April 12, 2021

The Boot

As no one probably cared or noticed, I package up software as a live USB image. (This)

Various very strange things have happened regarding this recently. I had quite a problem uploading the compressed image to my server on Saturday, April 3rd, 2021. First the connection kept being closed somewhere in between partway through every attempt to upload it with SSH. So I decided I would try cryptographically signing it and sending it plaintext. It arrived on the server very corrupted. Finally I managed to complete the upload, completely intact, checked the signature, it matched, etc. etc.

What is it anyway?

It's just free software which can be obtained elsewhere, which I packaged together as one USB image.

Then what?

I decided to keep the PGP key on a USB flash drive with all the stuff on it. The worst thing for security is to piss people off. Some people just came pissed in the first place, but whatever. The best thing to do for security is to secure the area of operations. The flash drive has gone missing.

I wonder who would go to all this trouble, why, and how much money was spent on it.

I knew someone who worked for the DOD who told me a story. One day they upgraded all their old monitors, threw out all their old stuff. It was gold-plated.

Update

The flash drive mysteriously showed up again.