Saturday, April 6, 2024
Apr 6 (Sat) – Update
Yesterday went like this:
![update-post-it.png](http://shn.mywire.org/fp-content/images/.thumbs/update-post-it.png)
.
The computer project I’ve been working on is a VPN monitor. It’s a small chunk of code that periodically checks a few things and notifies me if any of the checks fail. My preference is to check on things from time to time instead of trusting that they’re working.
.
The VPN monitor first checks to see that two required software utilities are installed. It then checks if the computer is connected to the LAN, and that there’s an internet connection. It sends a pop-up message to a corner of the computer screen that tells me if any of those checks fail.
.
If they’re good the monitor moves on. It checks to see if my VPN is connected, that one and only one ‘internet phone book’ is being used to look up internet addresses, and that the phone book it’s using belongs to my VPN service and NOT my internet service provider. All those checks are done silently in the background. To be thorough, it does ten random phone book lookups, one second between each one. It sends a pop-up message to a corner of the computer screen if any of those checks fail. Failure may mean there’s ‘a leak’ that personal data could get through.
.
![24-04-06-bpn-monitor.jpg](http://shn.mywire.org/fp-content/images/.thumbs/24-04-06-bpn-monitor.jpg)
.
It’s time for breakfast. Cheers.