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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • While I don’t know the specific post you are referring to, Malware exists for Linux. Here’s a great overview from last year. If someone wants to argue, “oh it’s from a security company trying to sell a product” then let me point you at the Malware Bazaar and specifically the malware tagged elf. Those are real samples of real malware in the Linux specific ELF executable binary format (warning: yes it’s real malware, don’t run anything from this site). On the upshot, most seem to be Linux variants of the Mirai botnet. Not something you want running, but not quite as bad as ransomware. But, dig a bit and there are other threats. Linux malware exists, it has for a long time and it’s getting more prevalent as more stuff (especially servers) run on Linux.

    While Linux is far more secure than Windows by design, it’s not malware proof. It is harder for malware to move from user space into root (usually), but that’s often not needed for the activities malware gets up to today. Ransomware, crypto miners and info stealers will all happily execute in user-land. And for most people, this is where their important stuff lives. Linux’s days of living in “security through obscurity” are over. Attackers are looking at Linux now and starting to go after it.

    All that said, is it worth having a bloated A/V engine doing full on-access scanning? That depends on how you view the risk. Many of the drive-by type attacks (e.g. ClickFix, fake tech-support scams) all heavily target Windows and would fail on a Linux system. The malware and backdoors that come bundled with pirated software are likely to fail on a Linux system, though I’ll admit to not having tested that sort of thing with Wine/Proton installed. For those use cases, I’d suggest not downloading pirated software. Or, if you absolutely are going to, run those file through ClamAV at minimum.

    Personally, I don’t feel the need to run anything as heavy as on-access file scanning or anything to keep trawling memory for signatures on my home systems. Keeping software up to date and limiting what I download, install and run is enough to manage my risk. I do have ClamAV installed to let me do a quick, manual scan of anything I do download. But, I wouldn’t go so far as to buy A/V product. Most of the engines out there for Linux are crap anyway.

    Professionally, I am one of the voices who pushed for A/V (really EDR) on the Linux systems in my work environment. My organization has a notable Linux footprint and we’ve seen attackers move to Linux based systems specifically because they are less likely to be well monitored. In a work environment, we have less control over how the systems get (ab)used and have a higher need for telemetry and investigation.


  • One of the things to look at is the interest rate you would be paying for either loan and how that would effect the total cost of the loan. Also, there is the question of the utility of any money spent up front. For example, if using a loan on the existing house would result in no up front costs and a 5% interest rate over 30 years, and the standard mortgage would cost $20,000 and have an interest rate of 8%, you’re almost certainly better to use the existing house as backing and throw that same $20K in a long term interest bearing investment (e.g. government bonds). All this assuming you plan to hold onto the second property long term.

    Compounding interest is a fantastic tool and a fearful master. If you can make it work for you, then do it. If you are facing the possibility of paying it, you almost always want to lower it as much as possible.



  • If we’re aiming more towards realism, there are many reasons no modern military fields anything which looks like a mech. Not the least of which is tall, thin objects stick out on a battlefield and becomes targets. If you want an armored vehicle with a big gun, you build it low to the ground and end up with a tank. More survivability usually boils down to two factors:

    1. Lower observability
    2. More armor/defense

    You don’t die if you don’t get shot, and if you do get shot at you really, really want to prevent whatever hit you from penetrating in and killing the crew and/or disabling the vehicle.

    Mechs, with spindly legs end up high above the ground and those legs become obvious targets given the complexity of making a leg work. You’d want to reduce the height, meaning shorter legs. Then you want to not have something as horridly complex as an actuating knee or hip. So, let’s just use a tracked drive or wheel instead. At for the top, why arms? Again, too much complexity, just a single rotating turret would be simpler and easier to shield. That head thing can be reduced to a sensor mast and we’ll just make the sensors omnidirectional to avoid the whole “make it spin” complexity. And um, we just built a tank. Sure, there is some advantage to walking vehicles, and they might make sense on a small scale or in support roles where they are much less likely to come under fire. But for a front-line armored vehicle, I’d buy tanks.

    At the same time, mechs look cool.



  • Yes, and you can probably get better performance with different block sizes. This is just what I used to fix drives as it was fast enough and I couldn’t be arsed to do any real testing to find the right speed. Also, my stash of drives was no where near homogeneous, so the right size for one type of drive may not have worked for a different type of drive. I also used the 4MB block size when imaging drives to have an ok-ish speed while not losing too much data if there were read errors.




  • You could try using Autopsy to look for files on the drive. Autopsy is a forensic analysis toolkit, which is normally used to extract evidence from disk images or the like. But, you can add local drives as data sources and that should let you browse the slack space of the filesystem for lost files. This video (not mine, just a good enough reference) should help you get started. It’s certainly not as simple as the photorec method, but it tends to be more comprehensive.




  • I run Pi-Hole in a docker container on my server. I never saw the point in having a dedicated bit of hardware for it.
    That said, I don’t understand how people use the internet without one. The times I have had to travel for work, trying to do anything on the internet reminded me of the bad old days of the '90s with pop-ups and flashing banners enticing me to punch the monkey. It’s just sad to see one of the greatest communications platforms we have ever created reduced to a fire-hose of ads.





  • I really don’t see why there are so many people around saying “it’s probably fine”

    Because there is currently no direct evidence of anything amiss. From the linked article:

    Technically, the changes made so far have been reviewed by some people and no obvious malicious modifications have been found; F-Droid also builds the app reproducibly and verifies whether the published code matches the binaries

    Granted, someone could be playing a long game here. Get control, wait for the controversy to die down while playing nice, then do then rug pull when no one is watching anymore. That’s possible. It’s also quite possible that the previous maintainer got tired of doing a hard and thankless job for no pay and wanted to shed the whole thing. They found someone to hand it off to, and the new maintainer is just shit at open communications. That happens and is also possible. Whether or not it makes you change your usage of the package is down to your risk appetite. But, jumping at every shadow gets old quick and at some point you have to accept some risk. So, unless and until there is more evidence to backup the claim of foul play; or, if you have a really low risk appetite, this is one of those things which falls under “keep an ear open, but it’s probably fine”.



  • The big ones for me were a frequent, sudden, urgent need to pee and getting up multiple times a night to pee. I also drank a copious amount of water. Like, the whole “eight glasses a day” thing which used to be popular was confusing to me, as I’d drink that much in the first couple hours of the day. I finally went in to the doctor and got a blood test and my A1Cs were well over the “welcome to Diabetes Land” number. With diet, exercise and drugs I’m well controlled now and caught it early enough that I still have good feeling in my feet. Given my family history, and all the shit I ate in my younger days, it’s not really a surprise. I just have to be more careful now, but I have discovered an enjoyment of climbing because of it.

    Really, if you have any family history of diabetes, start visiting your doctor on an annual basis and getting a blood test. It’s simple, and catching it earlier is good for preventing problems with neuropathy in your feet.