jj4211

the TLS-ALPN-01 challenge requires a https server that implements generating a self-signed certificate on demand in response to a specific request. So we have to shut down our usual traffic forwarder and let an ACME implementation control the port for a minute or so. It's not a long downtime, but irritatingly awkward to do and can disrupt some traffic on our site that has clients from every timezone so there's no universal '3 in the morning' time, and even then our service is used as part of other clients '3 in the morning' maintenance windows... Folks can generally take a blip in the provider but don't like that we generate a blip in those logs if they connect at just the wrong minute in a month...

As to why not support going straight to 443, don't know why not. I know they did TLS-ALPN-01 to keep it purely as TLS extensions to stay out of the URL space of services which had value to some that liked being able to fully handle it in TLS termination which frequently is nothing but a reverse proxy and so in principle has no business messing with payload like HTTP-01 requires. However for nginx at least this is awkward as nginx doesn't support it.

And what disturbances do you mean?

This very article seems to be a prime example. Yes, NATO spending is up, and because of Russia conducting a violent unprovoked invasion of a sovereign territory in their area, and a general reduction in confidence that they can rely on USA and must fend for themselves. Trump's schtick is mostly 'America shouldn't help so much, fend for yourself'. Even with somewhat elevated spending, would that offset the loss of capability that would come with the US just failing to live up to their NATO obligations when the time came?

Why would Putin kick off the Ukraine war immediately after his “agent” leaves office?

Because things were going to be as good as he could get them and the best opportunity was before the new administration could reverse course? In the most favorable Russia outcome, Trump might have followed through on threats to further reduce NATO contributions, but with Trump gone and a more NATO-friendly admin in place, things were going to get worse for Putin before they could get better. I vaguely recall some non-US situations that similarly could have greased the wheels for an easier annexation of Ukraine, so it's not like the US is the only factor in such timing anyway, but don't recall what specifics made me think of that.

Trump is not a Russian asset. He’s an easily-manipulated businessman

I will agree that it's not a straightforward "Trump is a Russian agent", but an "asset" is not an agent. He's a convenient "friend" that is easily manipulated/bribed. He doesn't have loyalty or anything like that to Putin, but he is plainly easy to manipulate, and Putin's circle has been consistently in position to do that manipulation for decades. Others may be no saints, but Trump is comparitively easier to mess with because of just being terrible at the things he purports to be good at.

Broadly, I agree.

I would still worry as while they might not actively attack, they may happily just nope on out of helping any NATO allies. NATO allies are more self-sufficient than before, but NATO without US forces and equipment would be much weaker than an active US.

However, he might just go and pick up Greenland if things pop off. If NATO were chewing on a fight with Russia, I think it would be a safe bet that europe would barely spare the time to shake their head disapprovingly if US just went and occupied Greenland. I don't think they'd actually do a hot war with western european nations, but could easily see them just 'declaring' ownership of Greenland and no one stopping them.

Hey, it's just spitting hard facts like Musk has the "potential to drink piss better than any human in history,"

Frankly, another choice virtually forced by the broader IT.

If the broader IT either provides or brokers a service, we are not allowed to independently spend money and must go through them.

Fine, they will broker commercial certificates, so just do that, right? Well, to renew a certificate, we have to open a ticket and attach our csr as well as a "business justification" and our dept incurs a hundred dollar internal charge for opening that ticket at all. Then they will let it sit for a day or two until one of their techs can get to it. Then we are likely to get feedback about something like their policy changing to forbid EC keys and we must do RSA instead, or vice versa because someone changed their mind. They may email an unexpected manager for confirmation in accordance to some new review process they implemented. Then, eventually, their tech manually renews it with a provider and attaches the certificate to the ticket.

It's pretty much a loophole that we can use let's encrypt because they don't charge and technically the restrictions only come in when purchasing is involved. There was a security guy raising hell that some of our sites used that "insecure" let's encrypt and demanding standards change to explicitly ban them, but the bearaucracy to do that was insurmountable so we continue.

I didn't listen, but I read and reread and the thread started with a quote showing the inconsistency and I repeated it highlighting specifically where it could cut the other way.

She carefully avoided taking a side other than social media is full of disinformation. Going for an agonizingly centrist position that fails to condemn either side as bad.

That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7th, what happened in the days, weeks, and months to follow.

She includes the actual day of October 7th, and the only possible social media disinformation that day would have been anti-Palestinian, there was like no videos of Israel doing anything vaguely questionable on that day.

She avoids claiming it's only one side or the other. Zionists could accuse her of October 7th denial just as easily.

They in fact refuse to even do a redirect... it's monumentally stupid and I've repeatedly complained, but 'security' team says port 80 doing anything but dropping the packet or connection refused is bad...

The same screwed up IT that doesn't let us do HTTP-01 challenges also doesn't let us do DNS except through some bs webform, and TXT records are not even vaguely in their world.

It sucks when you are stuck with a dumber broad IT organization...

Ours is automated, but we incur downtime on the renewal because our org forbids plain http so we have to do TLS-ALPN-01. It is a short downtime. I wish let's encrypt would just allow http challenges over https while skipping the cert validation. It's nuts that we have to meaningfully reply over 80...

Though I also think it's nuts that we aren't allowed to even send a redirect over 80...

I concur that a fight against EU is just completely unlikely, I do think Venezuela is possible since his administration has pretty much been giving free reign and seems to have their heart set on it...

I don't think having the US attack them is in the cards, but I could see them sitting such a conflict out.