Timeline
Sending Windows Logs to Remote Syslog
Nothing fancy here: just a quick note on directing Windows event logs and select application logs to a remote syslog server.
Plugging iPhone’s Privacy Holes
Many recent publications [efn_note]Gallagher, Sean, and Utc. “Dozens of IOS Apps Surreptitiously Share User Location Data with Tracking Firms.” Ars Technica, 10 Sept. 2018, arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/09/dozens-of-ios-apps-surreptitiously-share-user-location-data-with-tracking-firms/. [/efn_note], [efn_note]Stern, Joanna. “iPhone Privacy Is Broken...and Apps Are to Blame.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 31 May 2019, www.wsj.com/articles/iphone-privacy-is-brokenand-apps-are-to-blame-11559316401. [/efn_note], [efn_note]Fowler,…Read More
Managing Mapped Network Drives in Windows
Windows, that epitome of operating system excellence, just loves hammering away at mapped network drives whenever it sniffs even a whiff of network connectivity. Any network, mind you—right or wrong. Predictably, this stubborn attachment leads to performance hiccups and random hangs, all because Windows can't resist reaching out to drives…Read More
LLM Collapse Explained
Overview [audio mp3="https://www.igoroseledko.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/v6y03s0z22gigydnwnbqf41qadf.mp3"][/audio] Model collapse in large language models (LLMs) occurs when models repeatedly train on their synthetic outputs, gradually reducing the diversity, accuracy, and alignment of generated content compared to original human-produced data. Detecting and measuring this issue is crucial to maintaining the quality of these models and avoiding…Read More
Squeezing Video Files
All that crap I've been saving from YouTube, Facebook and whatnot tends to add up. As quality is not a huge concern here (not that it was very high to begin with), optimizing those video files can recover a surprisingly significant amount of disk space. If you have CPU cycles…Read More
Finding Passwords in Logs and Shell History
Sooner or later it will happen: you type something after which you expect a password prompt then, as a reflex, you type the password. However, you fat-fingered the first command, and your password ended up in clear text in your shell history, likely in the system log, and who knows…Read More
Controlling Your Laptop’s Fan Noise
Does your laptop sound like a fully-loaded B-52 bomber going for a takeoff? I have a Dell XPS-15. These generally well-regarded machines are also known for making excessive cooling fan noise even when not under load.
Anatomy of Internet Bullshit
Here's an oldie from two years ago that reared its ugly head on Pocket: Starting Your Day on the Internet Is Damaging Your Brain, by Srinivas Rao. The author presents his personal opinion that reading stuff online in the morning is damaging your brain. Supporting evidence? Sure: a bunch of…Read More
Late Night Rant: College Admissions Scandal
This is America: you're either a duper or a dupee. I'm a duper. You guys are the dupees. — Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia How will the 2019 college admissions scandal work out? Likely to the best interest of most everyone directly involved. Individuals already charged…Read More
Adding and Removing sshd instances on CentOS 7
As a follow-up to my previous post about adding sshd instances on CentOS 5 & 6, here's a script that does the same on RHEL/CentOS 7.
Adding and Removing sshd instances on CentOS 6
This is a process and a couple of script to allow you to setup an additional sshd service on an alternate port.
Creating a Chroot Jail for SSH Access
Just a quick collection of notes on - rather than a definitive guide to - setting up an SSH chroot jail on RHEL 6. The same should work on RHEL 7 and unrelated flavors. For the most part.
Late Night Rant: Facebook
According to media reports, since 2012, millions of Facebook and Instagram logins and plaintext passwords have been sitting on some internal Facebook system, accessible by thousands of the company's employees.
Notes on ownCloud configuration
The ownCloud file sharing application has been around for some time now, but somehow evaded my attention. My limited imagination makes me say "think of it us Dropbox hosted on the server in your basement".
GPG Encryption QSG
It always seems that just enough time has passed since the last time I worked with GnuPG for me to forget not just the exact syntax of these commands completely but the workflow in general. Here are some basics about using GnuPG and managing keys. If you need to know…Read More
Encrypting Log Data During Log Rotation
Most log files do not contain personally-identifiable information or other sensitive data. And even if they do, encryption of all personal data is not mandatory under GDPR. Still, on occasion, for testing and troubleshooting purposes you may want to log potentially sensitive information. It would be a very good idea…Read More
DevOps Obfuscation
Some years ago I've been reading "DevOps in Straight English" by Magnus Hedemark [efn_note]“DevOps in Straight English - Part 1 of 2 - Enter the Buzzword.” RHD Blog, 20 Apr. 2018, developers.redhat.com/blog/2014/01/15/devops-in-straight-english-part-1-of-2/. [/efn_note] and encountered the Release Frequency vs. Risk chart that supposedly illustrated the advantages of DevOps. It seemed convincing…Read More
The Unix Oriental
Placed quite appropriately in the "Security" category - my favorite Oriental cocktail recipe. Distinguishing it from the classic preparation, are absence of sweet vermouth and lime juice, as well as addition of just a couple of humble but crucial ingredients.
Gnuplot with Bash
OK, so both of these things have been around forever and will be around long after we're gone. It's worth your time to learn how to use the to together.
Multi-Dimensional Arrays in Bash
Bash does not support multi-dimensional arrays, but there is a way to imitate this functionality, if you absolutely have to.
Asciinema Notes
Asciinema is an awesome tool for recording your console sessions. It's great for documenting processes and, in general, showing people how shit works: one look is worth a thousand words, as they say. Unfortunately, I don't use asciinema often enough to remember the syntax and so here we are.
File Compression Testing
For some reason I haven't used zip much on Linux, sticking to the standard tar/gzip combo. But zip seems to be a viable alternative. While not as space-efficient, it is definitely faster; syntax is simple; and, if you need to share the archive with a Windows user, he doesn't have…Read More
Measure DNS Server Performance
This is not an entirely proper way to benchmark a DNS server, but, in a pinch, it should give you some idea of its responsiveness and stability.
The Facebook Fracas
The Facebook privacy saga is getting ridiculous. You’re using a free service that you signed up for - nobody was holding a gun to your giant head. And it’s not Gulag either: just delete your profile, uninstall the damned app, and forget Facebook ever existed.
Killing Process Network Access
Imagine this scenario: a particular process on your server is connecting to a host outside your internal network and you don't like that. On the other hand, you can't just kill that process because you need it.
