HiddenLayer555

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40818280

If there's anything we should take from Japan, it's treating cars like second class citizens behind transit instead of the other way around. The cute tiny cars are more a side effect of that.

If there's anything we should take from Japan, it's treating cars like second class citizens behind transit instead of the other way around. The cute tiny cars are more a side effect of that.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40689539

I decided to switch to NixOS on my desktop and so far it's been great, I love being able to build out my config in the Nix file, but there is one thing I've not been able to figure out how to change. After a period of inactivity, the computer suspends (or hibernates?) and basically turns off (all the fans and lights turn off and it disconnects from the network, I don't know if it's saving the state in RAM of the drive). How do I get it to not do that and just lock the desktop and turn off the screen after inactivity? I'm using KDE Plasma and I've tried different kinds of configurations that build successfully but still don't prevent it from going offline.

I decided to switch to NixOS on my desktop and so far it's been great, I love being able to build out my config in the Nix file, but there is one thing I've not been able to figure out how to change. After a period of inactivity, the computer suspends (or hibernates?) and basically turns off (all the fans and lights turn off and it disconnects from the network, I don't know if it's saving the state in RAM of the drive). How do I get it to not do that and just lock the desktop and turn off the screen after inactivity? I'm using KDE Plasma and I've tried different kinds of configurations that build successfully but still don't prevent it from going offline.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40568699

After some consideration, I've decided to replace my consumer router at home with an OpnSense box I control, and use the consumer router as just an access point. The model I have doesn't seem to support OpenWrt but the default firmware supports access point mode complete with mesh functionality, otherwise I would have just installed OpenWrt on it. I still like the consumer router's mesh Wi-Fi capabilities, especially the wireless range extender, but don't trust it enough to let it be the actual root device separating my home network from the open internet. My reasoning is that by having it behind the OpnSense router, I can monitor and detect if it's exfiltrating any "analytics" data and block them. Worst case scenario I realize it's too noisy with the analytics and buy a proper business grade access point, or an M.2 Wi-Fi 6 card with some beefy antennas.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should use one of my old mini PCs or if I should get a brand new one with an up to date processor and microcode. The biggest reason I don't want the consumer router to be the root device anymore is because I don't know how well they patch their firmware against attackers constantly scanning the internet for vulnerable devices. I imagine an open source router OS with tons of eyes on it and used by actual professionals would inherently be more secure than whatever proprietary cost cut consumer firmware my current router has. I've already picked out a suitable mini PC I'm not using and the reason I even started down this rabbit hole is because I have it, but after thinking more about it, I'm worried that whatever security I gain might be undermined by the underlying hardware being old and outdated, especially since the processor is definitely pre Spectre/Meltdown and I doubt it's still getting microcode or firmware updates.

Again, the reason I ask is because the internet really wants me to think old disused computers are perfect for converting into routers, and I really don't want to buy a new computer if I don't have to. How important is the hardware for a router? Can I expect OpnSense to have sufficient security on pretty much any hardware or will a sufficiently old computer completely defeat the purpose of even switching away from the consumer router?

Alternatively, I also have another mini PC with a Ryzen 5 from 2020, and I can reposition it from its current job to router duty, though it would definitely be overkill and wasting the hardware capabilities. Would that be substantially more secure than an older Intel processor?

I also have a Raspberry Pi 4 I can put OpenWrt on, would that somehow be more secure than an older x64 computer?

After some consideration, I've decided to replace my consumer router at home with an OpnSense box I control, and use the consumer router as just an access point. The model I have doesn't seem to support OpenWrt but the default firmware supports access point mode complete with mesh functionality, otherwise I would have just installed OpenWrt on it. I still like the consumer router's mesh Wi-Fi capabilities, especially the wireless range extender, but don't trust it enough to let it be the actual root device separating my home network from the open internet. My reasoning is that by having it behind the OpnSense router, I can monitor and detect if it's exfiltrating any "analytics" data and block them. Worst case scenario I realize it's too noisy with the analytics and buy a proper business grade access point, or an M.2 Wi-Fi 6 card with some beefy antennas.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should use one of my old mini PCs or if I should get a brand new one with an up to date processor and microcode. The biggest reason I don't want the consumer router to be the root device anymore is because I don't know how well they patch their firmware against attackers constantly scanning the internet for vulnerable devices. I imagine an open source router OS with tons of eyes on it and used by actual professionals would inherently be more secure than whatever proprietary cost cut consumer firmware my current router has. I've already picked out a suitable mini PC I'm not using and the reason I even started down this rabbit hole is because I have it, but after thinking more about it, I'm worried that whatever security I gain might be undermined by the underlying hardware being old and outdated, especially since the processor is definitely pre Spectre/Meltdown and I doubt it's still getting microcode or firmware updates.

