Crypto

Using encrypted documents with vim

Everyone has secrets. Or at least some data you don't want to show others, right? Vim has an option to create and use encrypted documents!

Summary

Everyone has secrets. Or at least some data you don’t want to show others, right? Vim is a common editor to be found on Linux systems. It has an option to create and use encrypted files. We will look at how to configure it and use this encryption capability. Encryption is the process of fiddling with data so that others no longer can’t read it. The idea is that you still can, so when we speak about encryption, we can’t ignore decryption.

GPG key generation: Not enough random bytes available

A common error when creating keys with GnuPG is: Not enough random bytes available. In this article we have a look at the cause and solution.

Summary

Anyone who wants to create a new key set via GnuPG (GPG) may run into this error: We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. Not enough random bytes available. Please do some other work to give the OS a chance to collect more entropy!

Protect Linux systems against SSLv3 Poodle vulnerability

The Poodle vulnerability was discovered in October 2014, putting all systems using SSL 3.0 at risk.

Summary

What is the Poodle vulnerability ? The “Poodle” vulnerability is basicly an attack on the SSL 3.0 protocol. It was discovered in October 2014. The flaw is in the protocol itself (not implementation), which makes the issue applicable for all products using SSL 3.0. TLS 1.0 and later are considered safe against the attack. How does the attack work? While we won’t go into too much depth of encryption and ciphers, we will share some basics.