There’s something about the ARC4 algorithm that still fascinates me to this day… it’s just fun to play with!
function rc4md(m) {
var r = [], s = [], i = 0, j = 0, k = 0, x, y, z;
for (z = 0; z < 256; z++) {
s[z] = z; r[z] = z;
k = (((k + 1) * z) % 256);
}
var c, l = m.length, n = (l + (256 * 16));
for (z = 0; z < n; z++) {
if ((l > 0) && (z < l)) { c = m.charCodeAt(z); }
else { c = s[k]; }
i = ((i + 1) % 256);
j = (((j << 1) ^ (s[i] + c)) % 256);
x = s[i]; s[i] = s[j]; s[j] = x;
k = (((k << 1) ^ (j + s[c])) % 256);
}
for (y = 0; y < 32; ++y) {
r[y] = (r[y] ^ s[k]);
k = ((k + r[y]) % 256);
}
var o = "", h = "0123456789abcdef";
for (y = 0; y < 32; y++) {
o += (h.charAt(r[y]>>4) + h.charAt(r[y]&0xf));
}
return o;
}
var z = "", m = ["", "0", "a", "abc", "acb", "abcd", "abce", "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"];
for (var k in m) {
z += (rc4md(m[k]) + " " + m[k] + "\n");
}
console.log(z);
=
4edc57104c34679320117fbd98403deb8457a59a1c9b7e91884a4f05c917a7cc
b9b53c6e32f5eeedbfdf0ce22a8e359212bf36f8a6d66c2d645250f3aa682ed6 0
d9188e109e58b64bc48ba481d18920c01ddbb7ea4120b74e7236d95622b82d19 a
55dec6a3e8793925cf9612b3fcd311593bb18210787b0d7b229d6eff8f703dfe abc
b60a8ba9fe569a3d59b70ee9921976039a753aaba0c9209c8b0aa1ded0119043 acb
5774da821f04b8a6b104a08c0b77e6630cbd327348e37f24c8cde41fd84aa013 abcd
13488161d5ef426de0c60162ae167de3a23645ff51b3859e2abfcd7b5ad56b2a abce
1f4461806b98d43b10086e1ebf4aa75e192968587ddaa97e2868c2e09067801d the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
=
[Shipping from a place far far away — AI SHANGHAI, CN]
[UPS – Welp… I’m trying! :/]
[X-RAY Vision]
Well it finally came through! The size and thinness make it very portable at 14-inches, although it does feel a bit heavier in weight, similar to how my old Powerbook G4 felt. The liquid retina display is smoother, crisper, taller, and more vibrant at a 16:10 aspect ratio, in addition to the extra menubar space and smaller bezels. The keyboard key travel feels solid, firm, springy, and has a satisfyingly-mechanical “clickity-clackity” type of sound to it. Speakers are full and warm. Touchpad is responsive and accurate. The old-school ports are back including MagSafe, HDMI, and SD-Card, in addition to the amazing convenience of TouchID. This machine feels like the modern-retro car equivalent of a laptop computer, the way a proper computer should be, for pros!
Cons: One thing missing is the 802.11ac-3×3 radios (it only has a two-by-two)
So I was experimenting and if you can get signed certs from let’s-encrypt and dns records from cloud-flare, then you could store your public signed certificate as a set of split txt entries which anyone could verify with a set of trusted root certificates. You can then use the private key to sign an encryption key (stored as another txt record) along with the encrypted message (also another txt record).
This would allow you to sign, store, and send short messages (in a single direction) with confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity all through a plain text protocol (as long as the root certs exist)!
