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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 10th, 2023

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  • Possible? Yes. Likely? Not at all.

    To perform a zero knowledge proof, you’d have to have structured data to support the claim, which most whistleblowers would not have. If a whistleblower already had the hard evidence in hand, e.g., serial numbers and timestamps, they could have just provided those anonymously, and someone could follow up. The problem is, you can’t always get a copy of the hard evidence without revealing your intent to the employer, or at least, other employees.

    Presumably most whistleblowers are making unsubstantiated claims that something happened, or maybe with light evidence. Based on who they are, a journalist or investigator may then elect to follow up and dig up the hard evidence to support the claim. This requires revealing your name and position/relationship to at least one person. Rarely, they would be willing to put themselves out there to provide an affidavit under oath, which itself is not enough to pursue criminal charges (though it could help build a case around intent or willful neglect, or help support a warrant or discovery).

    It’s illegal, but not unheard of, to try to force journalists to reveal their sources, but the same protections are not universally in place if you reported a finding to a company’s internal affairs, for example. But unlike attorney-client privilege, or shield law protections, the risk in signing an affidavit is, as we’ve seen in recent US trials, that records will not stay sealed, and your name will be revealed to the defense and/or public.



  • Don’t bother with the cert if it’s not your job, but at least look into CCNA Routing and Switching. There are tons of courses available, both in person and online, as well as numerous YouTube videos on the subject.

    See if your local library or community college has an adult education center that provides a course. At some point, you will need to learn subnetting, which is just math, but practice makes perfect, and your life is easier if you have it committed to memory.

    Proper written work is still one of the most effective ways to do this.











  • Why are you running a VPN? If you are simply shielding your internet activity from your ISP, Google won’t give a shit where you sign in from.

    If you are browsing to shield your identity, you want to be fully disassociated with any non-secure browsing habits. If this is your use case, even if you are using discrete internet accounts, tracking cookies are common enough that, you would still be identifiable from your browser fingerprint. It all depends on what your risk factors are, and how much you want to spend to mitigate them.



  • The biggest mistake users will make is thinking their data is safe JUST because they have a NAS or a RAID. It’s common parlance in Systems Administration that RAID is NOT backup.

    To wit— not truly understanding RAID and how it relates to capacity, parity, and especially the time required to rebuild in failed disk situation. It is a crucial mistake to use RAID 5 with greater than 2TB disks, and even that is pushing it, but RAID 5 is at least in the zeitgeist.

    There are also some outside concerns such as Drive batch dates and knowing to pre-purchase spare disks well in advance that may hamper recovery.