Michael’s Blog

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Well, it still seems that I cannot get truecrypt to build against the dm.h that comes with the kernel-devel packages, so for now you’ve still got to install and build against the full kernel sources.
It also seems that kmem_cache_create in 2.6.23 has one fewer argument to it than before.

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After locking up my GUI console the other day, I thought it might be nice to apply some old-school techniques and have a serial console on my linux machines for emergency maintenance. As it turns out, it’s very easy.
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It seems coupons.com has a requirement to stick controls on your computer in order to print their coupons. In order to print from their system, you must install their proprietary binary. What they don’t tell you this binary communicates with their servers, not just facilitate communication between your PC and your printer.

I don’t like 3rd-party software making un-disclosed changes to my system. One work-around cases like this is to simply re-install windows after every install/use of coupon.com’s software. Ubsurd? Nah. Simple tools for virtualbox.org can help.
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If you are going to have any sort of confidential data on your damn machine / thumbdrive, learn how to use real disk encyption like truecrypt. Ignorance of such technology is no excuse to loose personal and confidential data and embarass the institution you work for. Consider any media you carry as something you will not be able to have physical control over 100% of the time. If you’re traveling in a country that doesn’t allow encryption, either choose to break that country’s silly backwards law, or better yet, don’t carry confidential data in the first place. You are responsible for protecting that data.

Truecrypt isn’t that friendly with Fedora distributions. I’ve outlined the process I used to install it under FC6. Although there are probably some 3rd party binaries out there for FC6, don’t trust them. You should always compile cryptographic products yourself from source. Here’s how:
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