Archive for the ‘Security’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/04/10
Cool: [Wayback/Archive] scr.im « Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
Bumped into this via [Wayback/Archive] Mary Branscombe (@marypcbuk) / Twitter.
At the time of writing, it had an invalid TLS certificate, so you would get red warnings when accessing it over HTTPS.
Hopefully that has been fixed by now.
It’s not exactly security through obscurity, but it allows people to access your email after solving a captcha so it is not 100% secure but a lot more secure than otherwise.
I found it 5 years after mailhide got discontinued by Google. I used it on my [Wayback/Archive] Contact form through mailhide.recaptcha.net which Google slowly killed without me noticing likely because Google didn’t want to upgrade it from using reCAPTCHA v1 into v2 or v3.:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in LifeHacker, Power User, Security | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/25
Often I need to generate passwords or uuids (on some systems called guids). I usually try to do that in a relatively platform agnostic way as I use MacOS, Windows and Linux in various mixes for many reasons (for instance that I have had developed quite hefty RSI in the early 1990s of the and the best keyboard/pointing-device combination for is the MacBook built in keyboard/touchpad combination so basically MacBooks are my window to all other operating systems).
Generating randomly with a good random number generator them makes sense as for most usage, it is important that both passwords and uuids are hard to guess which means having an entropy that is as high as possible.
A cool thing about OpenSSL is that:
- most of not all systems have it installed (it was no coincidence I published Installing OpenSSL on Windows a few days ago)
- it has a very good pseudo-random number generator and as of [Wayback/Archive] OpenSSL version 1.1.1 first released in 2018 has solved the problem around [Wayback/Archive] Random fork-safety – OpenSSLWiki, see [Wayback/Archive] Our Review of the OpenSSL 1.1.1 Random Number Generation Update – OSTIF.org.
- it supports various useful output formats
hex (hexadecimal) and base64 (next to the default of octet – or by today’s naming convention byte – output)
The easiest to generate are passwords. Yes I know that password managers can do this too, but there are some systems I cannot use them on or sync between them (don’t you love the corporate world) so my aim is to use a random password generator in a platform agnostic way which usage is easy to remember. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Apple, base64, bash, bash, Batch-Files, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Encoding, Event, HEX encoding, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, OpenSSL, Power User, Python, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/21
Interesting video explaining on Intel’s Management Engine which has been the Intel Inside part of about every Intel Chipset since 2008: [Wayback/Archive] The Intel Nobody Can Remove (Not Even You) – YouTube
This is very relevant as it runs on a lightweight operating system called Minix, and there is a move from attacks on end-user operating systems personal computers and mobile phones towards edge devices running lightweight operating systems (not limited to Citrix, Ivanti, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Cisco, SonicWall and Juniper – for a potential OS list see Category:Lightweight Unix-like systems – Wikipedia).
More sources have started warning for this, see for instance [Wayback/Archive] Network security devices endanger orgs with ’90s era flaws | CSO Online and [Wayback/Archive] Security Appliance Vulnerability Bingo 2025 – Google Regneark.
Hopefully [Wayback/Archive] Dr. Christopher Kunz | heise online will have created a cku.gt/appbingo26 this year.
--jeroen
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in CPU, Cyber, Hardware, Infosec (Information Security), Intel CPUs, Power User, Security | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/20
Nice memories of the TBAV/ThunderByte Anti-Virus story.
Together with Jeroen Smulders, I was sort of on the sideline in the early days as we both were at the university had access to FidoNet (I as host, other Jeroen as point), Internet, mailing lists and newsgroups.
I used it because it was the fastest Virus Scanner around and a need when scanning all incoming FidoNet data for viruses (I had seen at university what damage a spread could do).
Some VIRUS-L, comp.virus and book links from that past:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 8086, 8088, Antivirus, BBS, Compuserve, FidoNet, History, Internet, Power User, SearchEngines, Security | Tagged: 96 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/01
Cool, since I switched to Let’s Encrypt a long while ago, I missed that various tools now require TLS expiration be no longer than 398 days away (and preferably even 397 days).
