FedX

Listened to a rather interesting episode of Darknet Diaries the other day about a European cyber crime group. To this day, the FBI has been unable to decrypt the devices. The feds didn’t give too many details about the specifics, but what they did share was quite interesting:

• Five layers of encryption, each with unique passwords.
• LUKS root partition presumably tied to TPM2.
• Veracrypt or truecrypt volumes in userland.
• A custom-made encryption toolkit.

From what I gathered, I think the optimal balance of usability and security (especially for a headless machine) would be the following:

• LUKS root volume tied to TPM to protect against cloning of disk. Also, nothing too valuable ever lives on root.
• More important data stored behind a FUSE encryption layer like gocryptfs, these can be easily opened remotely. You can also tie the password to data hidden inside the LUKS volume for effective two-password protection if the volume is not already behind a LUKS layer.
• If your really concerned, add in additional layers as needed. You can tie LUKS to TPM and FIDO, not sure if you can set up a two password mode, but that would be quite nice. You can also (probably) tie FUSE based systems to biometrics like Howdey or fingerprint sensors if you have them. This could also be setup in a kind of two-password mode for a single volume. Realistically, two layers of encryption is overkill, but it’s more about ensuring multiple layers of redundancy rather than making it harder to crack.
• I can’t recommend systemd because of its numerous security vulnerabilities, but homed does have a neat feature where it will unmount encrypted home volumes when your computer goes to sleep. Not sure how effective or useful it is, but it is a nice feature. Been wanting to see if I can setup something similar on Chimera/Artix with dinit user services.
• Defiantly set up duress key-codes/panic buttons. Likewise, been wanting to write a clone of swaylock with duress code support, but as far as I know, nothing of the sort exists right now.

It is also very much worth noting, even though the FBI never got into the hackers’ computers, they had more than enough evidence to convict the lot. Being the defender of a computer system is always a losing battle.

Wonder if the boot device died. Behavior is in line with some NVMe failure modes I have encountered.

Me, earlier today, referring to Niri as a desktop instead of a “window manager,” which is also wrong as it’s a Wayland compositor.

Yeah, I’m in that boat. I did have some sugar, but it was extremely rare, and IIRC got phased out more as I got older. I don’t think it was ever a hard rule of “no,” but more of a “have very little except maybe on special occasions.” I never developed much of a taste for sweet things to the point I quite often find muffins for scones unreasonably sweet. When I was doing mountain bike races, I had energy chews and bars. In hinds sight, that was probably a poor nutrition choice for my metabolism, and I now I simply have roasted and salted pistachios, with a sugar free electrolyte mix before and/or after the ride.

I also very much seem to be the exception here. Probably my experience more comes down to my own eccentricities. I have the eating habits and body type of a distance athlete; healthy but low weight, diet consisting largely of slow-burning foods like nuts, fruits and starchy vegetables. I am still figuring out what diet and training routine works best for me, but sugar, even as a mid-ride fuel is a hard no-go for me. I like putting in the work to be able to do extreme sports like mountain biking and snowboarding at a reasonably intense level all day long. I listen to my body and I know without a shadow of a doubt touching high sugar and certainly processed foods is not worth it by any means.

37 mentioned!

*me resisting the urge to create a 10 page long paper on helicopter engineering*

I have some wild helicopter watching stories. Best would probably be when there was a small wildfire a few miles away from my college. I was watching the flight tracker and saw them pull in a Huey and Blackhawk, and tracked down exactly where they were collecting water. Ditched class and went to watch them. They let us get like 100ft away from these ridiculous massive machines as they were taking on water. At one point, the Blackhawk pilot started playing chicken with us, trying to see if he could knock us off the hillside, LOL. Even still I will go out and watch most helicopters.

I will legitimately go esc, :w, i on Google Docs to try and save the document…

Direction navigation in vim is hjkl.

Yeah, check the oil levels every time I get gas.

A WRX will always love you… if you give it the love they deserve. (If you don’t your gearbox will explode and your head gaskets will disintegrate).

Of course. It’s a Subaru Impreza WRX. Heck, looks to be a bugeye if my eyes don’t deceive me. I probably did that when I got my first WRX…

Nah, I saw salsa at first too.

I am in this picture… I don’t know if I like it or not, but I am in it.