Verification Chain:
The message data is hashed into -> The encryption key
The encryption key is signed with -> The private key
The private signature is decrypted with -> The public key
The public key is embedded into -> The signed certificate
The signed certificate is verified with -> The root certificates
The end verify -> The root certificates + The domain name + The expiry time
# ./dns_fun.sh fossjon.com d
Certificate:
Data:
Version: 3 (0x2)
Serial Number:
04:b3:64:ec:80:70:47:42:2a:8a:ef:b4:11:60:03:9d:23:78
Signature Algorithm: sha256WithRSAEncryption
Issuer: C=US, O=Let's Encrypt, CN=R3
Validity
Not Before: Oct 9 18:35:11 2021 GMT
Not After : Jan 7 18:35:10 2022 GMT
Subject: CN=*.fossjon.com
Subject Public Key Info:
Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption
Public-Key: (2048 bit)
Modulus:
00:c8:1c:f6:86:b7:b5:45:63:68:7b:e4:34:10:6e:
0c:51:da:73:5b:65:d4:f7:fd:c8:c7:2e:d8:8b:01:
2d:c5:67:a4:0e:7a:b6:57:bf:fe:2a:c9:52:4d:38:
51:56:a6:08:bb:5a:8f:85:32:88:c0:3c:9b:3e:ad:
f9:1a:aa:21:fb:b6:2f:d1:7c:bc:c1:6e:ae:d8:b4:
c9:87:a5:69:a4:c5:f9:1d:3a:1f:49:68:94:75:b9:
ab:f6:12:9f:56:4c:7f:26:f1:6e:85:9e:1e:66:be:
74:e0:01:91:6d:59:cb:0d:34:01:10:5c:b9:43:44:
52:07:6a:ca:3f:83:1e:41:6c:51:5a:a6:fa:20:8f:
33:40:76:90:ab:4d:04:6f:33:70:f0:09:c7:38:25:
26:15:70:d6:f9:f4:e6:b6:71:11:e0:7a:c6:04:86:
30:c9:56:f0:14:6e:9e:66:60:b3:7d:2b:42:a4:b9:
fb:6d:73:4f:26:2e:17:aa:a8:64:72:e2:f5:a8:b1:
17:8d:f4:db:a8:10:fc:70:ff:1b:cc:78:6f:04:84:
e0:fc:1d:15:72:de:41:bd:14:c5:26:72:3e:56:2a:
aa:1d:9f:1a:3c:17:40:91:21:7e:2a:b4:8a:c2:ab:
79:0f:dd:21:13:a1:2e:da:6a:a3:92:49:e7:f1:58:
36:bf
Exponent: 65537 (0x10001)
Secret_key_123-77cf362ab2442e3fa3062d06adb571f0ea92647f0ba137300a272767d6ea0834
this is just a test of the emergency broadcast system, this is not the real thing!
So I decided to switch the nameserver records on my fossjon.com domain over to Cloudflare’s service for two different reasons. One is that they offer more advanced https reverse proxying tech along with a better dns management interface as well! I still have the domain registered with Google Domains as they also offer pretty good mx record email forwarding via gmail.
Cloudflare won’t let you directly rewrite the HTTP HOST header field anymore, however, they will let you setup a more advanced HTTP JavaScript worker process. This process can handle the incoming web proxy requests along with the outgoing responses and perform some modifications on them. This is an extremely powerful framework and it behaves more like a proper reverse proxy server would!
Note: It seems like CF offers a better DNS API service, however, I couldn’t yet find a DNS backup button to help save all my records locally (hacky webarchive file but at least it’s sorted nicely).
