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Showing posts from 2017

Alohomora: Simple Security for Muggles and Wizards alike

Two years ago, I wrote a post specifically about passwords. However, these days there are a few more things that one should be doing to protect themselves so I will be going over a few digital security topics in this post. Wait! Don't be scared, I know security can sound hard but it doesn't have to be. I'd like this guide to be easy to follow so even someone without an interest in security can quickly start being secure online. Passwords I've covered this before but I'll summarize the post here. Password Setup Steps: Create two very strong, but easy to remember passwords for you password manager and email. You can do this by: Rolling some dice to create a Diceware Passphrase Easy creation site (use 6 words minimum!) and EFF's explanation on how/why   Use the Schneier Scheme Write down these passwords and put them in a safe place. This may sound odd, but even Bruce Shneier has said: If you can't remember your passwords, write them down a

The Keymaker: Simplifying Your Personal SSH Key Management

Image from here . Screen shot from film The Matrix Reloaded If you are like myself, and ssh into multiple remote machines, or even simply use Github over ssh this is for you. The Problem SSH has a lot of settings you can use, but when you're a relatively new developer you're not going to go mucking around in a config file you don't need to when there's work to be done! There are also security concerns with some settings, and issues if you have a lot of ssh keys. Also typing long username@domain strings can be annoying. The Solution The Keymaker   o——m , a small script (fewer than 250 lines) to help create ssh keys for remote machines. What does it do? First it helps you create a config file. If one exists already it will rename it with the suffix ".BACKUP". By default all ssh connections will show a randomart image ( VisualHostKey yes ) based on the public key provided by the host. This randomart image can be used to visually identify t