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Paranoid Professor Technology, security and the news for the rest of us. Home About Contact Important sites Privacy Policy Site Disclaimer Useful software ← Older posts Fun with electronics Posted on September 29, 2021 by DocDock If you would like to learn more about Linux, programming, networking or just playing around with leds you can purchase a number of books or online courses – the internet is full of them. I created a book to get my children interested in using computers for more than just games. Getting started with Arduino and Raspberry pi You can learn more about it here . Consider purchasing it to support the channel. Posted in Review | Comments Off on Fun with electronics Security for the security conscious Posted on July 20, 2023 by DocDock A couple of years ago I happened to see an article about a secure cell phone. This seemed to be quite impossible considering phones can be simply be listened in with the correct equipment (frequency counter and scanner). This is not an impossible set of hardware equipment but if you are a government you have a mobile setup that simulates a tower service which allows you to place yourself directly into the target’s call. It may be impossible to protect yourself 100% but unless your adversary is a nation state it is possible to protect yourself. Cell phone communication, just like computer communication can be protected with some encryption. Encrypting your communciations is possible but you will need to do some extra work, and for most people this is simply not worth the effort. A new company sprang up with the idea of providing this solution. https://www.silentcircle.com/ The phones that they were selling at that time we quite pricey if i correctly remember. It was about the price of a Samsung or Apple top end phone times two. I was curious if this phone was still for sale even though this level of security is much higher than I need. Automatic message redactionMessages you send are automatically deleted on all devices after the burn timer has expired. You can adjust the burn time between one minute and 90 days. Delete messages from both sidesYou can select a message for immediate destruction at any time. Burning the message causes it to be deleted from all devices of all parties in the conversation. One touch voice memosSilent Phone makes it quick and easy to record and send a voice memo. These are great for sending quick thoughts when you’re out and about. Voice memos provide a secure alternative to voicemail. Delivery and read receiptsSituational awareness helps your team move faster. Silent Phone lets you know when your messages have been delivered and when they have been read. Well, business must be good, or at least good enough as the company is still in business. Unfortunately the phones costs are not listed but rather you need to contact sales. I don’t know if some of this level of security should be built into every phone but based on the security features of this one manufacturer it seems like these phones in the hands of the unscrupulousness would be a nightmare for law enforcement. However, I would imagine that this is not really a problem for law enforcement when compared to hundreds of millions of smart phone users having phones that are generally harder for the normal police to hack. Well, that or stop installing free software of unknown origin on our smart phones and do use them for anything suspicious or illegal. That and don’t carry it around with you so your whereabouts are always known. Posted in programming | Comments Off on Security for the security conscious Capitalism and technology Posted on April 7, 2023 by DocDock Technology can be really empowering or perhaps a bit oppressive, it really depends on which side of the change you land. I can hardly imagine asking the telephone operator to connect me to a specific person in a different city. Kinda makes sense when you can enter your cryptic 20 digits to connect you to someone in a far off land. I don’t quite feel the same when I visit the grocery store when it is suggested that the most inefficient person, unpack my selection, attempt to register each item with a cashiers terminal and repack everything. The problem isn’t the scanning but rather the delays that arise when items inevitably fail to scan. Big technology meeting I was surprised to see a meeting today that I actually wanted to attend. It shouldn’t be too surprising that, just like much of the internet, my employer has discovered that ChatGPT exists. ChatGTP is no Eliza but it is one of the few truly amazing developments in computer science in the last few years. Our speaker was pointing out how using it did indeed make him much more proficient in some of his daily developments. It is not sure how much of this was exaggeration but one of the people in the meeting suggested that perhaps rather than off shoring work to the cheapest possible country that perhaps we will just use our local labor and ChatGPT to make up the difference. This is indeed a very good idea but one of the others in the meeting suggested that if these cheap offshore labor solutions could improve their work by an equivalent amount they might still be taking our jobs. Not sure who is winning the race, capitalism or technology. Posted in programming | Comments Off on Capitalism and technology Windows and networking Posted on March 16, 2023 by DocDock I don’t know how many decades it has been since someone plugged a ethernet cable into their computer and it really didn’t work right. [Router] | [Router] [Patch Panel] | | [Switch] [Switch] ┌|- ┌|- | | | | | | | | | [PC] Printers Other PC’s [PC] Printers Other PC’s works does not work Ok, ok, I did have a problem a long time ago when I was using a hot off the presses” version of Ubuntu and an actual new laptop. It just didn’t work, I had to download driver code, compile and install. It really wasn’t that difficult, well, except that I didn’t have internet access. I was sorta thinking about this old story while sitting at my child’s windows 10 computer. The task to be performed was pretty uninspiring. Move the desk and the computer to the other end of the room, plug it into a switch and get on with my day. Well, five minutes turned into ten and ten into twenty. The ethernet cable was fine, the switch was fine, basically everything was fine. I went as far as bringing my laptop over to test this out. Yet windows could not get an internet connection. The most reasonable sounding solution was to run the following command. netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt ipconfig /flushdns But reasonable doesn’t always mean successful. I was amazed that such a small hardware change could create such a fuss. My Raspberry Pi was able to make the move without a single problem. Eventually, the problem was solved but to be honest it was pretty non-intuitive. Do the following. On the Network reset page, click on Reset now” button. I guess, in its own way this does make sense but who makes an operating system which saves network topography so in case it is moved it can no longer find the network? Actual Answer https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ethernet-not-recognized/a485d40f-94c0-47f2-a01f-2f9bad1c66b8 Kinda helpful info https://superuser.com/questions/1604975/windows-10-will-not-connect-to-lan-internet-via-a-switch Posted in programming | Comments Off on Windows and networking Does a functioning system make you dumb Posted on February 20, 2023 by DocDock I have been using Linux for quite a few years, nothing all that cutting edge, but dealing with all of the normal types of issues that come with it while doing daily tasks. Normally it work just fine but occasionally problems occur after an update or when facing issues when connecting some external device. Despite facing the occasional problem, I would say Linux is great and stable. It was only recently that I realized how much I take for granted. As luck had it, I managed to get my hands on a TP-LINK smart...