Encrypt all the things!

I use keepassdroid and my data file is on dropbox

TfL having problems

https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/cyber-security-incident

They emailed about that yesterday and don't appear to have added shit to their update page. I look forward to finding more of my personal info being shared around the dark web soon...

I don't know if anybody here uses Optery - a service for removing your personal data from Google and various data brokers and giving you a report on what they found and had removed - but this is quite a head-desk moment. The conversation at the company must have gone something like this:

A: How can we improve our service?
B: Well, some people are concerned about the amount of personal data they have to give us for the higher priced services. Any way we could reduce how much information we ask for?
A: Not sure and that would take a lot of time and research. Anybody have an easier idea for the short term?
C: I think we can reduce the time and workload of generating the removal reports and make them seem more tailored and less generic.
A: You have my attention.
C: We take all the data we have on the person and the deletion results... and send them to OpenAI to generate the report for us.
B: Wait, what?
A: I like it. Faster results and a more personal feel.
B: But... I already mentioned our customers are paranoid about privacy and have some trust issues with our service!
A: That's OK. We'll give them the ability to opt out.
B: You mean to opt in, right?
A: Let's get moving on this.
B: Opt in, right??

One user's account of the story

I thought everyone knew that these services are essentially a scam? They can't do anything more than you can do, and by the time you've provided them with all the info to go on, you could've done it all yourself.

I'd certainly never use one myself, but this lot really found a way to make even those they have suckered wake up a bit.

My old rt-n66u doesn't appear to work with Mullvad any more, the last firmware update was in 2018 maybe. What's the cheapest router I can run a VPN on now that isn't total shit?

RT-AX58U is £115 and still with MerlinWRT versions for it.

Or maybe I could keep this one and tunnel to it from my newer RT-AX86U Pro?

Ok, looks like the n66u is now too old for the OpenVPN in use at Mullvad.

"We require version 2.4 or newer. Check in the full OpenVPN log if you can see it there."

Anyone want a router?

I have one of these connected to my router, it runs mulvad constantly and and gives a VPN WiFi connection if needed.

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt300n-v2/

I bought an Opal. It was amazingly easy to setup.

Now I'm wondering about point to point VPN, ie. set this GLinet up as a server and tunnel to it from my other router (or vice versa). Anyone done that? I presume so.

GLINET appears to have Dynamic DNS. I wonder if I could use that as a way around Smarty not having public IPs for their connections? Presume it gives that little GLInet box a hostname which you could run a VPN server from. Anyone done something like this - how reliable is it?

Tailscale?

I run it currently to connect between two machines (and sometimes phone) but I didn't really know what else it could do. I had a quick read and it seems you can create a site to site VPN type deal but it requires running computers at both ends (acting as "subnet routers") which seems like a waste of effort if I could just get two cheapo routers joined up.

https://tailscale.com/kb/1120/subnet-site-to-site
https://tailscale.com/kb/1019/subnets

vs.

https://forum.gl-inet.com/t/building-a-site-2-site-network-manually-using-two-gl-inet-routers/18294

It looks like Internet Archive got hit by a bad DDOS earlier this week.

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/17547858/

There was something written on the site a day or so ago mentioning that they were being hammered with DL attempts on a specific archive - I don't recall which one though.

look i just want those pics taken down ok, it was just a phase.

What are peeps using for DDNS?

Looks like the little GLinet box has its own service: glddns.com

I used to use DUCKDNS

I now use a VPS and SSH tunnel to it (DDNS doesn't work with my ISP).

How does that work? I mean, you run your own VPS or you use something hosted? If hosted, then how are you getting back to your "home" network?

I think my main issue is my ISP won't work with DDNS and I'd need to move to something with a static IP or a public one at least rather than carrier grade nat or whatever mine is using.

https://community.smarty.co.uk/t5/chats-hacks/externally-accessible-public-ip-address/m-p/416

I think my main issue is my ISP won't work with DDNS and I'd need to move to something with a static IP or a public one at least rather than carrier grade nat or whatever mine is using.

That's exactly the problem I had with Community Fibre. Killed Plex plus various other stuff.

I pay about a quid a month for a small linux box on https://www.ionos.co.uk/
A port on that remote machine is then directed to my local Windows machine which uses this
https://bitvise.com/tunnelier to direct it to the correct local port

@NotThamesWater sent me some tips to get it set up. It's worked for the past year with minimal input from me.

I still don't understand how you're going from the linux box to your machine if your machine's IP is changing/hidden.

I'm very much not an expert but I do know it works.

I assume it is because the SSH tunnel originates locally and that is how the traffic is funnelled from the static IP on the VPS to the machine on the local network. Like a VPN or Tailscale or something.

Ah, you tunnel from the home machine to the VPS and then back and forth from it maybe? I was thinking about it from a remote point of view where you wouldn't be there to 'do stuff'.

Think so. All the VPS is doing is redirecting traffic.