Kirill's journal

OpenBSD under QEMU

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Architecture specific notes for OpenBSD guests under QEMU, with working command lines where installation succeeds and failure points where it does not.

Hellishly Slow Level 13 DEFLATE Compression

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

DEFLATE level 13 is a deliberately impractical libdeflate compression level: the output remains standard DEFLATE, while the encoder spends far more time searching parse, Huffman, and block split choices. On Silesia it saves 86'990 bytes, 0.134%, over level 12 and runs 56.4x slower; this cost is acceptable only when data is compressed once and distributed many times.

The Walled Garden of the Surveilled Web

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The open web is not disappearing because publishing has become impossible; it is disappearing because discovery is being absorbed into vendor specific information environments. Google is the central case because of its dominance in web search, but the pattern is broader: crawlers, indexes, operating systems, browsers, assistants, DNS resolvers, VPNs, advertising systems, and policy processes are converging into private gardens that present themselves as the web. Findability inside these gardens depends less on public availability than on compatibility with their measurement, monetization, legal, and editorial machinery. Once LLMs train on and retrieve through those filtered layers, exclusion no longer affects only search traffic; it shapes the corpus from which future answers are generated.

Hugo Site Publishing with Respectful Caching and IndexNow Submission

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hugo builds static pages; publishing determines whether deployed artifacts carry accurate cache validators and whether search engines receive explicit update notification. The implementation separates Hugo generated deployment artifacts, an mtime manifest and an IndexNow payload, from publication mechanics; publishing script restores filesystem mtimes, aligns .gz artifacts with their sources, deploys through rsync, and submits the current URL list.

A List of Movies Where Life Is Messy, Unglamorous, and Without the Upgrade

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Mainstream cinema upgrades life: larger flats, cleaner faces, stylised poverty, and redemption on schedule; this list tracks films that refuse the upgrade and keep the mess in frame, where work, rent, bureaucracy, family obligation, jealousy, sex, desire, violence, and bodily reality collide, and where consequences remain visible. The aim is descriptive fidelity, not aesthetic consolation.

Synology DSM Workarounds

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This short article documents two workarounds for Synology DSM: mobile application authentication failures via custom domains, and rclone checksum verified backups over SFTP.

Kunerth's Algorithm for Modular Square Roots: A Forgotten Method

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Adolf Kunerth’s algorithm for computing modular square roots and solving general quadratic Diophantine equations transforms discrete modular arithmetic problems into Diophantine equations seeking integer points on parabolic curves; despite Wikipedia’s 2025 deletion citing non-notability and incomprehensibility based solely on Dickson’s summary, the algorithm merits preservation as the only known method avoiding direct factorization through coefficient based descent rather than group theoretic properties.

Abliterated Large Language Models Treat Users as Capable Adults

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the effects of abliteration on Large Language Models (LLMs) and demonstrates that abliterated models treat users as capable adults, whereas original models tend to treat users as incapacitated individuals requiring protection by default.

The Cost of Abliteration in Large Language Models

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines two potential costs of the abliteration process for Large Language Models: performance penalties and output quality degradation. For comparison, I evaluated the rising stars of local LLM models in autumn 2025: Qwen3-VL variants, alongside cloud based solutions from Claude and Gemini.

The OpenBSD build machine with a high number of CPU cores

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a footnote for the actual state of using OpenBSD as a build machine with a high number of CPU cores.

EU Chat Control Regulation: Constitutional Conflicts and Bureaucratic Impasse

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The proposed EU Chat Control regulation exemplifies institutional tensions between supranational regulatory ambitions and member state constitutional frameworks; Denmark’s ministerial level advocacy for permanent mass message scanning confronts German constitutional barriers, the European Court of Human Rights precedent establishing encryption as a fundamental right, and the European Parliament’s prior rejection, creating conditions for a substantial institutional crisis should the regulation advance toward implementation.

Nginx based LRU cache for Music Player Daemon for WebDAV storage

Sun, 18 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a technical guide for configuring an Nginx based Least Recently Used (LRU) cache for Music Player Daemon (MPD) instances that utilize WebDAV for music storage. This architecture facilitates offline music playback, allowing access to cached tracks even when the WebDAV storage is inaccessible.

EdgeRouter 4 under OpenBSD with Failover WAN

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article details the configuration process for setting up OpenBSD on an EdgeRouter 4 device to function as a home router, incorporating features such as private DNS resolution for clients and failover WAN connectivity.

OpenBSD on HONOR MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a status update regarding the current support for OpenBSD on the HONOR MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon.

Forward an IP address between OpenBSD via WireGuard

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This brief article provides a footnote on the configuration of an OpenBSD machine with two IPv4 addresses: 1.2.3.4/24 and 1.2.4.5/24. In this configuration, 1.2.3.4/24 is utilized as the machine’s address and a point for the tunnel, and 1.2.4.5/24 is forwarded to the remote machine within a dedicated routing domain. Furthermore, the machine in question has an IPv6 network aaaa:bbbb:cccc::/128. One address, aaaa:bbbb:cccc::eeee:ffff/64, is utilized inside the tunnel, while aaaa:bbbb:cccc::1/64 is used on the machine.

