Thursday #ToolOftheDay : this¹ battery powered Ultra-viole(n)t lamp cures UV resin in 5-10 seconds. I use it for circuit board repair, immobilizing wires and general gluing. #BananaPlugForScale

¹ https://a.aliexpress.com/_mOn9HvU

My #ToolOfTheDay is this DC and USB-PD powered soldering iron. Runs off any 12-24v barrel jack or via USB power delivery. After being disappointed by both the reliability and USB-compatibility of the popular TS-80 Iron, I'm pleased to report that this¹ far cheaper "T-12" iron has met all my criteria. It heats fast even from 12v, and its thermostat reacts instantly. Its power use drops to almost zero when idling, and it heats up instantly when needed. A wide range of tips, I started with the big honking chisel tip and may never switch to the fine tip, as I found the chisel very versatile and with power right at the tip.

¹ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005474928341.html

Cryptography gadget of the day: Javascript Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE) https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/jose/documents/ and the jose command line utility (h/t Nathan McCallum)

I appreciate this little set of (draft) standards because they codify quite a bit of best practice. The input and output formats (JSON or condensed base64url) are highly portable, and even printable, resulting in good crypto agility. The algorithm selections are limited to reasonable, recommended combinations, key sizes and padding. Proper key wrapping or key encryption is automatic and relatively effortless.

jose is such a better choice for the uninitiated than openssl and the vast troves of crap advice on Stackoverflow. It's also a decent learning tool. If there's any question about the algorithm in use, the JWA RFC7518 describes the details and operation of each in a manner more readable than most RFCs.

Looking for a tool to encrypt log files before shipping them off to NFS or S3 storage? How about creating a signed message? jose is probably going to be easier than openssl. Heck, openssl doesn't even do AEAD on the CLI anymore.

#cryptography #cli #tooloftheday #portability #cryptoagility