blog/archive/2017/03/03.rss

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   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from March 2017</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from March 2017</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>How does it feel to be wiretapped, when you should be doing the wiretapping...</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_does_it_feel_to_be_wiretapped__when_you_should_be_doing_the_wiretapping___.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_does_it_feel_to_be_wiretapped__when_you_should_be_doing_the_wiretapping___.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Wed, 8 Mar 2017 11:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;So the new president in the United States of America claim to be
  15 surprised to discover that he was wiretapped during the election
  16 before he was elected president.  He even claim this must be illegal.
  17 Well, doh, if it is one thing the confirmations from Snowden
  18 documented, it is that the entire population in USA is wiretapped, one
  19 way or another.  Of course the president candidates were wiretapped,
  20 alongside the senators, judges and the rest of the people in USA.&lt;/p&gt;
  21
  22 &lt;p&gt;Next, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ask the Department of
  23 Justice to go public rejecting the claims that Donald Trump was
  24 wiretapped illegally.  I fail to see the relevance, given that I am
  25 sure the surveillance industry in USA according to themselves believe
  26 they have all the legal backing they need to conduct mass surveillance
  27 on the entire world.&lt;/p&gt;
  28
  29 &lt;p&gt;There is even the director of the FBI stating that he never saw an
  30 order requesting wiretapping of Donald Trump.  That is not very
  31 surprising, given how the FISA court work, with all its activity being
  32 secret.  Perhaps he only heard about it?&lt;/p&gt;
  33
  34 &lt;p&gt;What I find most sad in this story is how Norwegian journalists
  35 present it.  In a news reports the other day in the radio from the
  36 Norwegian National broadcasting Company (NRK), I heard the journalist
  37 claim that &#39;the FBI denies any wiretapping&#39;, while the reality is that
  38 &#39;the FBI denies any illegal wiretapping&#39;.  There is a fundamental and
  39 important difference, and it make me sad that the journalists are
  40 unable to grasp it.&lt;/p&gt;
  41 </description>
  42         </item>
  43
  44         <item>
  45                 <title>Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator&#39;s Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</title>
  46                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html</link>
  47                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html</guid>
  48                 <pubDate>Fri, 3 Mar 2017 14:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  49                 <description>&lt;p&gt;For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
  50 Bokmål edition of &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/&quot;&gt;The Debian
  51 Administrator&#39;s Handbook&lt;/a&gt;.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
  52 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
  53 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
  54 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
  55 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
  56 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
  57 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.&lt;/p&gt;
  58
  59 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf&quot;&gt;A
  60
  61 fresh PDF edition&lt;/a&gt; in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
  62 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
  63 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
  64 &lt;a href=&quot;https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/&quot;&gt;visit
  65 Weblate and correct the error&lt;/a&gt;.  The
  66 &lt;a href=&quot;http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html&quot;&gt;state
  67 of the translation including figures&lt;/a&gt; is a useful source for those
  68 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.&lt;/p&gt;
  69 </description>
  70         </item>
  71
  72         <item>
  73                 <title>Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</title>
  74                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html</link>
  75                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html</guid>
  76                 <pubDate>Wed, 1 Mar 2017 20:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  77                 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
  78 &lt;a href=&quot;http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/&quot;&gt;the ChaosKey&lt;/a&gt;, a small
  79 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
  80 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
  81 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
  82 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
  83 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
  84 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
  85 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
  86 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
  87 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:&lt;/p&gt;
  88
  89 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
  90 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
  91   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
  92   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
  93      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
  94      sleep 1; \
  95   done
  96 300
  97 0+1 oppføringer inn
  98 0+1 oppføringer ut
  99 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
 100 4
 101 8
 102 12
 103 17
 104 21
 105 %
 106 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 107
 108 &lt;p&gt;The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
 109 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
 110 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
 111 the ChaosKey inserted:&lt;/p&gt;
 112
 113 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 114 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 115   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
 116   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
 117      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 118      sleep 1; \
 119   done
 120 1079
 121 0+1 oppføringer inn
 122 0+1 oppføringer ut
 123 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
 124 433
 125 1028
 126 1031
 127 1035
 128 1038
 129 %
 130 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 131
 132 &lt;p&gt;Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
 133 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)&lt;/p&gt;
 134
 135 &lt;p&gt;Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
 136 find &lt;a href=&quot;https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/&quot;&gt;the talk
 137 recording illuminating&lt;/a&gt;.  It explains exactly what the source of
 138 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
 139 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
 140 post.&lt;/p&gt;
 141 </description>
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