Peter Hansteen
bsdly.blogspot.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2009
Peter Hansteen, a BSD sysadmin and author, writes about OpenBSD, the PF packet filter, spam fighting, and network security.
What HN saysHN commenters link it for OpenBSD guides, including running OpenBSD on a modern laptop, and list it among blogs worth following.
54HN people shared it
13linked it in comments
80stories submitted
1.5Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1What every IT person needs to know about OpenBSD4 people · 53 points · first shared 2021 · 11 comments on HN
- 2OpenBSD and the modern laptop3 people · 157 points · first shared 2017 · 70 comments on HN
- 3The Hail Mary Cloud And The Lessons Learned3 people · 27 points · first shared 2013 · 4 comments on HN
- 4Why Not Use Port Knocking? (2012)3 people · 20 points · first shared 2012 · 17 comments on HN
- 5That grumpy BSD guy: Keep smiling, waste spammers' time3 people · 4 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 6The UK "Porn" Filter Blocks Kids' Access To Tech, Civil Liberties Websites2 people · 147 points · first shared 2013 · 72 comments on HN
- 7Recent and not so recent changes in OpenBSD2 people · 111 points · first shared 2021 · 38 comments on HN
- 8A Few of My Favorite Things About the OpenBSD Packet Filter Tools2 people · 85 points · first shared 2022 · 22 comments on HN
- 9Forcing the password gropers through a smaller hole with OpenBSD's PF queues2 people · 73 points · first shared 2017 · 22 comments on HN
- 10What to expect in OpenBSD 5.0 onwards2 people · 31 points · first shared 2011 · 8 comments on HN
- 11The Sextortion Scams: The Numbers Show We Have A Failure of Education2 people · 19 points · first shared 2020 · 7 comments on HN
- 12The Things Spammers Believe: A Tale of 300k Imaginary Friends2 people · 7 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 13The Voicemail Scammers Never Got Past Our OpenBSD Greylisting2 people · 6 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 14The Impending Doom of Your Operating System Going to or Past 112 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 15Ed(1) mastery is a must for a real Unix person2 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
falcolas · 2013-03-04
Worth looking at:
http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2013/02/theres-no-protection-in-high-ports.h…
peter_hansteen · 2024-02-14
This reminds me of my own screed of a much simpler document (an ASCII table generated as a printer test back in the late 1980s) that was not possible to render correctly some years later - https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2013/11/compatibility-is-hard-chartestdoc-i… - also contains a link to a further rant about other document formats that were supposed to be "standard" and "portable".
cestith · 2021-10-29
https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2021/09/what-every-it-person-needs-to-know.… is the original article mentioned at the very end of the submitted article.
morganvachon · 2018-08-19
It may depend on the model; this guy got a lot of mileage out of his Clevo-made laptop:
https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2017/07/openbsd-and-modern-laptop.html
cel · 2017-09-08
cthalupa · 2014-11-20
Jumphosts have their uses, but in this case, I really don't see it. As others have pointed out, better yet is VPN only access.
As for the port knocking silliness, well, I don't see any reason for it.
http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-not-use-port-knocking.html
brynet · 2014-11-01
Related to OpenBSD, and BSD in general. Peter N. M. Hansteen is auctioning off the first signed copy The Book of PF, 3rd edition. He will be supporting the OpenBSD Foundation by donating the amount raised.
http://bsdly.blogspot.ca/2014/10/the-book-of-pf-3rd-edition-is-here.ht…
anonymbadguy · 2014-10-27
This is the first physical copy of The Book of PF, 3rd edition ever handled and signed by its author.
The proceeds of this sale will go in its entirety to the OpenBSD Foundation, as outlined in my blog post at http://bsdly.blogspot.no/2014/10/the-book-of-pf-3rd-edition-is-here.ht…
The item is new, as I'm writing this the ink is barely dry and I will fill in the amount and winner's name after the acution concludes.
The regular product listing is at http://www.nostarch.com/pf3
rlpb · 2014-07-17
"There's No Protection In High Ports Anymore. If Indeed There Ever Was." http://bsdly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/theres-no-protection-in-high-ports…
PhasmaFelis · 2013-12-29
This is completely false. The author of the original article (http://bsdly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uk-porn-filter-blocks-kids-acc… Peter N. M. Hansteen, confused one ISP's opt-in parental whitelist with the UK's national opt-out blacklist. When informed of his error, he did not correct it but just added an update at the bottom ranting about opt-in parental filters, so sites like TGDaily and TechEye are still reading the first few pages and perpetuating the falsehood.
This makes opponents of UK censorship look like clueless idiots and hurts the entire cause. Nice job, Peter Hansteen.
werid · 2013-11-20
yes, this have been going on for a while
http://bsdly.blogspot.no/2013/10/the-hail-mary-cloud-and-lessons-learn…
ThatOtherPerson · 2013-11-19
I just checked my account's security history, and there's been a failed login attempt every 7 hours for the past two days, all from different IP addresses.
It reminds me of the "Hail Mary Cloud" posted previously on HN - http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-hail-mary-cloud-and-lessons-lear…
brownbat · 2013-06-18
> Whether or not FB is deliberately blocking Tor now, how out-of-line would it be for them to eventually block it in the future?
> tl;dr: Why use Tor + FB?
Fair point, there may only be some arcane use cases for the combo, but the dilemma becomes far more stark at:
"How out-of-line would it be for users of the internet writ large to aggressively block IP addresses associated with malicious activity?"
There was a call to "name and shame" DDOS participants a few months back, with the argument that every operator has the obligation to keep their "systems in trim."
http://bsdly.blogspot.ca/2012/12/ddos-bots-are-people-or-manned-by-som…
I was enamored with the idea. AV blacklists code, why not source? The AV industry has learned (for the most part) that sharing malware samples is for the good of everyone. But victims tend to stay silent about the IPs that participated in a DDOS, or worse, launched targeted intrusions.
Why not build a list of pariah IPs and refuse to talk to them until they get their act together?
Turns out that puts radical constraints on some useful projects, like Tor. Bot farmers might accidentally DDOS not only their target, but all of Tor if exit nodes were quickly blacklisted. Possibly worse, a government could intentionally spew noisy malicious activity through the network to get the endpoints shut down with deniability.
Is it possible for a Tor exit node to "keep their system in trim?" Preventing its use as a gateway for malicious…