Tim's Computer Science Blog

It sounds like an oxymoron: using data-scraping LLMs to build Windows privacy tools. But here we are, playing around with what all the "cool kids" are using. Recently, I've been testing various Large Language Models (LLMs) to see what they are capable of, and I'm suitably impressed. These systems qualify as artificial intelligence in a way prior technology simply couldn't. That being said, I don't think it's the same as human intelligence. While very impressive, I consider our current systems to be advanced representations of accumulated knowledge. When trained and harnessed properly, they allow us to statistically extract that knowledge and apply it. They have been fed representations of human actions, giving them the ability to simulate behavior when prompted. That is what makes this really interesting (and scary for the doomsayers.) Updating the Anti-Spy Script I've been working on two projects with AI quite extensively: a system integrity mon...

  Proxmox Link Aggregation Using balance-alb Mode Explanation I have this nice little business switch that unfortunately doesn't support LACP for network link aggregation. One of my cables also turned out to be a little bit faulty, so to prevent any mishaps in the future I decided to configure a link bond between the proxmox box's two NICs (Network Interface Cards). Link bonding, also known as Link aggregation or NIC Teaming is where you have two network interfaces on your host working together. This can provide some redundancy, load balancing, and even increase your throughput depending on your configuration. the balance-alb setting can be used regardless of what the switch supports. It's best only used on small networks. I ran into an interesting problem. None of the VM's could access the network after changing my proxmox box to use the  balance-alb  bond mode. The solution turned out to be simple. For windows VM's Install the VirtIO driver in windows, and then se...

Assumptions, Prerequisites, Prior Set Up This guide is for when the reverse proxy & FoundryVTT server are both on separate machines This guide builds upon the prior one and details how to setup fail2ban to block bad bots, automated login attempts, and repeated connection attempts that are likely malicious, when your server is behind a reverse proxy.  If you haven't taken a look already my prior post detailed how to go about setting up fail2ban rules. https://blog.iterlyze.com/2024/11/fail2ban-foundryvtt.html  This guide assumes you are using a Debian 12 server (or Ubuntu) and have a basic idea of how to use a Linux shell. Some other assumptions that won't affect setting up fail2ban include that you are using Nginx as the reverse proxy, nftables as your system's firewall frontend, and that you are forwarding traffic to a FoundryVTT server. Make sure the reverse proxy and the server it sends traffic to is working before trying to set up fail2ban. If you are setting up Fou...

Leave a comment if you like, hate, or find something confusing. This guide covers the steps required to create your own fail2ban jails, using foundryvtt as an example. *Warning I take some playful liberty at the start of this post. Welcome fellow nerds, geeks, otaku, or whatever you smartypants call yourselves. I'm assuming you might fit one of the following categories probably because you either know what Fail2ban is you nerd, or you know what FoundryVTT is you DnD tabletop (but on computer) roleplaying geek . Now that i've gotten the tongue in cheek (insults/compliments) aside I have a confession to make. I know what both of those things are so does that make me like a Generked? Okay I just mixed the two words together, that might be good for a riddle or puzzle in some future game. Anyways enough blabbing, you are probably here for the technical content anyways. Everything that i'm writing is assuming you use an Ubuntu/Debian based Linux distribution. Most Linux distros ...

Sometimes there are good old things that we just can't get away from. Something about the continued functionality inspite of the "newer better" hype cycles in technology. I digress though, so onto the meat of this post. There is an issue that has plagued an old laptop of mine for a while. It happened when I would change the HardDrive in the machine. (Think cycling through Windows 7, 8, 10, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, etc) Each time the HD was switched up the bootloader would cease to work. Worse yet a fresh install wouldn't work. DunDunDun! Hardware Issues! Turns out the nvram was having issues. Luckily Linux has this handy command line tool efibootmgr  to save the day. Grab a Live Cd/USB and Extra entries can be deleted by command like    sudo efibootmgr -b entry_in_nvram -B    . You might also want to remove excessive dump files using a command such as    sudo rm /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/dump-*   If needed check your OS for how to regenerate y...

Recently I was invited to conduct a leadership workshop at California State University of Monterey Bay for the Networking and Security Team. They wanted the training to focus in on getting things done, so I put together a few fun training activities that help with communication, self-direction, teamwork, and having more effective meetings. Activities build leaders faster than lectures in my experience. Check out the slides and try a few of the activities for yourself! When talking about leadership a general discussion about what a leader is, is in order. When asked many of the participants shared ideas such as "A leader is someone who gets things done", "Someone who steps up", "An active listener", "Leaders are people that others follow". We didn't get too deep into what a leader was in this training and focused more on a few of the skills. If you are interested in diving a little deeper into some of the details of leadership i've foun...