TECH Anyone playing around with a pi hole?

sy32478

sy32478

Veteran Member
Yep. Running it on an old Pi. Works great, caches DNS too so it speeds things up people a tiny bit and saves bandwidth. While you are getting your feet wet, stick to known good block lists focusing on known malware hosts, C2 servers, noisy log collectors (Roku!), etc.

Despite Dennis' dismissive post, with Pi Hole to black hole known bad hosts, you still only do it once but for your whole network. So all of your phones, computers, TVs, and IoT devices are protected, not just one browser on one laptop.
 
T

tom-j

Contributing Member
I ran one for a few months. It was fun to set up and play with but I got bored with it after a while.
It was simple to set up, you should be able to do it easily
 
sy32478

sy32478

Veteran Member
tom-j said:
I ran one for a few months. It was fun to set up and play with but I got bored with it after a while.
It was simple to set up, you should be able to do it easily
Click to expand...

Not understanding boredom with a DNS server. It's infrastructure, a tool like DHCP or antivirus. What bored you about it?
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
sy32478 said:
Despite Dennis' dismissive post, with Pi Hole to black hole known bad hosts, you still only do it once but for your whole network. So all of your phones, computers, TVs, and IoT devices are protected, not just one browser on one laptop.
Click to expand...
For those running from room to room, furiously surfing the web on their TVs, refrigerators, toasters, washing machines and the like, I can see it as a positive. However, your ignorance is showing WRT phones. The ONLY TIME this thing is valuable for a phone is when at home. Unfortunately, most everyone takes their phones with them when they leave the house.

Stop being a fanboi and use a little sense.
 
BassMan

BassMan

Veteran Member
I like to tinker myself, but don’t overlook the Brave browser that Dennis posted on some time back. It really makes it easy to lock stuff down, and now has an anti-fingerprinting (read: anti-tracking) feature too.

Available for Windows, iOS and Android.
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
I'll tell you why people love these things. They're absolutely fascinated by these "tiny little computers." They want to build unlimited crap around them. It's the 21st century version of dad out at his workbench. Well kids, I did all that crap in the 70's and 80's as part of my job, except that I had to build this sh*t entirely from scratch. In many cases I had to design my own interface and datacomm protocols. I have NO desire to do it again. I've had to create stuff that most of the rest of you can't even imagine, and in an industrial environment, where mistakes damage the things being built.

No, you kids run along and "play." I've done my time.
 
sy32478

sy32478

Veteran Member
Dennis Olson said:
Stop being a fanboi and use a little sense.
Click to expand...

Explain? What lacked sense? Is it not OK if I share my experience with other members?

You picked one example (cell phones) as a partial exception to question the utility of the app for phones.

Next you made a straw man argument using a caricature of someone surfing the web on every appliance to, again, be dismissive of my experience for reasons.that aren't obvious to me.

Beyond my puzzlement about your response, it is too narrowly focused. All of those internet of crap devices, printers, dehumidifiers, gas meters, CPAPs, receivers, TVs, etc. ad nauseam, chatter all over the globe without your straw man firing up a browser. DNS resolution ain't just for browsers.

Unless you've got some serious reservations about my post, I think that you are doing a disservice to members who are interested in the information.
 
T

tom-j

Contributing Member
sy32478 said:
Not understanding boredom with a DNS server. It's infrastructure, a tool like DHCP or antivirus. What bored you about it?
Click to expand...
I bought the Pi to play with. It was fun to set up the pi hole but I wanted to play with other options for the PI.
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
I don't care what you think. I have as much right to my opinion as you have to yours. And, like you, I'll express it whenever I wish.

sy32478 said:
All of those internet of crap devices, printers, dehumidifiers, gas meters, CPAPs, receivers, TVs, etc. ad nauseam, chatter all over the globe without your straw man firing up a browser. DNS resolution ain't just for browsers.
Click to expand...

And we can turn them all off if we wish. And in fact, they should never have their comms capability enabled.

If you or anyone else chooses to play with little electronic toys, feel free. I have no dog in that hunt. I DO think it's a waste of time however, though I realize how many folks like to tinker with the modern equivalent of a "cuckoo clock out in the garage."

For those who like to play, it's a neat "dad project." I don't. I did it for a living 40 years ago. (I get images of a dozen little toy PI computers hanging on nails on the wall, busily WiFi-ing their way through myriad tasks and filling one's home with RF energy.) Not me. There isn't a single thing I'd want to do with one. But see, in the 1970's, I hacked my HP-41 calculator (yes, I hacked a CALCULATOR, and programmed it in Assembly language) to make it do all kinds of cool stuff. I was way more of a geek than most here could be. I don't need to be a geek anymore. It takes far more energy than I wish to expend these days.

Take the above however you wish. I don't care.
 
