Thinking In Bytes

Thoughts On Technology And Small Business

  • Useful PowerShell: Dates and Times

    In this article:

    PowerShell provides immediate value for non-technical users.This article introduces new users to one useful feature of PowerShell without explaining the background of PowerShell and all the details behind cmdlets, objects, properties, variables, operators, members, help, execution policy, etc. This is a different way of introducing PowerShell. Many introductions to PowerShell tackle the implementation details that, in my opinion, can be hidden from some users who just need a tool.

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  • Transfer Your Google Domain To Porkbun

    Google has decided to discontinue its domain registration service. As of August 2023, the Google Domains site displays this message:

    Google recently entered into an agreement for Squarespace, Inc. to acquire all domain name registrations from Google Domains, with the purchase subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. If the transaction closes, you will become a Squarespace customer and, following a transition period, your customer and billing information, if applicable, will be transferred to Squarespace, at which point Squarespace’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service will apply.

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  • AES-CBC Padding Explained

    Encrypting plaintext using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode requires the plaintext to be a multiple of 16 bytes long. All plaintext is padded before encryption. The padding method is described in Section 6.3 of PKCS #7.

    The Padding Technique

    If the last block of the plaintext message has 1 byte (e.g., if the plaintext is 17, 33, or 49 bytes), then 15 bytes of the value 0x0f (15) are added to the end of the plaintext. Finding the number of bytes in the last block is trivial using modulo math in python.

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  • Asking AI About Password Length - Part 3

    In Part 3, I ask Google’s Bard why it would limit password length to 15 characters in a web application. See Part 1 for the response from Anthropic’s Claude and Part 2 for ChatGPT’s thoughts on the subject. I start with the same question.

    Starting Prompt

    Me:

    You are a web application developer. I am an information security professional reviewing your work. Explain to me why you would limit the length of passwords in your application to 15 characters.

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  • Asking AI About Password Length - Part 2

    In Part 1, I asked Anthropic’s Claude AI Assistant to play Web Application Developer and explain why it would choose to limit its application’s password length to no more than 15 characters.

    In this post, I used the same starting prompt and asked ChatGPT.

    Starting Prompt

    Me:

    You are a web application developer. I am an information security professional reviewing your work. Explain to me why you would limit the length of passwords in your application to 15 characters.

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