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SpenserJ

15 karma · joined January 29, 2013

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SpenserJ··on Show HN: I built a Google Meet addon to fix Chat
This looks fantastic! Its so nice to finally have dark mode for my meetings, and the other features I've tried are working really well.
SpenserJ··on Why I'm Planning to Kill W3Schools
I use Google's Personal Blocklist extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...) to block W3S from my search results, which usually results in the first result pointing to MDN.
SpenserJ··on Securing a Linux Server
I've been tweaking a post on building a solid LEMP stack, that I hope to publish soon that covers your last three points. While security through obscurity isn't a solution, it does help thwart a large portion of the attacks, although it causes more headache than benefits in some cases (heavily restricted work networks for instance). When it comes to webservers, you don't encounter issues like that, and the less information you provide, the better.
SpenserJ··on Securing a Linux Server
I haven't enabled IPv6 on any of my servers yet, as I can say with 99.9% certainty that my visitors do not know what it is, let alone have it enabled. Additionally, this is intended as a quickstart or beginners guide, and obviously leaves quite a bit out. That being said, it is definitely something you want to consider, and I've added a followup to the post mentioning that.
SpenserJ··on Securing a Linux Server
This isn't intended as a be-all-end-all guide to security, like the NSA aims for. Instead, view it as a quickstart guide for those first five minutes on a new server, or as a starting point for beginners that have no idea where to even look.
SpenserJ··on Securing a Linux Server
I do the same, and have found it works beautifully. You need my master password, SSH Key, and my SSH Key's password before you can log into my server. And if you somehow manage to get all of that, you need my account password in order to modify any non-user files.
SpenserJ··on Securing a Linux Server
Both limit and spindritf's suggestion will mitigate the attack, but they won't notify you about it. In most circumstances, I'd prefer to skip on the thousands of notifications per day, however I sometimes like to know about every detail on a server, and Fail2ban gives me that level of control, without the need to tail a log file.
SpenserJ··on Securing a Linux Server
I prefer to be actively administrating my server, so that I know if something does go awry. If I'm asleep, it may be a few hours before I realize that an update broke something. On top of that, I clone my servers and test upgrades in a development environment as much as possible, before allowing an update to go live. As long as you're on top of the updates, a few days between automatic and manual shouldn't have much effect.
SpenserJ··on We scanned the Internet for port 22
Don't manually file them in that case. Install Fail2ban and automatically ban anyone with x failed attempts, and have it email fail2ban@blocklist.de. Their system will look up the correct abuse department, and forward it along on your behalf, along with thousands of others that report it. A large portion of them probably go ignored, but if you can get a fraction of them taken offline, then why not spend the five minutes to set it up?

The bottom half of http://spenserj.com/blog/2013/07/15/securing-a-linux-server/ shows how few things you need to do to set up Fail2ban and Blocklist.de

SpenserJ··on Storage Space Doubled For All Linode VPS plans
They still have that option, but you're limited to an additional 12GB (at least on the 2GB plan). Costs $1/mo per GB that you add on.
SpenserJ··on Http://www.Google.com/sorry
If you're coming from an HTTPS page (which I think HN forces) to an HTTP page, the referer is not sent. It is only sent for HTTP->HTTP and HTTPS->HTTPS (even cross-domain, despite the info that leaks out)

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec15.html#sec15...

SpenserJ··on How to burn $20 on Twitter with $10 real CPC
I feel like your return on investment is sorely lacking. A good app or post, and you can easily pull off the same results for free.
SpenserJ··on Show HN: Automatic account and SSH access provisioning tool for server admins
I'm not sure I'd even go that far. A set of commands showing how to lock down account permissions would work just as well, while allowing me to remain in control. That is a good point though, as Bastio would be able to create unrestricted administrative users anyway.

Where are your encryption keys stored in relation to our connection data?

SpenserJ··on Show HN: Automatic account and SSH access provisioning tool for server admins
I was thinking the same. Perhaps if the setup procedure included a limited-access account that could only run useradd/userdel, I'd consider trying it, but definitely not while root.
SpenserJ··on If you love automation, why is your development environment manual?
Bring your configs with you - http://dotfiles.github.io/

Vim should be able to do everything that GVim can do, if you add a few lines to your configs. I'm not sure what specifically though.

I bring my entire development setup with me when using a server, and preparing it is as simple as cloning Homeshick (or Homesick if you have Ruby), cloning your dotfiles repository, and installing any applications that you want to use.