OpenBSD under QEMU
Architecture specific notes for OpenBSD guests under QEMU, with working command lines where installation succeeds and failure points where it does not.
Kirill's journal
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Hellishly Slow Level 13 DEFLATE Compression
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
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…
Hugo Site Publishing with Respectful Caching and IndexNow Submission
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,…
A List of Movies Where Life Is Messy, Unglamorous, and Without the Upgrade
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
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
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…
Abliterated Large Language Models Treat Users as Capable Adults
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
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
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
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…
Nginx based LRU cache for Music Player Daemon for WebDAV storage
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
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
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
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…
Using GitHub Actions as a Temporary Shell
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
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
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
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…
Installation of OpenBSD on Headless Server without KVM or VNC
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
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
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…
COVID-19 Mortality in Germany: An Alternative Statistical Analysis
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
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…
Enforcing DNS-over-TLS on Local DNS Resolver with Random Upstream
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
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
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
This concise article expounds on the implementation of a multi-producer, multi-consumer, wait-free, fixed-size FIFO queue.
About
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…