Thom Zane

Free, Libre, Open SysAdmin. Hacker. Speaker. Tinkerer. Dad.

#Privacy #SoftwareFreedom #FreeSoftware #OpenSource #DigitalRights

GitHub: https://github.com/TechnologyClassroom
Libera IRC: thomzane
GPG: https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x43372794C8ADD5CA8FCFFA6CD03759DAB600E3C0
LibrePay: https://liberapay.com/technologyclassroom/

Public Key

npub1e44mw39u02a0ndjt4r2udxktvtzjed6xtnha6ky5ead47xnqe68qz50625

NIP-05 Address

thomzane_at_daedal.io@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsv66ahgj784wheke9634wxnt9k93fvkar9em7atz2v7k6lrfsvarspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds4phpmn

Publishing to

public.relaying.io

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1e44mw39u02a0ndjt4r2udxktvtzjed6xtnha6ky5ead47xnqe68qz50625

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Last Notes

2026-08-21 00:09:47 UTC

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That was a good chat! I was not able to watch live due to a conflicting FSF SysOps meeting, but I turned the stream on to boost the stats at least. I appreciated the discussion of methods and how the tone was approachable even when covering advanced topics. Good stuff!

2026-08-17 22:05:51 UTC

Free Blockbuster stands are promoting physical media. https://www.popsci.com/technology/free-blockbuster-stands/

2026-08-15 16:57:07 UTC

Was anyone able to download the stream of my talk yesterday?

2026-08-14 16:09:00 UTC

I will be presenting my new HOPE 2026 talk "How to Fight DDoS Attacks From the Command Line" tonight at 7pm New York Time from the Crystal Ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel.
Talk schedule: https://schedule.hope.net/hope26/schedule/
Stream: https://www.hope.net/crystal/
Probably works with yt-dlp.

2026-08-14 16:03:49 UTC

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Looks like the HOPE Crystal Ballroom stream is live and linked from: https://www.hope.net/crystal/

2026-08-14 02:08:04 UTC

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I think the room starts streaming around 11am tomorrow so I should be able to find it before my talk. I will post the link to download the slides after the talk.

2026-08-14 01:23:14 UTC

Less than 24 hours until my upcoming talk "How to Fight DDoS Attacks From the Command Line" at HOPE 2026! Check it out tomorrow night at 7pm. If you cannot make it in person to NYC tomorrow, we will be streaming. I am exciting and looking forward to it.
https://schedule.hope.net/hope26/schedule/

2026-07-24 02:08:45 UTC

I had to rebuild my CUPS server and the new address had dashes instead of underscores, but otherwise was identical. I had fun adding my CUPS printer to Windows 11 this evening. I was unable to rename the network address like I was able to do on my machine. My old notes were useless. I was able to automatically find and add the printer, but that did not work. Tweaking settings just resulted in more errors. I removed the new printer entry, added it again just like I did before, and it worked.

2026-07-21 14:27:46 UTC

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There are lots of plotter projects out there such as https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4796222 To adapt it to a crayon, you would likely need some sort of additional weight or slow extruder as the crayon would wear down faster than a pen or marker. For small drawings, the additional edge-case would probably not matter.

2026-07-21 00:52:54 UTC

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You can see my upcoming HOPE 2026 talk "How to Fight DDoS Attacks From the Command Line" in the Crystal Ballroom of The New Yorker Hotel on Friday August 14, 2026 from 7:00PM to 7:50PM.
You can plan your whole outing with the schedule for HOPE 2026. https://schedule.hope.net/hope26/schedule/

2026-07-19 23:37:39 UTC

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I keep a pair of HEAROS High Fidelity Ear Plugs with me if I potentially will end up at a live music event. They are earplugs with a tiny air hole such that the sound should not be distorted much and mostly just turned down. The only issue/perk is that it is extra difficult to hear people that are right beside you.

2026-07-04 03:49:14 UTC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0

2026-07-02 23:58:13 UTC

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Sounds like it is time to laser etch a run of these blades: https://www.ebay.com/itm/223165948311

2026-06-21 21:24:56 UTC

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Here is a glimpse of my HOPE talk description.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/daedal-media/media_attachments/files/116/790/198/934/517/819/original/fdd82ed27c9356d1.jpg

2026-06-21 03:12:41 UTC

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My talk is now listed on https://www.hope.net/talks/

2026-06-21 00:34:39 UTC

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My favorite type of email spam is the Illuminati scam where someone is invited to join the elite at a financial price. It is dark hilarious that a similar group actually exists exactly matching that format with reputable senders.

2026-06-19 17:13:12 UTC

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There are many C2 domains in these links. Has anyone compiled a list of these domains into a pi-hole compatible list?

