Security on Ilya Rusalowski Hub

ykvault: Stop Storing API Tokens as Plaintext

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Are you still keeping API tokens in ~/.secrets? Any app you install can read them. ykvault encrypts every secret with a YubiKey challenge-response key — each get/set requires a physical touch, and the encrypted files are useless without your key.

Hardware-backed SSH keys end to end: YubiKey, PIV, software alternatives, and where SSH CAs fit in

Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A working guide to using a YubiKey for SSH on a real Linux fleet — the four knobs (resident, touch, PIN, agent), a four-mode policy for root and Ansible, software-only alternatives, and where SSH CAs fit in.

SSH Tunnel Magic: Your SSH Already Is Tailscale

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

SSH punching for everyone who only knows ssh user@host — how -D replaces a corporate VPN, -R replaces a mesh VPN for NAT’d boxes, and -L forwards Unix sockets. 3 flags, 3 bonuses, 1 man page.

180 Breaches a Second: How Software Broke Its Promise, and the Radical Fix Hiding in Plain Sight

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

180 accounts are breached every second — and most of it comes down to reused passwords and missing MFA. A look at the software quality collapse behind the headlines, and why the fix is the same infrastructure-level move HTTPS once made: passkeys, on-device DLP, and capability-scoped AI agents.

When TLS 1.3 Silently Dies Inside Your Android Proxy

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A post-mortem of intermittent HTTPS failures across a mobile proxy fleet: TLS 1.3 handshakes silently dying on memory-starved Android devices — large multi-packet handshake messages, inflated by post-quantum key shares, stressing proxy buffers under memory pressure.

Another Ubuntu Bug With a Stopgap Fix: apt-get update Hangs for Hours

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

apt-get update randomly hangs for hours on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS — known since 22.04, still not fixed. Worst part: it silently blocks unattended-upgrades, so your servers stop receiving security updates. The ‘fix’ is a cron job that kills stuck apt processes.