The DMZ

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2:23 AM

@MechMK1 sorry, been too many years since I built a computer to have my own thoughts. From my googling the best suggestions sound like the usual "check everything and remove components until it works". I'm sure you've already looked through stuff like this already anyway....

forums.tomshardware.com/threads/…

reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/67dx8q/…

8 hours later…

MechMK1

10:45 AM

Q: Why does my newly built PC not POST?

I'm currently building a PC for a family member. I've assembled the parts like usual, but when I turn on the PSU, the LEDs of my motherboard blink red and I can't boot the PC. I've tried to connect the PWRBTN# to Ground and use the case button, but no response from the PC. I've also tried shortin...

@ConorMancone I tried asking here now

This never happened to me and I feel so shit because of it

My mom was so excited for her new PC and now it's standing there, just blinking

1 hour later…

Conor Mancone

12:09 PM

@MechMK1 I wouldn't take it personally. There is a lot that can go wrong up to and including a defective part. I only ever built a couple of computers and it always made me super nervous.

MechMK1

@ConorMancone Yeah, me too. Especially since I can't "debug" what's wrong

reed

12:52 PM

I have a lot of trouble figuring out how much anonymity I need online, nicknames vs real names, separation of concerns, OPSEC, you know. It's not even clear what the goal is, what the threat is. Because I grew up, like almost everyone else before the Facebook era, thinking that you should avoid using your real personal info online. And I'm still convinced of that.

The problems start when you want to stop being a random dude and want to become some kind of professional, that is, use what you know to make money.

So while the user "dude123" might say "Fuck Google, go grab youtube-dl if you want to download music", the professional "Anthony Realname" should think twice. About everything: political views in his blog, philosophical views, impact of his advice, etc.

Some users in this community use nicks, some use nicks but their real names can still be found (profiles, linked websites, googling their nicks, etc.), and some use their real names. But maybe those who use real names here then also have an anonymous blog? Who knows.

5 hours later…

Conor Mancone

5:42 PM

@reed At the end of the day that's a question that you are going to have to decide for yourself. Different people have different concerns and different preferences for anonymity. As you might guess, I use my real name. Not only that but I have a unique name - as far as I know, I'm the only "Conor Mancone" in existence. So I'm very traceable. I chose to do this use my real name very intentionally, for one main reason.

Whether through data breach, APT, or simple OpSec mistakes, I take it as a given that staying anonymous on the internet is effectively impossible. If I were posting anonymously then I might suffer from the illusion that my words can't come back to bite me, and then when my identity leaked later I might have to eat my words. Therefore I use my real name for my sake.

By having my name and picture next to this little chat box, it reminds me that everything I say is ultimately attributable to me (which is true whether I realize it or not), and thus helps keep me polite and honest. That is good for me and the internet.

I'm not really the kind of person that tells someone to "F-off" anyway, but even still the reminder that I'm not anonymous has definitely kept more polite than I might be otherwise.

I still participate in political discussions here (it comes up here fairly regularly), but when I do I just make sure and keep things well-thought out and polite, even when my opinions are controversial. Although I'm a pretty open person anyway, so this is easy for me (it might be harder for some)

I actually do have another SE profile that I consider my "personal" profile. I only login there a couple times a month, typically because I have a question I want to ask on one of the non-programming related sites here. I don't do it to try to keep that stuff anonymous (my nickname still involves parts of my real name), but simply so this profile can be unambiguously "clean" for work-related stuff (basically no different than keeping all personal stuff off of a work computer).

But to go back to the start - that's how I roll, but it's perfectly reasonable to try to stay anonymous online. As long as you aren't doing anything illegal you probably can stay anonymous long term (if you're careful). I just prefer to assume that anonymity is impossible, because it is probably true, but either way it keeps me more polite and therefore makes the internet slightly nicer.

1 hour later…

MechMK1

7:15 PM

@ConorMancone FINALLY

I got the answer

I accidentally attached the power button to COM1 instead of the System Panel Headers, which are both shaped identically and are both in the corner of the motherboard.

I feel incredibly smart and incredibly stupid at the same time.

Conor Mancone

8:03 PM

@MechMK1 we call that "bad design". Glad you figured it out though! And presumably nothing died... My biggest concern with computer building was that I would plug the wrong thing into the wrong place and fry everything...

3 hours later…

Conor Mancone

11:29 PM

I feel bad when I post about my own answers, but I'm not trying to promote my self here - I just like the conclusion I managed to draw. You can skip to the bottom of my answer (because both the question and my answer are long), but this dude thought that salting would make passwords weaker because for a static password you could just build a rainbow table for all salts

I decided to lookup actual lengths of salts, calculated how much storage space you would need to store a rainbow table of all hashes for all possible salts for bcrypt, and then calculated the weight of a gigantic pile of 128TB MicroSD cards that stored that entire rainbow table on them.

It turns out that your "pile" of Micro SD cards would weigh as much as the moon!

A: Oversalting Potentially Harmful?

It sounds like you have a pretty good theoretical understanding of some important issues at play here, but I think you've missed some important practical points in your application of that. 1. Collision rate does not depend on input length The collision rate depends only on the digest size and ...