Again, the reason I ask is because the internet really wants me to think old disused computers are perfect for converting into routers, and I really don't want to buy a new computer if I don't have to. How important is the hardware for a router? Can I expect OpnSense to have sufficient security on pretty much any hardware or will a sufficiently old computer completely defeat the purpose of even switching away from the consumer router?

Alternatively, I also have another mini PC with a Ryzen 5 from 2020, and I can reposition it from its current job to router duty, though it would definitely be overkill and wasting the hardware capabilities. Would that be substantially more secure than an older Intel processor?

I also have a Raspberry Pi 4 I can put OpenWrt on, would that somehow be more secure than an x64 computer?

My VPN provider has a limit to how many concurrent connections I can have, and a workaround I've been using is to run the Wireguard client as a daemon (wg-quick@my-wg-config) and a Squid proxy on my home server, and point my local devices to the HTTP proxy port, which will route the traffic through the Wireguard connection. However, this has broken randomly multiple times in the past few months, where it will randomly decide to just not allow the server to connect to ANY internet address while the Wireguard connection is active, and no amount of network or routing table configuration changes fixes it. The Squid proxy works fine as far as I can tell, it's just the Wireguard connection that's failing, which doesn't even allow a ping to an internet address from the server's terminal (which doesn't go through the proxy). The only way I've been able to fix it is to completely reinstall the OS on the server and reconfigure everything from scratch, which is annoying and also only works until it randomly decides to break again. This makes me think I'm doing something wrong.

Is there a more "proper" or widely supported way of routing internet traffic on local devices through a single Wireguard connection? Everything I could read online says running Wireguard with an HTTP proxy server is the way to do it, but it clearly isn't very reliable or my computer is just defective in some weird intermittent way? The server is running Fedora Server 43. I've also checked for SELinux denials but there are none.

I'm aware of wireproxy but it uses a SOCKS5 proxy which is not as widely supported as an HTTP proxy and a lot of my devices (mainly phones) won't be able to access it. Also I'd like the server itself to also use the VPN, not just the devices on the proxy.

Does anyone have more experience with this and can give some advice?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40388903

I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent non-anthro animals living in harmony, which I've posted some lore about this in the past. Think "communist non-anthro Zootopia with sci-fi technology." This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and combines my interests in worldbuilding and software. I want to create a fictional social media platform for the animals in my world, and stage fictional threads in the typical Reddit/Lemmy format discussing news and politics taking place within the world. Then post screenshots here with context explaining what is happening. I just thought this might be a more fun way of sharing lore about my world than just the articles themselves, almost like an ARG. I'll also be able to introduce some of my main narrative characters through their social media presence.

On the technical side of things, I don't know if I want to compile and spin up a local Lemmy instance at home and actually stage accounts and posts on it. But actually logging in and out of different accounts sounds like way more work than necessary so I could also just take the Lemmy UI and add my own mock thread data to it. Or, I could write my own code for a completely fictional GUI, since I don't want to just use the default Lemmy UI and break the illusion. The second and third options might be more important if I want to make this an actual ARG and host a website for it, since in that case I don't actually want people to sign up and post.

I would love some feedback in general on this idea, and maybe gauge interest on if this is something people would like to see.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40388903

I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent non-anthro animals living in harmony, which I've posted some lore about this in the past. Think "communist non-anthro Zootopia with sci-fi technology." This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and combines my interests in worldbuilding and software. I want to create a fictional social media platform for the animals in my world, and stage fictional threads in the typical Reddit/Lemmy format discussing news and politics taking place within the world. Then post screenshots here with context explaining what is happening. I just thought this might be a more fun way of sharing lore about my world than just the articles themselves, almost like an ARG. I'll also be able to introduce some of my main narrative characters through their social media presence.

On the technical side of things, I don't know if I want to compile and spin up a local Lemmy instance at home and actually stage accounts and posts on it. But actually logging in and out of different accounts sounds like way more work than necessary so I could also just take the Lemmy UI and add my own mock thread data to it. Or, I could write my own code for a completely fictional GUI, since I don't want to just use the default Lemmy UI and break the illusion. The second and third options might be more important if I want to make this an actual ARG and host a website for it, since in that case I don't actually want people to sign up and post.

I would love some feedback in general on this idea, and maybe gauge interest on if this is something people would like to see.