I looked at ASUS Sabertooth TUF mainboard, if it's worth telling.

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Donation time again

January 15th, 2014

I'm donating 200 euros to OpenBSD this early in the start of the year. In 2012 I donated over 500 euros to them and a little less than that in 2013, since 2014 seems to be a good year I may match the 2012 donation sum by end of year.

Also OpenBSD is looking for corporate and private support in donations to pay its 20,000 dollar a year electricity bill. Once they have that secured the project will continue otherwise it's threatened with shut-down. If you know anyone or you yourself are using OpenBSD don't you think it's time to open your wallet to a project such as OpenBSD which is in need?

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Is the NSA so much smarter than everyone else?

January 15th, 2014

I don't think so. Mainly they probably get human resources from the tech industry, people that worked on specific platforms. They probably also have access to the source code of closed source programs. It's an area that they can enjoy hiding behind patriotism and laws. And then there is their huge budget. Money can buy smarts.

How does one resist such an organization that has all the resources in the world vs. a lowly system administrator? I've been wondering that all along. I considered going offline again as that is the ultimate way to stop this madness, but that isn't gonna work out as long as I work at a job in north america via the Internet. I'm still pondering this issue...

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What would I do in Virtual Reality?

January 11th, 2014

I'm currently reading the book "Infinite Reality" by Blascovich and Bailenson and I think this book is a real thriller. I think virtual reality is not too far off for the consumer if you follow Oculus Rift progress. So what would I do with it? One idea is that I would create a "god room" as I call it. It's a room or object in the blackness of space, where I would create or architect new rooms.

Another idea is that I would be able to monitor my computers in a 3D fashion. For this I have the idea of using kqueue system calls to monitor filesystem on a host and to make an observer aware that something changed or that activity is in one part of the system, like a 3D popup or a change in colour. The filesystem would be represented as a tree perhaps, very simple to do (sorta). I have experience in networking and (mostly network) programming so I believe creating a virtual reality interface for network operators is perhaps also on the menu. Being able to examine traffic, suspend traffic, block traffic, create traffic and communication is what comes to mind. I poke around the OpenBSD Operating System once in a while to see how I would implement my ideas best when the time comes to have a head mounted display.

These not yet created applications can be used in security and debugging scenarios, which partially attract to me because I'm often paranoid about things. To be able to go beyond what is possible with a keyboard and monitor interface is what is supposed to cure my paranoia and strengthen my trust in things. I think VR can do this, although the possibility exists that no electronic device can be trusted at all,.. ever. In that case the VR Interface is to unearth the threat-level.

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