Pi-Hole DNS

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Mark Urbin

Today’s tech advice: If you aren’t running Pi-hole, you should be.

Pi-hole is a locally run, open source, DNS sinkhole. It blocks ads and trackers. It also will provide some measure of improved network performance for delivering DNS results stored locally. It also prevents your ISP from collecting your DNS queries to sell for marketing purposes.

Seriously, you shouldn’t be using the DNS provided by your ISP. I suggesting using a non-tracking DNS, such as Cloudflare (1.1.1.1). You can configure Pi-hole to use Cloudflare or a number of other external DNS options. On an ‘average’ day, at least 30% of the DNS calls on my home network are serviced locally by Pi-hole and don’t leave the building.

You will also see a performance increase due to your browser not servicing the massive amounts of ads that Pi-hole will block.

Pi-hole also filters out ‘malicious’ domains, some of which will pop up from a hijacked ad on another site. This provides a level of security against malware and spyware. Although, many people intentionally log into spyware sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Plus various IoT devices like to phone home with usage data and anything else they can sniff. Roku and Sonos devices are constantly in the blocked list for my instance of Pi-hole.

It’s fairly easy to set up. I ran it on an old system running Linux for years. Recently moved to a Raspberry Pi 4. It will take some basic Linux skills to do that. Worth it if you want a dedicated local DNS with a static IP address. You can also pick up a Pi 4 or 5 for around $100, so it’s a fairly low cost option.

There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to set up and enhance Pi-Hole. I’ll list some interesting ones later.

Filed under: cybersecurity, Geek Skills | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

GSM vs. CDMA

Posted on August 13, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Comment wise, one of the most popular posts here is about Cell Phone technology.  The comments have drifted in to cell phone protocols.

There are two main protocols, CDMA and GSM. CDMA is a legacy protocol only used here in the US. The rest of the world uses GSM.  This is an issue for hardware manufacturers, since the phone has to be built to support one or the other.

At least two of the major US carriers, Sprint and Verizon, still use CDMA.  So there still is a fairly large market for phones designed to use CDMA.

AT&T bit the bullet years back and coverted their network to GSM.  This probably gives them a slight advantage in pricing when buying phone in bulk from manufactures.  It also allows them to compete in the International market, since their phones will operate outside the CONUS.

Another advantage to GSM is the SIM card.  The part of the phone that identifies it to the network is designed to be an enduser replaceable device.  This makes the actual phone independent of the network (something that gives Verizon execs and Steve Jobs nightmares).

My iPhone, and my previous phone are both GSM devices, so I was able to take then SIM from my iPhone (Apple bricked it for about 12 hours) and put in my RAZR phone.  You can’t do that with a CDMA device.

Just from a technical, networking engineer viewpoint, my vote goes for GSM.

Filed under: cell phone tech | Tagged: , , , , | 7 Comments »