Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

  • The Conundrum of Anonymity

    I am facing a moral dilemma right now and I do not really know what direction to go. Thus far, I’ve managed to stay fairly anonymous on the internet because I practice good operational security. However, the thought is swirling in my brain about giving up the anonymity because my brain is telling me that it is based in fear. While being anonymous is a form of protection and has its implied security, sometimes I just want to give this up in favor of screaming who I am from the rooftops. The trouble is that once you do this, there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle.

    Do I give up my anonymity online and practice what I preach about not living in fear of my government? Well, I don’t fear my government so much as its reprisal for my criticisms. I don’t want to be placed at some black site and tortured and imprisoned. Maybe I am being dramatic or maybe not. Given what’s happened to our immigrants, my fear might not be so misplaced after all.

    I am principally using this blog as a journal to help me manage the difficulties associated with mental illness. I hope that it, in some ways, furthers society’s goals to end the stigmatization of mental health discussion and treatment. Sometimes I feel like it would be powerful to not hide behind a pseudonym and actually tell the world who I really am. Other times, I realize that there can be power in anonymity as well. Anonymity allows you to stay in the fight against injustice longer because it takes the system that much longer to discover who you are.

    I often proclaim that I am not afraid of my country’s government and I think I am just probably trying to convince myself that I am not. Anonymity provides security and it is actually reductive to level the accusation, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” If only, le sigh, it were that simple.

  • Feel Like Giving Up

    I feel like giving up this foolish escapade to write a book. I say it’s foolish because I seem to keep on restarting and starting over but getting nowhere at all and learning nothing. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to write a book. Perhaps I should focus my efforts more on video content creation teaching people about networking and systems administration through building computer labs. Maybe it would be more interesting and engaging through recorded content. It will be something that maybe I need to explore.

    I know blogging is kind of falling out of style where as vlogging and short video content is growing in demand. The kids want to learn these days but they want to learn in ways that they know is best to them. Many don’t learn that well from written content and learn much more effectively from short form video content. Is it something that I deign to try? I don’t really know.

  • Hobby Challenges

    Doing this deep dive into the home lab computer hobby has really challenged my research, critical thinking, and troubleshooting skills. I am also grinding away the surface rust. In the process of my research, I vaguely remembered that proxying has been used as a technique to avoid the problems of hairpinning and NAT. I am not really in an easy situation where I can just move things into a DMZ network and resolving IPs internally hasn’t completely solved my problems with email. Anyhow, I read about TCP streaming through NGINX and I thought maybe it just might work.

    Thus, I installed the streaming module and configured a TCP streaming proxy for ports 25, 143, 587, and 993. It turns out that this was so successful and so much simpler than worrying about correctly configuring source and destination NAT to do everything so precisely. With just the simple TCP proxy in place, all I had to do was to source NAT everything through a simple rule and my email problems are elegantly solved.

    I am learning a lot of things I didn’t know and I am seeing some gaps in my knowledge that research will have to fill so that I can continue to write the book that I am in the process of planning: Grokking the Home Lab: Learning Through Building Real Systems. I think it is about time someone wrote a book for the new home lab hobbyist. At least I know I am going to leave out some material on network address translation hairpinning – because fsck that! There’s a lot easier ways to go about solving some of the problems introduced by IP address sharing.

    While the challenges can be, at times, frustrating, I am enjoying the journey. I need to sit down and find a good time to write and document all this. I need a format that works for me and I have yet to find one. My therapist recommended letters and that did not work so well. I am thinking of setting up another blog dedicated strictly to IT whereas this one is more of my mental health coping skill and life strategy. It would be somewhat confusing for readers so I bought a domain called www.tcpipguy.com. I think that will be the name for my blog. I might add a the to it. Maybe building the book out of timely blog entries that are related to home labbing is the right approach.

  • Days Off

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    It is so nice to have some badly needed days off. I managed to get my home lab segmented off from the rest of the home network which I wanted to do for security and privacy. That way if I have guests and they bring their devices, I don’t have to worry as much about viruses. I got that achieved despite it being a pain in the ass. Well, okay, it’s mostly achieved as I still do not understand why my industrial grade OPNsense router is not properly routing WireGuard tunnels but that is troubleshooting for another day. Everything else works including my blog, email, and Mastodon. I am good to go.

