Introduction

Here you find answers to some questions I got asked (In alphabetical order). No real FAQ because they were not asked frequently... ;)

I am currently collecting all the questions I got asked in the past, so this page will grow from time to time.

Hacking

Are you a Hacker?

I would never give me the title "Hacker" by myself. There are some "real" hackers who say I am a hacker, so maybe I am a hacker... Sure, I really know what hacking is and I hacked some stuff in the past, but I don't care about the title.

How you started hacking?

In 1998 I disassembled and modified some EXE files included in games for the Windows operating system to make the games start without the need to insert the CD at program start. After assembling my work, the result was called a "no-disc crack" at that time. I never published this on the internet and did this only for games I have buyed legally... ;)

How can I learn how hacking works?

I recommend to learn the C programming language (Read the book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie) and how disassemblers work and what you can do with them. If you really want to learn how things work in detail I recommend to read the book "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation" written by Jon Erickson.

For disassembling binary files you should take a look at the Ghidra software reverse engineering (SRE) suite. You will, and will need to, learn some basics about the Assembler programming language.

For an easy start you may should start to learn how programming works. I recommend to learn the Python programming language first, but learning C is always a good idea. It is harder to learn C than Python, but when you know C it is very easy to learn other programming languages.

Linux

Since when do you use Linux?

I use Linux since 1999 (SuSE 6.4). In 2000 I decided to use it as my primary operating system for everything I do with computers (Gentoo before 1.0).

Which Linux distributions are you using?

I use Artix Linux on my desktops. My servers are running Alpine Linux. Both are without systemd.

Why Alpine Linux?

Alpine Linux is just so simple and easy to administrate that it makes fun to use it. I believe it is the best and most secure Linux distribution on the world. I use Alpine on my server since about 2004, I think. Before my servers were running Gentoo Linux. One of the most important thing to me is that a Linux system is not making use of systemd, instead Alpine uses OpenRC for service management.

Although Alpine is a rolling releasedistribution which makes it easy to stay up to date all the time. I loved the idea of a rolling release distribution at the time I used Gentoo as my preferred Linux distribution.

Why Artix Linux?

I really like Arch Linux, but Arch uses systemd for service management. Artix Linux is an Arch Linux based distribution without systemd. Artix uses OpenRC for service management which I really loved at the time I was a Gentoo Linux user.

Arch Linux is wonderful because it has a huge developer and user base. It provides packages for many free and open-source software projects and runs very stable for me since many years. Although Arch is a rolling release distribution, but since Arch is making use of systemd for service management I needed an alternative... Artix is the perfect alternative with the power of Arch!

Why no systemd?

Because systemd just sucks! You can read more here! I use OpenRC on my desktops and servers for service management.

Open Source

Why you prefer open source software?

Open source gives me the freedom to read and edit the code of software I am using. I can learn from other software developers how things work and benefit from contributions from others to my code.

Server

Which webserver are you using?

I use the lighttpd webserver. It is small, fast and highly customizable. It does all I need. In some cases I use nginx (not 100% free software anymore as it is owned by F5) too, but only when lighttpd is not supported by the software I run.

Website

Do you use any external analytics services like Google Analytics?

No! And yes, but I use a self-hosted instance of Matomo running at mtm.xw3.org for website access statistics. All collected data is anonymized by only saving the first two bytes of an IP address. E.g. 192.168.0.0 is stored in the Matomo database. No 3rd party services are requested on this website!

How are your photos pages (gallery) being generated?

The photo gallery is being generated using a Ruby script that takes photos from a major image and photo hosting service and stores them locally. The script is generating native Jekyll content which is 100% static and all files are delivered from the domain hanez.org. I do not use 3rd party services like a CDN on this website!

Is the code of this website available somewhere?

Not actually! I will publish it some day, but for now it is too chaotic to make it public. For me it works, but... Actually some code can be found in my xw3 project.

Why Jekyll?

Jekyll is the most comfortable static site-generator available. Sure, there are awesome alternatives written in Go or Python, but what I learned in the past, Web-Developers are addicted to Ruby (Jekyll, Rails, etc.) and they really know what is needed to create nice and powerful websites. So, I trust the "Web-Nerds"... And writing Ruby code is not that hard.

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