Bashed Up Bits

Problem: How do I block scam calls and robo calls? Premise:  If the call is important, the caller will leave a voicemail. Solution: We put every number we know into our caller ID systems. If a number we do not recognize, or a number that blocks caller ID calls, we always let the call go to voicemail. Callers that really want or need to talk with us will leave a voicemail. If we are not interested, we delete the message. This process initially upset some of our parents, but we have not had to deal with a robo or scam call in some time, since the calling computers almost never leave a voicemail. Our parents are now used it and leave messages. Sometimes, we pick up as soon as they start talking. Our friends mostly communicate via Facebook, internet chat tools, and email these days, so they are used to asynchronous communication and don't mind leaving a message. The political parties and charities we support do leave messages. We call them back to donate or express our s...

Non-interactive, non-login, shells inherit the PATH from the ssh process, so we must set the PATH with ssh. Some shells, like Korn Shell (ksh, rksh, pksh), only parse user environment files in login shells, so there's no way to change the inherited environment in non-interactive, non-login shells. To set the path globally, build a custom ssh with the needed default path. To set the path for a particular user, first configure ssh to use custom environments by enabling "PermitUserEnvironment" in /etc/ssh/sshd_config: PermitUserEnvironment yes Restart sshd Then set the path in that user's authorized_keys file or using ~/.ssh/environment. Note that you need to set all of the important shell variables. The existence of ~/.ssh/environment seems to preclude the setting of default environmental variable values. So, for example, given a location for binaries for rksh (restricted korn shell), /usr/restricted/bin, place the following in ~/.ssh/environment: HOME=/home/u...

  Recently, several people have sent me links to check the strength of my password like this:  https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm . There is a saying today that if you are not paying for a product, you are the product. Since I haven't seen any independent organization that has audited the code of these sites to prove that they are not also collecting passwords, we must trust that they do not keep copies the entered passwords or their hashes. Either these sites all have a large amount of altruism, or they are creating the most precise rainbow tables [1] available on the market.  There's nothing like doing statistical analysis on a general rainbow table with real passwords to hone its accuracy. Placing blind trust in a 3rd party with one's passwords is never a good idea. I don't think any bank representative would recommend typing one's account password into an un-audited website to check its strength.   If you run one of these sites and have had such an audit, please...