Centroid.EU Blog

(this blog is mostly encrypted - adults only)

Buju Banton released December 7th

December 10th, 2018

Buju Banton was released from prison in Florida and has been flown to Jamaica. He is the General of Reggae music. His sentence was a farce IMO and his time served a waste of human life. Whether he was able to further himself in prison? I do hope so. Now he has to find hold of life again, he has a huge family, and everything will have to be sorted out. But I do hope to see him on album eventually. I still have to buy other albums of his, so far the two (three, when counting mr. mention which i lost in canada) are the only ones I have.

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Happy St. Nicolaus day

December 6th, 2018

Happy St. Nics. Were your stockings filled this morning? Mine weren't but I got the idea of investing some money into Microsoft (see below). Thanks Nic!

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Investing in Microsoft

December 6th, 2018

I have put a plan forward that instead of schooling on something that I already know I'm going to build a network here at home to get better with the skills I already aquired. I'm going to lay aside 3000 EUR for Microsoft products in order to build a 3 client test network here at home. This is roughly what I'd be shelling out for a 160 hours course. I'm looking toward buying Microsoft Windows Server 2019, vmware fusion upgrade and Microsoft Windows Pro for 3 workstations here at home. Whatever money is left from that I'll see where I can put that into.

So hold on that's not all. Since I dislike investing into Microsoft so much money I'M going to make a donation to OpenBSD as well covering 1000 EUR split in two transactions (once in 2019 and once in 2020 for ~440 EUR). This puts OpenBSD and Microsoft pretty much evenly in the amount of money I spent on both (including CD buys and donation money over the years).

Why am I doing this? I'm at a real crossroad here. I would prefer to work with OpenBSD but circumstances don't allow me to work at some place like Genua Gmbh or someone. And noone here in this region has ever heard of OpenBSD. This means that employers require someone to have Windows knowledge. And they have the dough that I ultimately need. Even though I took a course for Windows Server 2003 in 2004, I'm very insecure on Microsoft products. When I build this network I'm sacrificing one OpenBSD box that is currently on and one FreeBSD box that is currently off. They'll be running the Windows. I'm retaining the majority of servers and routers here running OpenBSD.

It may appear as a desperate move but reality says I'm not going to be using OpenBSD at work if I want a job, so it's really a smart move. Also there is a smart saying with "don't put your eggs all in one basket". Well I'm done gushing the news, I'M going further the plan by new years.

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An Inter-connected World

December 4th, 2018

Recently in conversation with a neighbour of my parents, she was astounded that Internet Exchange points existed and the Internet didn't look criss crossed like the paths in this african photo:

The above is more a mesh network, and is expensive. What we have in Germany and most of the world is accessible hubs called exchange points. These exchange points offer peering between their subscribers (which are ISPs mostly) , there is a few in this vicinity let me list a few for you:

DE-CIX Frankfurt, the biggest internet exchange in the EU
BCIX Berlin Internet Exchange
N-IX Nuremberg Internet Exchange
LINX London Internet Exchange
AMS-IX Amsterdam Internet Exchange
Torix Toronto Internet Exchange, biggest in Canada
YYCIX Calgary Internet Exchange, a young IX

These Internet exchange points offer "peering" which means that you generally let traffic flow at little or no cost. The opposite is "transit" providers who connect you to the backbone at cost. There is a few that come to my mind.

and many more. These can also be divided up in Tier I through Tier III NSP's (network service providers), depending if they have their own global backbone or not. It is entirely possible that a transit provider will take on peering at a peering point and transport packets further across continents. So in that regard the division between peering and transit intermixes a little.

Here is some more links I have written up over the course of the 10 years that I've had this blog:

Well it was an attempt at least. BTW DE-CIX is hiring.

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I've been an OpenBSD User 20 years now

December 4th, 2018

I think sometime in 1998 I installed OpenBSD as my workstation at Globalserve an ISP in Toronto at the time (they were aquired by Primus.ca). I remember somewhat that the screen was blue and orange(???). But the dmesg was blue and white (or was it?). Something like that. I was very happy that the newest changes back then (the strlcpy/strlcat) were just put in place. It was the safest OS at the time I bet. I got help online on IRC from someone who was/is an OpenBSD developer. I came from a FreeBSD background and before that Linux in 1995 and was torn on what to like more. In 2000 at BSDCon in Monterey I made a decision finally to embrace OpenBSD fully (I bought the shirt didn't I?). Well here is a glass of American Ginger Ale (sorry have no access to Canada Dry here), to my being a loyal user for 20 years.

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The PowerPC64 Port Project

December 4th, 2018

Since July of this year I was trying to port OpenBSD/macppc to 64 bit PowerPC. This did not work and I'm pulling the plug on this, I've wasted enough time on this. It's a fail but somehow I'm happy it's over. This work probably requires hacking on clang, binutils which I did not want to do, because it requires skills I do not possess or want right now. The macppc ecosystem is changing too. Eventually it'll be built by clang (some other people are working on this) and perhaps when that is working there is a stepping stone to get back to this. But perhaps not. The code is gonna rot over time who knows. If you're interested in this keep an eye out for my final update. I'm going to make a downloadable CVS available most likely.

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Considering taking a course at IHK next year

December 1st, 2018

This course seems viable. Since I'm using OpenBSD I'm already security conscious, and I'll learn about the IT security coordination for other OS's. Could be good for me. The course starts mid-january 2019 on a part time basis. I'll have to make a final decision between christmas and new years of 2019.

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Google's secretive Dragonfly designed to inhibit human rights

November 30th, 2018

If you haven't heard about dragonfly, now you have. You bet they are going to introduce this into democratic countries eventually. Google stop it now!

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Dread at the controls!

November 29th, 2018

Congratulations to Reggae Music for their inscription on the representable list of the intangible cultural heritage of Humanity (UNESCO). It is my favourite type of music too and I share your joy!

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Did not get the grant I applied for

November 29th, 2018

Unfortunately I did not get the grant from prototypefund.de and indirectly the german government. Now I can finally say shit against this government again. I won't be muzzled on this blog. On to plan B (look at older articles). This also means I have more pressure to find work by 2020.

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