    Now I am just chilling with Denisse on the couch and doing my semi-daily blog entry. I did a gummy last night and I am still feeling no pain from it. I love the relaxed, no-care, and emotional pain-free feeling. Everything in my life, save for Denisse, is utter shit right now and I am oddly okay with it. I say oddly because it’s not exactly normal to feel okay about a shit situation. Well, acceptance of things you cannot change is good I guess.

    I am getting Denisse’s birthday gift early this year. I’m buying her a Samsung Galaxy S25 for her 50th. But since things like color and case need to be picked out, it’s something that she should really be involved in. I can deal with having the shitty phone for a bit. She deserves something nice. I also feel good about being able to do something nice for her.

  • Feeling Down

    I’m feeling down because I’m still, at heart, a people pleaser. This has lead to me being overwhelmed and taken advantage of by most work places. My current one is no exception. It’s sad because I work hard but get scraps in return. I believe that it’s time to move on from my present employer.

    I want to learn balance in the workplace and to only take on extra shifts when it is personally beneficial. I stopped doing that with my current employer. I’ve been “taking one for the team” and it’s lead to bitterness and a feeling of unappreciation. I’m just repeating a pattern in my life.

    So maybe I seek out better opportunities and happier circumstances. We shall see! But in order for conditions to become better for me, I have to drop the people pleasing attitude once the interview is over. The interview is a deliberate act. Once I’m hired and have a few weeks under my belt, I can be more selective.

    I still want to continue writing my book. I am just so exhausted that I can hardly think. This isn’t a good situation to be in but what can I realistically do when there are bills to pay and I have to support Denisse. I will add that I love Denisse dearly and I would do almost anything for her. I am proud of her for sticking out the phlebotomy class and doing pretty well at that! I know that once she graduates, she’ll pick something up and then life will be easier for the two of us. We just have to be stoic and keep moving forward.

    I once had a psychiatrist, Joel Goldstein, who made a wise observation that I am stubborn. I never saw myself as stubborn but he was not incorrect and that was something that I needed to process. I think that being a stubborn person has mostly kept me alive and moving forward. Right now I need to channel this stubbornness and stoicism. Doing this may reap some rewards.

  • One Sleepy Kitty

    I am very tired and going to need a couple of days off. Fortunately for me, I will have Thursday and Friday off. It’s not quite enough time but better than nothing at all. I guess I am taking what I can get. That much said, I am learning to do what benefits me the most and not necessarily what helps my employer. I am unlearning being a “people pleaser” and it’s hard when I was raised that way.

    I am working a split shift today for a total of 12 hours. It’s not going to be easy but it will be completely doable. During the time period that I have off – between 11am and 4pm – I will hang out at the library and hopefully accomplish something of note. I want to try and make some headway on my book with the working title, Grokking The Home Lab: Learning Through Building Real Systems. I had some material written but it wasn’t in the style recommended to me and hence it was scattered and I ended up scrapping it.

    When I go to the library this morning into the afternoon, my operative plan is to write this book in a series of letters to a, “Dear Davoy” style. Nan, my therapist, recommended this approach as a method to reduce writer’s block. She assumed that it would work for fiction and non-fiction alike and I don’t see how this won’t work. Right now I cannot concentrate much and that’s because I have not fully woken up yet. Once I do though, I want to be ready.

    I guess that doing this in a series of letters will make it so that it will be easy to write out of order and from a stream of consciousness. Oftentimes, this is the way I think best. I can always go back and organize the material at a later point. I can always do the edits at the same time. Since both DNS and IP addressing is very important and I’v been hard at it. So while both concepts are fresh in my mind it is time to put the writing efforts in.

  • A Bit Late To The Game

    I am a bit late to the blogging game today and it was mostly because I am just so damn tired. When this week is said and done, I will have had close to 60 working hours. To top it off, 28 hours will be paid at time and a half. 8 for working a holiday and the remaining 20 for straight over time. It will all help very much but it’s going to leave absolutely smoked. I am again reminded of how much I hate America. America is a country where we give assistance to millionaires and billionaires while the regular working class gets nothing except for hardship.

    I am ready to go home and hit the hay because I am so tired. Fortunately, this shift is flying by and I only have two hours left. Then I get to come in and work from 7a-11a tomorrow. That won’t be bad. What’s going to suck will be Tuesday and Wednesday where I will be working 12 hour days. I guess it’s going to be nice to have Thursday and Friday off before the fun begins next week.