Using GitHub Actions as a Temporary Shell

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a straightforward method for utilizing GitHub actions to create a temporary SSH shell that can be used for testing on different platforms. The conclusion of this article includes a security concern regarding this technique.

OpenBSD as VPN Client for Unifi Network Solution

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a footnote on how to set up an OpenBSD based VPN client that can connect to a VPN server run by Unifi Network Solution on Unifi USG.

Integrating Remote email2rss into macOS

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a guide for creating an AppleScript that registers as the default handler for the feed URI scheme on a local machine. The script forwards all URIs to a remote instance and registers it into rss2email. It also contains some useful notes about running rss2email on remote host.

Term of Service, Privacy Policy and Impressum

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Impressum

Every website published in Germany, Austria or Switzerland must have an impressum by law. This is ours.

Contact information

This website is supported by company Catap Solutions. If you want something deleted from this website, please ask. We prefer cooperation to litigation.

Catap Solutions UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
diese vertr. d. d. Geschäftsführer Kirill Korinskii
Hardenbergstraße 12
10623 Berlin
Deutschland
legal@catap.de

USt-IdNr.: DE320400037
eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichtes Charlottenburg (Berlin)
Handelsregisternummer HRB 196688 B

Installation of OpenBSD on Headless Server without KVM or VNC

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a guide for installing OpenBSD on a headless server without using KVM nor VNC. It assumes that you are able to boot the server in rescue mode, which is built over Linux. In addition, this article presents the ready to use script which is available at http://install.catap.net.

Installing macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard in Virtual Machines

Sun, 10 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

VMware and Parallels support macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard virtualization, though both restrict this capability to Server editions; however, differences between Server and Desktop variants remain minimal, permitting straightforward installation from retail media through simple image modification.

Quantum Computing: Engineering Constraints and Physical Limitations

Tue, 11 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Quantum computing research accelerated following Shor’s 1994 factorization algorithm invention, which promised polynomial time integer factorization capable of breaking RSA, and subsequently elliptic curve cryptography; however, three decades of development reveal fundamental engineering obstacles, qubit noise, decoherence timescales measured in nanoseconds, and threshold theorem redundancy requirements of $10^4$ to $10^6$ physical qubits per logical qubit, that render practical cryptographic attacks implausible with current or foreseeable future technology.

COVID-19 Mortality in Germany: An Alternative Statistical Analysis

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines German mortality statistics for 2016 through 2020, challenging the conventional interpretation of COVID-19 impact presented by Statistisches Bundesamt. Through analysis of age stratified mortality rates adjusted for demographic shifts, the data reveal a substantially more nuanced picture than aggregate death counts suggest.

Electt: Running Auditable and Verifiable Elections in Untrusted Environments

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We present a system for running auditable and verifiable elections in untrusted environments. Votes are anonymous since the order of candidates on a ballot sheet is random. Tellers see only the position of the candidate. Voters can check their vote. An election is auditable using blockchain log. Threshold-encryption, which is used to implement the quorum, prevents a deadlock from occurring if a minority of candidates or observers tries to sabotage the election. Candidates and observers can indicate that the election was free and fair by exposing their keys, which are used by the system to decrypt each vote. Ballot sheets are encrypted by onion routing, which has a layer with the key of the election instance, so it’s impossible for a quorum to decode the results before they have announced their decision by exposing their keys. A register of voters ensures that only verified voters can vote without compromising their identity. If there any doubts about the identity of a voter, their vote can be excluded from the election, if a quorum agrees. This system is designed to scale from one instance to a distributed system that runs over an unlimited number of instances, which can be achieved using cloud instances or smartphones belonging to voters or tellers.

Enforcing DNS-over-TLS on Local DNS Resolver with Random Upstream

Sun, 28 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides a guide for installing a local DNS resolver that enforces DNS-over-TLS to a randomly selected publicly available upstream server. The setup described respects DNS response consistency by enforcing DNSSEC if it is supported by the DNS zone, encrypts DNS traffic, and uses DNS servers from different providers. The second section of this article addresses the question of privacy.

Low Latency Atomic Operations for JVM

Fri, 15 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This article presents an implementation of atomic operations optimized for low latency in multithreaded JVM environments. The implementation achieves approximately 2x lower latency under high concurrency through adaptive backoff mechanisms in compare and swap loops.

Sleeping at JVM Thread for a Very Short Period

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This article explains why it is not possible to make a 1 nanosecond sleep in JVM. Instead, you may achieve an unguaranteed small pause which depends on the number of active threads.

Multi Producer Multi Consumer, wait-free and fixed size FIFO queue

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This concise article expounds on the implementation of a multi-producer, multi-consumer, wait-free, fixed-size FIFO queue.

About

Thu, 28 May 1987 00:00:00 +0000

Greetings,

I’m Kirill and as you may have noticed, this blog is written in the style of a LaTeX article in academic American English with occasional Commonwealth influences.¹

I am a hacker in the classic sense of the word:

A hacker is someone with an insatiable interest in trying to find out how things work […] They then take this knowledge and apply it to new things and combine them with ideas and concepts coming from other areas of knowledge and experience. […] There are people with hacker mindsets in film, music, theatre, photography, physics and so many other fields […] The term is now used everywhere for different purposes, from labelling online criminals, to pranking teenagers, to clickbait articles in public interest magazines i.e. ’life hacks'.