TCB13

TCB13 , 5 months ago to linux in How to run macOS on Linux (without too much hassle supposedly)

This video was all cool until he said “using spicy remote desktop protocol”. That’s when I knew it was all the typical bs guide that results in a slow system not usable for anything remotely close to real time. Also the guy is running without any GPU acceleration making things very bad.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to selfhosted in PSA: update your DNS resolvers (PiHole, unbound, Bind9, dsnmasq) to patch DNSSEC vulnerability

What’s the status of SmartDNS (that is used by OpenWRT and DD-WRT) on this? Anyone knows anything?

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Its just impossible to even start a VPN from these systems unless you have administrator privileges, so im not used to your way of doing it.

That’s also the policy for the majority of the machines/users but there are a few that do have admin privileges like IT teams and whatnot and even if they manage to install a VPN solution (the app would most likely get blocked by endpoint security either way) they couldn’t communicate to the outside because the firewalls, as I described, are all set to block VPN traffic. Except for those situations I specified above.

The bottom line is: distrust everything, everyone and anything. Even if you can ensure nobody can install a VPN application on their computers, assume someone might get around that and add proper firewall checks and blocks as well.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

An Italian citizen or resident can go online and buy vpn service from me. There is not law im subjected to that says I can’t sell vpn services to Italians.

This isn’t true. If you don’t comply with the other law regarding the website blocks then the Italian govt will politely ask you to. If your business happens to be on another EU member state they might even try to get your local authorities involved in the asking. Either way, if you don’t comply or they can’t reach you (cause you’re ouside the EU) they’ll proceed to block your website / domains in Italy and no more business for you.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

As said, I’ve never seen a network that even tried to block any kind of VPN, and i have seen numerous networks… I kinda built them even. Good, i don’t think anyone outside of a clownshow authoritarian circlejerk would even try to do that.

All the serious companies (financial sector) I worked for so far did it, because as I linked is really easy with any cheap firewall solution.

clownshow authoritarian circlejerk

Well… a bank could be considerar that indeed, but you know, security concerns and all.

VPNs are very very necessary when you work with sensitive data in BtoB, wanna do remote checkup of a server? You better use a fucking VPN or you aint getting in.

So what? A company can use a firewall to block VPNs when the target IP isn’t on some whitelist, or the source computer isn’t authorized to use VPNs. On those high security setups at banks and whatnot client machines inside the company network won’t need to touch a VPN to do a “remote checkup of a server” at some cloud provider as the network will be configured to internally route the traffic from all computers / users (backed by SSO/AD credential) to access those resources via a special VPN setup on some router / server.

Wanna help someone over TeamViewer? Thats not much different from a VPN…

Fortinet and WatchGuard can both distinguish a VPN from TeamViewer. They can actually do much more than that, even TeamViewer from RDP or VNC is just a couple of clicks on their UIs.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Great piece of shit of a tax indeed.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

I mean if even one of those just shuts down service in or for Portugal the entire Internet is fucked instantly.

Yes, but what if the govt just politely tells them “look, we’ve a law about piracy and we think you should block websites at the DNS level like our ISPs are doing”. Do you think Google / Cloudflare will fight it? They already have mechanisms for that in place for parental controls etc. so… the effort of adding a block list for a country shouldn’t be a big deal.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

That’s some authoritarian shitshow right there. But i think its not a violation of EU laws or agreements.

😂 😂 😂 well the irony is that this is the kind of “authoritarian shitshow” we got by electing the left. That and a tax on digital storage (flash drives, disks etc) because they might be used to hold piracy. Even phones are taxed.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Just because something is “technically” possible doesn’t mean its scalability and costs are a actually considerable option.

Any mid-range / price firewall solution is capable of effectively blocking most VPN solutions. Both OVPN and Wireguard VPN traffic is trivial to identify as such and block. Here’s an example and another.

Btw, I’ve never seen something like that, my VPN worked even in China, and that must mean something…

China’s great firewall works a little bit differently. They aren’t actively blocking certain kinds of traffic by default because that would mean a large DPI effort they don’t want to undertake. Also if you google a bit about it you’ll find that people’s experiences are mostly “my VPN worked fine for a day/week/month and then it was blocked”. It seems they’ve some IPs and domains blocked and the rest is some kind of machine learning that applies rules as it sees fit, this guy here has a good analysis of it.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

but the processes are so fucking long that getting something blocked takes time, our ISPs fight almost every time (…) The only actual option to get something out of the internet is to find the server and shut it down.

Not the case at all around here (Portugal), the blocks are quick and ISPs don’t even complain, they simply comply. What the law says is that there’s a govt entity called IGAC that is allowed to ask ISPs to block a website (domain name) as long as the website is flagged as containing / hosting piracy or other form of copyright infringement. The only requirement is that IGAC has to notify the website owner asking to remove the content prior blocking. After 48 if the website is still hosting said content then IGAC will ask the ISPs to block it.

Since this is all DNS based one can, obviously, set their DNS servers as Google or Cloudflare and bypass the block. Now the problem is that this is all fun and games until someone in the govt decides to go against Cloudflare and other DNS providers, the law would allow them to easily do it the way its written.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Kind of, the law doesn’t actually say that it only applies to ISPs… technically speaking the Portuguese law could be applicable and enforced with a VPN provider is a court decided to do so. The legislation is kind of written in a vague way that may apply to more than just ISPs. So far they only pressured ISPs to block websites.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

I agree with you, but still the portuguese law is equally a violation of the EU human rights agreement.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Putting performance aside, you can but still raises some legal and billing questions.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Or not. “All VPN and open DNS services must also comply with blocking orders”. A VPN provider can’t legally sell their services in Italy unless they comply. The best part is: since the govt is blocking websites they can also block providers who doesn’t play according to their rules :)

TCB13 , 5 months ago to piracy in Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there

Its literally a violation of the EU human rights agreement…

Is it? In Portugal there have been a similar law for years and nobody cares apparently. It isn’t as wide as the Italian one, it just says ISPs are required to block access to websites a govt. entity lists.

Also no company will comply with that shitshows ridiculous orders.

Are you sure? Think about it… “All VPN and open DNS services must also comply with blocking orders”. A VPN provider can’t legally sell their services in Italy unless they comply. The best part is: since the govt is blocking websites they can also block providers who doesn’t play according to their rules :)