First Amateur Activity: POTA Activation With 92 Contacts, 6 Hours

POTA, Parks On The Air, what is considered by many in the amateur space to be the gateway drug to either HF, amateur radio, or both. Probably no surprise, given that reputation, that the first actual time I’ve stepped up to a radio was, well, POTA. You don’t have to talk, you don’t have to spend too much time stressing out over everything, you just need to call and respond. Simple! And what did I get for the 6-ish hours I was out in a parking lot (with friends)? 92 contacts. One or two in Canada, and even one in Bulgaria!

Let's Ham It up a Little

As if I didn’t need yet another hobby that assumes a relatively high amount of disposable income, as of July 17th, 2023 (ignore the date this goes out), I am now a licensed amateur radio operator. As of the 31st, I passed the element 4 exam,¹ granting me the highest class of license available in the US: Amateur Extra. But, why? Well, why not?

What's Changed: Bilberry Theme Version 4

Yeah, I know, I was away for a while and some things broke. In apology, take this: breaks fixes, and some improvements! No really, these might actually be useful to anyone reading this, and not just me. Well, some of them.

Narration for Posts, for You!

If you’ve clicked on this post itself, you’ll notice there’s a sound file at the top. That’s because if you click it, or hit the P key, you’ll hear… me, reading this! I’m working on adding this to old posts one by one, so you might see that popping up eventually. But, partially for accessibility, and partially just to make these sort of ramblings easier to take in while only half paying attention or just doing something else entirely, I’m putting audio narration on every post here that I can.

IPv6 Is a Total Nightmare — This is Why

So this is just going to be a total rant. IPv6 is, in theory, a solution to many things, including the dwindling IPv4 address space. IPv6 was officially a draft in 1997, and became a real Internet Standard in 2017. And, quite frankly, it’s one of those things that, in my opinion, just adds too much hassle for not enough benefit.

Take 2 this time. More facts. Clarified points, same worthless opinions.

What Exactly Is Federation, Anyways?

Federation, the driving name behind decentralized and self-hosted software. But what is ‘federation,’ really? Well, there’s the really complex answer, and the simple answer. The simple answer is that federation is when multiple unrelated instances of a piece of software are capable of communicating and sharing between one another. The long answer, well, if you want to see that, then…

OTR: Encrypted Instant Messaging

Yes, for once, I have not just some app for secure messaging, this time, it’s a protocol. OTR, or Off-the-Record Messaging, is a protocol for establishing end-to-end encrypted messaging between two participants over a standard instant messaging channel like IRC or XMPP (Jabber). It also allows for deniable authentication, where during the conversation you can be assured that only you two are talking, but after the conversation, there is no way for an outside third party to 100% prove you talked, since it’s theoretically possible for an attacker to have forged the communications record. It’s complicated, but not too hard to wrap your head around.

QMQP: That Other Mail Transfer Protocol

Everyone (okay, everyone this is relevant to) knows what SMTP is, the standard for mail transfer. It’s even in the name, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, which is how mail servers have been sending mail to other mail servers since… a while. Well, fun fact, there’s another protocol that accomplishes the same goal: QMQP, the Quick Mail Queuing Protocol.

VPN Protocols Explained

So I’ve talked a little bit about VPNs before, but I didn’t go into too many details. Here’s a look into the top 5 common VPN protocols, and how they work: SSTP, L2TP(/IPsec), IPsec, WireGuard, and PPTP.

How DNSBLs Work

Ff you’ve dealt with email for any longer than 5 minutes (as an administrator), you already know it’s a mess. There’s so many security measures, so many checks, so many things to combat bad actors and spam. What if we had some way to have some service publish a list of bad DPs, and mail servers could quickly check that mid-transaction so they can have up-to-date information as to if the in-flight message should actually be accepted or not?

Well, we have exactly that. Enter: the DNS Blacklist.