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Notes on Development, Operations, and Security

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  • Trading Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, and BitcoinCash on Coinbase

    Dec 17, 2017

    Since Bitcoin first started gaining traction in 2011, we’ve seen a boom in the development and interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Many other cryptocurrencies were developed after Bitcoin, and several of them even became popular and are doing well. Cryptocurrencies are traded on sites known as “exchanges,” which transact various cryptocurrencies for fiat currency. Coinbase is one of the most popular and trusted exchanges. Coinbase is a San Francisco company which was founded in 2012, has gone through several successful rounds of funding, and has even been backed by some on Wall Street.

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  • Encrypted File Containers with Tomb

    Nov 4, 2017

    With the demise of TrueCrypt, many were in search of a viable replacement. Fortunately, those in a Linux environment still had dm-crypt and LUKS. While you can create encrypted file containers using dm-crypt, it takes a few more steps than just clicking “mount” in your list of containers. Writing your own wrapper for cryptsetup is fun, but at times you may want to leverage something with a bit more power out of the box. Tomb is a wonderful command line interface to manage your encrypted file containers. Besides creating, mounting, and unmounting containers, it features powerful functionality like:

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  • Syncthing: Private Dropbox Alternative

    Jun 12, 2017

    In light of past events, some Dropbox users are questioning whether it’s worth it to trust them with any of their data. If Condoleezza Rice being on board wasn’t a big enough hit to privacy, a 2012 data breach finally surfaced, promoting many users to reset their passwords. Then, some users reported Dropbox on OS X using a password prompt similar to that in the OS to reconfigure. Needless to say, if you placed any trust in Dropbox before, it may be time to reconsider. This doesn’t only apply to Dropbox though: you can switch from ANY hosted cloud provider to Syncthing!

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  • Santa Cruz CryptoParty Recap 3/25

    Mar 26, 2017

    A CryptoParty is an event to pass on knowledge about protecting yourself in the digital space. This includes anything from defending yourself on the web to securing your messaging.

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  • SSH Two-Factor Auth (2FA)

    Dec 13, 2016

    In today’s ever-expanding threat to our information systems, we need every defensive measure we can get. To employ a defense-in-depth strategy, it is beneficial to require a second authentication factor. This is usually performed by sending a random string via SMS, but this is no longer good enough. Attackers may coerce your mobile provider into handing over control of your number, granting them access to your codes. The preferred method is with a one time pad generated from the current time and random seed value. This is known as Time-based One Time Pad (TOTP). If you’d like to lock down your Linux box, 2FA is a great way to do so. Even with public key authentication (don’t even consider password authentication on an-internet exposed machine).

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