  • Saturday Double Shift

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    I had difficulty sleeping last night so it was one of those very rare times that I could answer the security operations center when they reached out to me to see if I would do a double shift. Seeing as I couldn’t sleep, I answered that I would and the fact that the site I work at is great! I do need the money as well. This coming week’s paycheck is going to look very nice but I hope I do not burn out. I am not quite a spring chicken anymore.

    I still feel surprisingly good and I managed to write another 600 words on my book. My goal is to average 400-600 words per day of writing. If I can manage that, the book will quickly develop into something. I believe that this is entirely possible provided that I remain in decent health and do not get sick. I am trying to write from a stream of consciousness and not be too concerned with anything other than putting thoughts to paper. This is what my therapist, Nan, would recommend.

    The book I am working on is basically about building home computer labs and growing them in increasing complexities and features. The chapter I am working on is the planning stage. It’s a bit dry but necessary.

  • Feeling Oddly Good

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    Despite having a very long week ahead, I am feeling oddly good about it. I think that is largely due to earning a good amount of money. It is kind of a shame though that I will have to work so many hours in order to receive such a nice and helpful paycheck. The trouble is that security guards just are not seen as very important. The salary plight is very real. But I still feel okay about my earnings.

    I had a pretty successful day too. I stood up a self-hosted email server out of my home and got accounts created for myself and Denisse. It feels good getting crap out of the cloud. Corporations are really irresponsible with our data and the best way to recapture our freedom and control is to host our own data using free/open source software. Now I just have to get Denisse to start blogging. I really do it for pure enjoyment and not to monetize it. Hell, I don’t even think I really could monetize it if I wanted to.

    It felt so good to chat with my email hosting provider and tell them I was cancelling my email hosting plan. They wanted to know why and I told them that I would be doing it myself. They tried to use marketing psychology to tell me why this would be a bad idea. So far, I am only seeing upsides. The one downside, if you want to call it that, is I am responsible for the mail server’s reliability. Personally, I don’t care that much. The idea is depriving corporations of money. I found out one reason that my email hosting plan wasn’t terribly expensive is that my data was being sold. Yeah, um, hell no. I am not the product here. Don’t charge me for a product and than monetize me further.

    I am getting closer and closer to beginning to write this book on self-hosting and the home lab. If more and more people did this, Big Technology might lose some money for a change and we might gain substantial freedom. After all, Big Technology has pretty much lawyered up good so you can’t practically go after them for losing your data anyways. Thus you might as well retain 100% control over it and not allow them to make money off of you and your content. I already stopped using most corporate social media. I only actively use Reddit. I only occasionally use Facebook for its marketplace. I can really be found actively on Mastodon, and you guessed it, I host my own Mastodon instance as well.

    I host my own WordPress blog too. All this self hosting takes place on Dell OptiPlex 7060 8th Gen i7 with a 14TB HD and 64GB of RAM. I have fun and get a lot of satisfaction out of it.

  • Network Address Translation Learning

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    The last two days I did some serious learning about network address translation that I can apply to the book that I want to write on home labbing. For the uninitiated, the basics behind Network Address Translation is that it allows a whole bunch of computers to share a single public IP address. But that’s just the very basic part of it. Network Address Translation also has to allow external access to computers inside the network.

    Since I am now hosting my own email, I have to obviously have access to the mail server which is a small virtual machine on the inside of my network. Whodathunk that this would be so damn complicated!? I guess there could have been two other options that would have made things simpler, but my my current setup does not lend itself to them. I could have placed all of my servers in a DMZ with a different IP scheme or I could have done split horizon DNS. I would really like to have done split horizon DNS but I am limited by the router that I must use for my internet service.

    So the answer becomes the ugly kludge called “hairpinning” or NAT reflection. The first part of this setup involves the stage before a router makes a decision on routing. This is called “prerouting.” In this stage, I had to match anything destined for the public IP address and translate it to the internal address. Then I need a matching “postrouting” rule to translate from the internal address to the public one. That will take care of external users. But what happens for internal users? Well, this is where hairpinning takes place.

    So any connections that originate internally need to be translated like this: internal address to public address and then back to internal address again. This makes it possible for internal users to reach services based on the public address. It’s ugly but it works for now. I do want to move toward away from hairpinning and towards split DNS. That will take longer and more research however.