My everyday desktop is a 2018 Mac Mini. Last summer, I started noticing that some apps would crash overnight, mostly Ivory (my Mastodon client).
I assumed it was a memory thing. My disk space wasn’t great, but I had like 5 gigabytes or so free on the 256 gig drive, and wasn’t seeing any “your disk is full” errors. I wasn’t getting crazy “Your system is out of memory!” errors, either, but memory pressure seemed like a good explanation. I tried a few lazy tricks to get some data, try to collect logs, etc., but got nowhere.
Nine years ago, I migrated all my local house storage from a massive Dell with Debian and software RAID, onto a tiny little Synology NAS. Well, not exactly tiny, but probably 1/3 of the volume of the Dell. It serves as a file server, Time Machine target, and destination for various rsync and other low-level backup tasks from the rest of the network. At other times, it’s run a Plex server, the Channels DVR, and…I honestly don’t remember what else I’ve experimented with here. It’s a pretty capable little box.
A few days ago, I wrote about what GreyNoise have been calling “Noise Storms,” extended periods of high-volume ping traffic detected by many of their sensors, coming from…many different sources. The most intriguing of these were packets with the word “LOVE” in plaintext in the ping payload, and in my post, I offered a possible explanation of that traffic. At least, at a technical level – what they’re doing with those packets, well, that’s a different puzzle.
Earlier this month, I attended BSidesNoVA in Arlington, where the keynote was presented by Andrew Morris of GreyNoise. Using sensors distributed all over the world, GreyNoise collects…background noise…on the Internet. Basically, they watch and monitor activity that hits lots of hosts randomly – network mapping, port scanning, doorknob rattling. If you see someone trying to break into your SSH server, you can check GreyNoise to see if that person (well, their IP, anyway) has been seen doing such things in the past.
Back in 2018, I was fortunate enough to join a company called Expel. It had a great culture, friendly management with a real desire to do what’s right for customers and employees, and a product that seemed to fill a real need – and to fill it well.
Being remote friendly even in 2018, we were ready when the pandemic hit, and it seemed like we made it out the other side unscathed. But then we hit some snags, and in June 2023, I got laid off, along with 10% of my co-workers.
Feb 17, 2025 - 3500 Words -