2026-06-09 00:23:36 UTC

I will be speaking at #HOPE 2026! Come to the The New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan August 14-16 and see my new talk about defending websites from aggressive #AI scrapers.
https://www.hope.net/

2026-06-01 20:30:22 UTC

JShelter 0.23 is out! Are you concerned about #BrowserGate and fingerprinting? When you are browsing, you need extra protection. The #JShelter extension should be part of that protection. Read about the changes here: https://jshelter.org/versions/#023

2026-05-19 18:37:35 UTC

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Offline KeePassXC is still looking good.

2026-05-12 12:21:04 UTC

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That would make for a good blog post. Not enough people can comprehend multiple remotes.

2026-05-05 14:49:23 UTC

People are upset at Google again. Of course Google added Gemini to Chrome. That should not surprise anyone. Why are you still using Chrome in 2026? Use Firefox and the good version of uBlock Origin.

2026-04-22 14:52:11 UTC

JShelter 0.22 is out! Are you concerned about #BrowserGate and fingerprinting? When you are browsing, you need extra protection. The #JShelter extension should be part of that protection. Read about the changes here: https://jshelter.org/versions/#022

2026-04-09 04:58:49 UTC

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Darknet Diaries is a great podcast. The two-part episodes 99 and 100 are probably the peak, but it is the only podcast that I have listened to every episode.
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/99/
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/100/

2026-04-08 16:20:28 UTC

The latest episode of #DarknetDiaries about piracy boxes with malware is really good and worth a listen. https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/172/ As a sysadmin, I've been defending my networks from botnets using these "residential proxies" for years.

2026-04-02 00:47:15 UTC

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That was so cool!

2026-04-01 13:16:02 UTC

A member of my family was having difficulty printing out some images for a school project. It seemed like all of the Google Image search results were watermarked and required payment.
I want to highlight this CC0 image search tool that has been a very useful resource for me: https://free-images.com/

2026-03-26 18:04:16 UTC

#GitHub users have until April 24 to opt-out of unnecessary #Copilot training data.
Story: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/updates-to-github-copilot-interaction-data-usage-policy/
Direct link to settings: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features
I would recommend going through and disabling all of the options on the page that you are allowed to disable.

2026-03-14 16:13:57 UTC

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As a nod to Heated Rivalry, the title could be Warm Levain.

2026-02-10 01:38:30 UTC

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Fallout: New Vegas is a magnificent example of a computer RPG. It is rough around the edges and incomplete, but it has so many memorable scenes in it along with an odd collection of distinct factions. It is normal for it to take about 10 tries before it boots kind of like starting an old lawnmower. Max out luck and don't try to take the shortcut.

2026-02-07 15:11:47 UTC

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Arch uses a radically different philosophy for package maintenance. Instead of having an army of software maintainers backporting security patches to a fixed version for years, they let upstream do their thing for the most part unless something big breaks. The benefit is that you get updates packages faster and get to participate in the active development of the software that you use. The drawback is that things break every now and then.

2026-02-07 13:33:42 UTC

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When I get to pick, I usually go with Debian, Trisquel, or Arch.

2026-02-06 01:11:30 UTC

I made some updates to my latest repositories LogReview and FirewallBlockGen this weekend.
https://github.com/TechnologyClassroom/LogReview
https://github.com/TechnologyClassroom/firewallblockgen

2025-09-16 17:39:10 UTC

I will be giving a new talk this weekend titled "How to fight DDoS attacks from the command line" at @npub1djp…zcrd this Saturday September 20th at 2:30pm. Come check it out if you are in the area. https://www.bsidesct.org/
#connecticut #ddos
https://s3.amazonaws.com/daedal-media/media_attachments/files/115/215/150/332/873/631/original/99d1122c00243fa6.jpg

2025-03-26 15:11:05 UTC

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Where did this English version come from? I found the article. https://niboe.info/whatsapp-telegram-signal-privacidad/
For completion, here is the 2021 article I based that slide of mine on:
https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-whatsapp/ I used slightly different language.

2025-03-26 13:08:00 UTC

I know I am in a minority, but I do not trust #Signal service. I talked about Signal in comparison to several other messaging platforms in my HOPE 2022 talk. The content is still relevant and very little has changed. Starts around the 28:45 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH-zQ4jS_ww

2024-11-09 14:03:49 UTC

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Not you too! E2EE without the ability to manage your own keys and verify the mechanisms of encryption means that Apple can introduce more ghost keys behind the scenes allowing themselves and others to be included in who can decrypt the information.
Then there is the whole notifications issue where Apple and Google were leaking that which should be local. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments-spying-apple-google-users-through-push-notifications-us-senator-2023-12-06/
I don't trust Apple.

2024-11-09 01:16:57 UTC

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Sadly many people believe that Apple is secure. That is what they keep saying. Even EFF repeat their ads.