So I also missed the reason for that specific number of days. [Wayback/Archive] ssl – Why was 398 days chosen for TLS expiration? – Stack Overflow (thanks [Wayback/Archive] stevendesu and [Wayback/Archive] user10063)
answers it:
366+31+1 = 398 days
It equals one leap year + one month + “a little room to handle the messiness of dates.”
then posts a lot of quotes from references to the history on how that reason came to be. I have archived and listed the links below.
Most of the discussion was during a very hectic time in life: after a single sided bad accident my mentally retarded brother was in and assisting him during his recovery period, I developed cancer and had extensive treatments against it. All the more reason for missing all this:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Communications Development, Development, Encryption, https, HTTPS/TLS security, Internet protocol suite, Let's Encrypt (letsencrypt/certbot), Power User, Security, TCP, TLS | Tagged: 138, 195 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/18
I have had JavaScript disabled by default for years now, which means that:
- if your site requires JavaScript, I will opt for an alternative
- I will block anything ad related, even if it means I cannot use your site
The reasons are simple:
- JavaScript has become a big security threat over time. Be it tracking (hello fingerprinting!), data leakage, direct attacks, supply chain attacks, sloppy code or other risks, JavaScript is not vulnerable just by itself, but especially the eco systems (hello npm – 2 attacks in September 2025 alone – and advertising networks) using it. Just a few references:
- [Wayback/Archive] The perils of JavaScript: How we’ve broken the internet’s security
- [Wayback/Archive] Most Common Security Vulnerabilities Using JavaScript – SecureCoding
- [Wayback/Archive] Supply Chain Security Alert: Popular Nx Build System Package Compromised with Data-Stealing Malware – StepSecurity
- [Wayback/Archive] Wormable Malware Causing Supply Chain Compromise of npm Code Packages – Arctic Wolf
- [Wayback/Archive] FingerprintJS | Identify Every Web Visitor & Mobile Device
- JavaScript has become a huge resource hog. Disabling JavaScript by default increased the snappiness and battery life of my laptops and smartphones significantly. In addition, it makes it way easier to read region-blocked content. Double win!
The below thread by [Wayback/Archive] Dr. Christopher Kunz (@christopherkunz@chaos.social) – chaos.social sparked me to finally write why and add some relevant links.
Thread:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Infosec (Information Security), JavaScript/ECMAScript, Power User, Scripting, Security, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/11
Nog niet gecontroleerd, maar wellicht werkt dit ook voor (fragmenten van) radiouitzendingen?
Edit 20260313: redirect toegevoegd voor SEO, en sectie over redirect-checker.
Uit een draad over het liedje “Met puntjes” van Joke Bruijs die een paar maanden terug enkele dagen na haar boezem vriend en ex-man Gerard Cox overleed¹.
Ionica Smeets schreef over het liedje op Mastodon², maar de link naar de audio van de podcast [Wayback/Archive] Andermans Veren – Beluister Andermans Veren zondag 14 januari 2018 | Podcasts | NPO Radio 5 verdween al snel.
Omdat ik al eerder een probleem had met de audio van [Wayback/Archive] Keihard de Beste – NPO Podcast te downloaden, dook ik in de CDN die de NPO gebruikt.
De archivers hadden er wat problemen mee dus het staat in 2 stukken:
- [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers: “@ionica ik ga het je proberen uit te leggen. En dan kan jij het vast in veel simpeler bewoording weer terug uitleggen zodat anderen het ook begrijpen. …” – Mastodon
- …
- [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers: “@ionica hopelijk heb ik je een beetje kunnen helpen met je opmerkingen in…” – Mastodon
- …
- ³
Er waren wat zijstapjes naar onder meer hoe je een goede vraag op het internet moet stellen, dus de draad werd lang (:
Hieronder de volledige tekst, aangevuld met wat gearchiveerde links. Maar eerst twee versies van het liedje “Met puntjes” van Joke Bruijs: opnamen van 1986 en 1988:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Authentication, CDN (Content Delivery Network), Cloud, CSS, Development, Hashing, HMAC, HTML, Infrastructure, Power User, Security, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/01
Posted in Power User, Security | 1 Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 