N

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
You sound like a friend of ours in whose house we crashed for 5 months in 77. Kid's dad was a consulting EE who lived on a 27-foot ocean capable sailboat (they raised 5 kids on it). His dad would do research or development and mildly frequently had to pull into a port to send his designs and receive his checks.
The KID, as a college senior was doing Ph.D. level Bleeding Edge work on (please don't laugh) a KIM1 microcomputer.
 
Con-tractor

Con-tractor

The Mad in Genius
Dennis Olson said:
I'll tell you why people love these things. They're absolutely fascinated by these "tiny little computers." They want to build unlimited crap around them. It's the 21st century version of dad out at his workbench. Well kids, I did all that crap in the 70's and 80's as part of my job, except that I had to build this sh*t entirely from scratch. In many cases I had to design my own interface and datacomm protocols. I have NO desire to do it again. I've had to create stuff that most of the rest of you can't even imagine, and in an industrial environment, where mistakes damage the things being built.

No, you kids run along and "play." I've done my time.
Click to expand...
1599771510403.png
 
raven

raven

TB Fanatic
Pi projects are interesting. Maybe even a form of entertainment.
and they can help in the "learning process" to bridge the gap between
the abstract bullshit found in text books
and the nuts and bolts of how that shit really works.

This application is a basic DNS server.
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
I could WRITE some of those textbooks and TEACH the damn classes. I gots me all da lernin I be needin.
 
Con-tractor

Con-tractor

The Mad in Genius
Dennis Olson said:
I could WRITE some of those textbooks and TEACH the damn classes. I gots me all da lernin I be needin.
Click to expand...

Back in my day you didn't have 16Gb of RAM and terabytes of disk like you pussy kids. We only had 8K of RAM, and you had to type your code in BY HAND, and screw spaces that takes up valuable memory and the hell with comments in your code.... AND WE LIKED IT!!!!!!!
 
raven

raven

TB Fanatic
Dennis Olson said:
I could WRITE some of those textbooks and TEACH the damn classes. I gots me all da lernin I be needin.
Click to expand...
I did write some of the textbooks and taught all the damn classes.
I took my A+ class to the college's computer graveyard store room. Had each one drag a dead chassis out on the first day.
We spent half a day by the book and half day with the hardware.
We had fun. And they all passed the certification test. And everybody got jobs
 
Sid Vicious

Sid Vicious

Veteran Member
Dennis Olson said:
I don't care what you think. I have as much right to my opinion as you have to yours. And, like you, I'll express it whenever I wish.



And we can turn them all off if we wish. And in fact, they should never have their comms capability enabled.

If you or anyone else chooses to play with little electronic toys, feel free. I have no dog in that hunt. I DO think it's a waste of time however, though I realize how many folks like to tinker with the modern equivalent of a "cuckoo clock out in the garage."

For those who like to play, it's a neat "dad project." I don't. I did it for a living 40 years ago. (I get images of a dozen little toy PI computers hanging on nails on the wall, busily WiFi-ing their way through myriad tasks and filling one's home with RF energy.) Not me. There isn't a single thing I'd want to do with one. But see, in the 1970's, I hacked my HP-41 calculator (yes, I hacked a CALCULATOR, and programmed it in Assembly language) to make it do all kinds of cool stuff. I was way more of a geek than most here could be. I don't need to be a geek anymore. It takes far more energy than I wish to expend these days.

Take the above however you wish. I don't care.
Click to expand...

1598406938435.jpg



Oh how naive you are. You would be astounded at how many made in China devices call home regardless of "turning it off".

I bought a Pi4 when they first came out, its been running pi hole since day one. Oddly enough my REOLink cameras don't call home (China) but my Korean appliances try to call home all the time.
 
AlfaMan

AlfaMan

We're all Devo!
_______________
Macgyver said:
Thinking about setting on up.
But I'm Linux inept.
This guide seems to be pretty detailed and even a Linux cave man like me might be able to do it.

www.smarthomebeginner.com

Ultimate Pi-Hole Raspberry Pi Setup: Faster Internet in 15 min | SHB

Want to have a better online experience without ads and privacy-invading tracking codes? This Pi-Hole Raspberry Pi setup guide is the one for you.
www.smarthomebeginner.com www.smarthomebeginner.com
Click to expand...

In the OpenSuse linux distribution, Raspberry Pi is included in the software bundle. Go into YAST, hit software management, type in Raspberry Pi in the search function and the program including bootloaders is there. It's already precompiled, no command line hocus pocus needed.
I understand the tinkering aspects of your project but I'm pretty sure every current linux distribution has it as part of the OS. I haven't installed it myself, but it's there ready to use if you need it.
 
sy32478

sy32478

Veteran Member
Sid Vicious said:
View attachment 219878



Oh how naive you are. You would be astounded at how many made in China devices call home regardless of "turning it off".

I bought a Pi4 when they first came out, its been running pi hole since day one. Oddly enough my REOLink cameras don't call home (China) but my Korean appliances try to call home all the time.
Click to expand...


Over the years, I've noticed that some home and some work gear were preset to use an address registered to the manufacturer for both NTP and DNS. For consumer convenience of course.
 
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