javascript:(function(){
var t = document.getElementsByTagName("table")[0];
var s = t.getElementsByTagName("tr");
var m = {}, l = [], z = 1;
for (var i=0; i<s.length; ++i) {
var d = s[i].getElementsByTagName("td");
if (d.length > 4) {
var k = d[2].innerText.trim();
if (k.endsWith(".com")) { k = "@"; }
if (!(k in m)) { m[k] = {"r":[]}; l.push(k); }
var r = d[1].innerText.trim();
if (!(r in m[k])) { m[k][r] = []; m[k]["r"].push(r); }
m[k][r].push([d[3].innerText.trim(), d[4].innerText.trim()]);
}
}
var b = "style='border: 1px solid black;padding: 4px;white-space: nowrap;'";
var o = "<table style='padding: 8px;'><tr><th "+b+">No.</th><th "+b+">Time</th><th "+b+">Record</th><th "+b+">Type</th><th "+b+">Value</th></tr>";
l.sort();
for (var i in l) {
var k = l[i];
m[k]["r"].sort();
for (var j in m[k]["r"]) {
var r = m[k]["r"][j];
m[k][r].sort();
for (var d in m[k][r]) {
o += ("<tr><td "+b+">"+z+"</td><td "+b+">"+m[k][r][d][1]+"</td><td "+b+">"+k+"</td><td "+b+">"+r+"</td><td "+b+">"+m[k][r][d][0]+"</td></tr>"); ++z;
}
}
}
o += "</table>";
document.head.innerHTML = document.head.innerHTML.replace(/script/ig, "xscript");
document.body.innerHTML = o;
})();
If you want to get a wild-card certificate with let’s-encrypt then you’ll have to use the DNS verification method. I made an example Docker file and script that can quickly and easily spin up a Debian container to install and run the certbot application. You can then connect to the container via a local URL (http://127.0.0.1:8080/) and interact with the process to setup the TXT record and then verify the DNS entry and then download the signed cert chain + key pem files!
Note: I do wish Google had API access to their Domains service which would allow for automated TXT records!
Note: This is only compatible with the good old.reddit.com website!
javascript:(function(){
function w() {
document.title = (document.title+" . [*]");
var y = Math.random(), x = new XMLHttpRequest();
x.onload = function() {
var c = 0, d = document.createElement("div");
d.innerHTML = this.responseText;
var l = d.getElementsByClassName("thing");
for (var i=(l.length-1); i>=0; --i) {
var p = (l[i].getAttribute("data-permalink") + "");
if (!p.startsWith("/r/")) { continue; }
var f = 0, z = [null, null]; c = 0;
var m = document.getElementsByClassName("thing");
for (var j=0; j<m.length; ++j) {
var q = (m[j].getAttribute("data-permalink") + "");
if (!q.startsWith("/r/")) { continue; }
if (q == p) { f = 1; }
if (!z[0]) { z[0] = m[j]; }
c += 1; z[1] = m[j];
}
if (c > (36-(parseInt(y*5)+1))) {
z[1].parentNode.removeChild(z[1]);
}
if (f == 0) {
console.log(p);
z[0].parentNode.insertBefore(l[i], z[0]);
}
}
var a = (new Date() + "").replace(/[ ]*[^ ]*-.*$/, "");
var h = ("<b><font color='red'>" + a + "</font></b> pop in: ");
document.getElementsByClassName("menuarea")[0].getElementsByTagName("span")[0].innerHTML = h;
document.title = ("("+c+") . reddit");
};
var s="?", r=location.href;
if (r.includes("?")) { s="&"; }
x.open("GET", r+s+"r="+y);
x.send();
}
w(); setInterval(w, ((9 * 60) + 1) * 1000);
})();
So I thought I’d try something new/different these days and buy a domain again! I’ve purchased some in the past but never made much use of them personally speaking…
I chose Google Domains because they offered some extra valuable & useful features:
easy record management
whois info privacy
backup yaml file
email forwarding inbound
including mx-records
including star-matching
web redirection proxying
including sub-domains
including preserve-paths
including https-certificates
outbound email records (spf+dmarc)
The only thing I can’t do is send email outbound with a domain address via gmail itself (without an extra smtp server setup) because Google removed the ability to modify the FROM field in the message headers directly with an alias email (it now requires a persistent external smtp auth login)!
Edit: If you can find a third-party smtp mail provider that allows you to add & verify email aliases more easily, you can instruct gmail to connect to that external smtp server with your other account and then you’ll be able to send email from an alias address via gmail directly!
Got a score of 90+ which is not-too-bad for a super-simple domain-name email address!
I wanted to make a historical list of phones that I’ve owned over the years and the reasons why I purchased them in particular. I generally buy phones on the ‘S’ year (tick-tock cycle) when the small improvements have been made to it over time versus the major redesign years!
