Hello.

[FoxDogCatWolf]

I mean, he might have said that to me and not actually encrypted anything, or turned the password off; to be technical he said he used hardware-encrypted SSDs (so the BIOS-based HD password prompt at startup - easy for him to turn on or off - they come with the encryption keys built-in), so maybe that rings a bell. I take it to mean he was well aware of encryption and if he truly didn't want someone to find his data, he would've encrypted it.

[FoxDogCatWolf]

5 hours ago, silverwolf1 said:




I felt Rannoch had much to offer, much that he failed to see himself. But, time passes and it is what it is.

He did try though. Several are aware before the crash he made a small fortune on bitcoin - part of why he was encrypting his drives - but when he tried to share his luck they banned him out of paranoia (even though it was pseudo-anonymous system; maybe he could've done it more gracefully, but that's one hell of a misunderstanding; I thought it was strange). There was defeatism in his tone last I read from him but only a few years prior he'd been personally proactive. The "The zoo community did him no favors IMO" quote seems accurate; it must have made him regret trying to do good things or moving on from past poor judgment in proactive methods. That was my impression of the sour note this sadly ended on. covfefelake's comments about his character (being a "gullible puppy") help confirm that to me, versus him being some kind of sociopath, which crossed my mind at one time; at the risk of alienating even more people that seems now like it was my own projection more than anything.

[covfefelake]

His drives were encrypted...  sort of.




 




I can't really say more about the scheme...  I don't know if it's a good idea.  Let me just say that despite there probably being ways around the encryption due to his poor choices for methods, it didn't go down that way.  I had access to his passphrase.  If you don't believe me, he was logged in recently and that was me, requesting an account.  This places Captcha is broken so it was the only way to register.




It wasn't an overnight decision.  I've been going through his stuff for nearly 5 months before I had the guts to even ask.

[covfefelake]

1 hour ago, FoxDogCatWolf said:




I'm more interested in innocent things like what kind of music he listened to, which could be on there

He was a metalhead, for what it's worth.




Songs were not on  his machine image, oddly.  He probably had an mp3 player or used his phone, which I do not have...  nor do I think I can get.




He shared some songs with me though.  Ironically, I listen to them now more than I ever did I think (not really a big music guy).




Lordi - Icon of Dominance, Monster Monster, Would You Love A Monsterman?  There's some examples.  Youtube will find them for you.




That's his bread and butter.  Many songs have monster or animal themes.  I never connected the dots.




Unsure what the signifigance of "Icon of Dominance" is but I liked it and kept it from his collection because I'm an agnostic (leaning-atheist) who very much despises organized religion and what it has done to the world.  Perhaps he had a similar reason.

[FoxDogCatWolf]

3 minutes ago, covfefelake said:




 If you don't believe me, he was logged in recently and that was me, requesting an account.

Hah, yeah, saw that, sent a PM even (don't bother).




Sure I believe you, only a little surprised he reused or shared the password. Then again, got the impression he didn't care anymore. I'm not sure what you mean by ways around the encryption (if it's SSD pro model from a decent brand he seemed proud of, it probably isn't bypassable by non-3-letter agencies), but whatever.

3 minutes ago, covfefelake said:




He was a metalhead, for what it's worth.




Songs were not on  his machine image, oddly.  He probably had an mp3 player or used his phone, which I do not have...  nor do I think I can get.




He shared some songs with me though.  Ironically, I listen to them now more than I ever did I think (not really a big music guy).




Lordi - Icon of Dominance, Monster Monster, Would You Love A Monsterman?




That's his bread and butter.  Many songs have monster or animal themes.  I never connected the dots.

Lmao! I downloaded the Lordi discography torrent 1 month ago. Didn't know at all he was a metalhead, he didn't post much about it. Thanks.

[covfefelake]

17 minutes ago, FoxDogCatWolf said:




if it's SSD pro model from a decent brand he seemed proud of, it probably isn't bypassable by non-3-letter agencies), but whatever.

It wasn't.  And I wouldn't even be certain about SSD SED's honestly, but yeah, non-3-letter may be a safe assumption I guess.




I will say that Rannoch talked and knew a lot of security buzzwords and concepts.  But his implementation of them was often half-assed to the point of being horrid.




I mean, if you knew the password he used, you'd understand.  One of the first things I did, for various reasons, was change it.  It was basically a location he had been, a date, and his lovers name, scrambled up.




No he did not use it everywhere...  but variations of it that and similar are all over.  And it's personal to him in several ways, which is bad practice, etc...  Not only that, he had the sense to use a password manager for certain sites, but the master passphrase was...  that same bad key.




There is a reason I completed college network security, and he flunked out.  Not to speak ill of him of course, but his parents (who WERE religious, scary people as he claimed, but moving on) didn't just pull his college funding because of this zoo thing.




They pulled it because they'd been trying with him for like 6 years, and he still had not graduated.




He was straight A's in HS.  Beyond that, his claims I see him posting are quite a stretch, honestly.  He lost some ability to function once he had to deal with full on college sadly.




What he was good at:




Math genius.




Linux guru unlike anything I have seen




knows more security exploits and hacking techniques than you can shake a stick at




Frankly, that ban he was so worked up about...  From what I can see, you guys are really lucky he held himself back and didn't try to wreck or deface your site in some way.  He had the means, I'm sure.  And I'd normally say "not capable" but he was pretty livid in some of the private messages.




Glad he didn't though.  I guess he wasn't capable ethically speaking, and good for him on that front.  Hactivism is not something I personally approve of, and I would've liked to believe the same of him.

[FoxDogCatWolf]

@<a data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/profile/2319-covfefelake/?do=hovercard&referrer=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.zoowg.net%252Ftopic%252F661-hello%252F%253Ftab%253Dcomments" href="<___base_url___>/profile/2319-covfefelake/" title="Go to covfefelake's profile">covfefelake</a>




Heh, security practices are not a rare shortcoming even among professional computer scientists (oh the horrors), and I suppose I expected slightly better but given his recent attitude and apparent mental state it's not that big a surprise.  (I own and used the hardware encryption on those pro SSDs myself before but it's besides the point now)




See, he made no secret his relationship with his parents was strained, but I didn't know or remember his parents were that religious. I grew up in that same hell and it completely distorted my expectations of life. Too bad we didn't get to burn more crosses together.




That website was a different one now closed, and proactively updated. We might never know if he tried something like that or not. Forum exploits are a bit rarer in 2010's than in 2000's, so it could just as well have been none were available during that period; tbh, there was a time I couldn't hold back either (yeah that's where I'm coming from). So who knows except him? I can only estimate he was a better person after all, seems you agree.




It's fucking scary how similar our lives were. Such coincidence. Damn.

[covfefelake]

Yeah, I'm aware of how rare forum exploits and such are post let's just say for fun, 2015.  Let's just say he broke into some things (provably, kind of as a bragging thing) after that timeframe that seriously blew my mind.  Hactivism was a thing he was apparently critical of, but that didn't stop him from finding and reporting big huge security bugs on several big huge sites.




There may be a clue there.

[FoxDogCatWolf]

To me, the important thing is that all this happened after The Arockalypse . Seriously thanks, you have no idea how much I needed this. Please go on if you think of anything else cool. I'll buy you a drink in BTC...




 

[covfefelake]

Well, cool?




Sure.  But this is the wrong thread.




Check Rannochs memorial.




[Meanwhile, in the welcome thread]




 




HAI GUYS I HEARD ANIMALS ARE BEING LOVED IN HERE.




 




Sorry, too troll like?  I...  I am working on this.