It was the early 2000s and I was sitting there with a massive brick from Microsoft Press.1 The proud price back then: 129 Deutsche Mark. I flipped through it and felt a déjà vu: I knew these pages! Not in terms of content, but the layout, the structure, the examples, even the icons in the side notes: These were the lost manuals of the 1990s! Read more

Security through obscurity1 is not working. This is not an allegation, it is a proven fact. Today’s proof has a particularly large impact on worldwide Microsoft Windows installations. The Windows Security Centre (WSC) API2 has been made to accept any program as an anti-virus solution. The WSC works as follows: If a manufacturer of an AV security solution wants to install his snakeoil, he/she first has to be able to switch off the anti-tempering mechanisms so that it is not identified as malware. Read more

Yes, I have a passion for exotic languages. This time I experimented with Purebasic1 and wanted to see how quickly a robust, multi-threaded HTTP REST API could be created. Cross-platform for Linux, Windows and OS X, free of additional dependencies as a single-file binary behind a reverse proxy that takes care of everything with TLS and load balancing. Read more

A few years ago, I introduced Enroute1 and was immediately excited.2 For the first time, there is an ‘uncluttered’ app for both (Linux) desktop and mobile devices for VFR navigation and planning. And it’s free and open source and covers all of Europe. A lot of progress has been made since then and I have been able to thoroughly test the operational capability of Enroute on various trips. Read more