2007: An important day to remember in the history books…
<=2009: A long long time ago, we used to have flip phones, and at this point I had a BlackBerry Pearl !
2010: One of the first affordable smart phones I owned was the HTC Desire which ran an early version of Android OS and it was very mod-able/customize-able at the time vs the first iPhones back in those days!
2011: After some time of using an Android phone I remember my main complaint being that the battery life barely got me through the day. I then received a hand-me-down phone called the Apple iPhone 4S which had a beautifully-solid-all-glass design, much better battery life, and my first intro to iOS which felt much more put together but more limited in terms of what it allowed me to do with it!
2012: I then switched back to vanilla Android with the Google Nexus 4 because it offered a bigger screen size, a clean OS / unlocked phone, and it was a very low price compared to the competitors. Battery life again was so-so but the back glass looked amazing and sparkly!
2013: I switched back again to the Apple side with the Apple iPhone 5S even though it had a smaller screen size compared to the Android phones. I liked the square edge design in the Gold color and mainly because it was the first phone in the whole market to offer a fingerprint unlock. I grew tired of entering in the long PIN codes by hand with the Nexus and I also got the good battery life back again!
2015: I kept the 5S for a bit and then upgraded to the Apple iPhone 6S for the same reasons as before except this time it offered the bigger screen size and greater battery life. However, it was still an LCD panel compared to the Android phones which were leading the way with their more advanced screen technology!
2017: I had been waiting since the 6S for Apple to release a bigger-sized-but-less-than-6-inches, edge-to-edge OLED screen and they never did for quite some time. So I purchased the Samsung Galaxy S8 which offered best quality screen on the market in addition to a headphone jack, a fingerprint reader, and a modern version of Android OS. My main issue with this phone was not so much the phone part but the Samsung-as-a-company part where they only provided us with 2 years worth of OS updates for a thousand dollar phone… We also couldn’t unlock the boot-loader very easily (to upgrade the OS manually) or remove their forced apps (press F in the chat for Bixby) and I was getting worried about the security of the device over time!
2020: After nearly 5 years of waiting, Apple finally released a phone that had a smaller-than-6-inches + edge-to-edge OLED display. It was called the iPhone 12 Mini and I immediately purchased it and retired my old Samsung phone. I really appreciated the form factor of this phone and what it had to offer. Even though I do miss the headphone jack and fingerprint unlocker, it is very hard to find a small-sized, full-screen phone these days for those of us with smaller hands!
So I have been waiting and saving up for the future-rumoured M1X Macbook Pro (while still hanging on to my 2017 Macbook Air, for nearly 5 years now). I also have been trying to support the sales of the iPhone Mini because it’s such a great form factor and size and the rumours are saying that Apple may not produce it in future years!
– –
Since I have been working from home during this fall/winter season up north, in the woods, I also setup a mini-network here with a nice: UniFi tri-band-ac POE-UAP, Netgear gigabit-ethernet POE-SWITCH, and the famous TP-Link archer C7-V5 OpenWRT ROUTER+FIREWALL. These all make for a great, stable, and reliable home network configuration when used together! 🙂
So before Apple’s last event, I decided to buy a brand-new-yet-also-pre-out-dated Intel Mac Mini to use as a WiFi bridge / router / firewall in place of the Linksys WRT32X. It took me a little bit to re-figure out the BSD Packet Filter firewall again but I got some good routing speeds out of it (I had to use the NAT option in PF because without it I was only getting ~45MB/s vs the Linksys +80MB/s — I dunno why, maybe some sort of kernel level network driver bug going on?). Anyway, I chose to order the Intel version for the following reasons (as of writing this post):
Intel 6-Core i5 CPU
Optioned 16GB RAM
Upgraded to 10-GigE
802.11ac-3×3 WiFi Radios
VirtualBox VMs with Debian Linux (Bridgeable Network Adapters)
4x Thunderbolt-3 Ports (plus a Sonnet Solo10G Ethernet Adapter)
It signals the end of an x86-era which won’t exist much longer!
memory leaks 
Jon's FOSS Blog 