Whakkee

Category: Tech

  • Bye bye Big Tech

    I’ve worked in IT for about 30 years now. I’ve seen companies come and go. Somewhat recently (the past couple years) I’ve started to dislike what I see, more and more. Of course not all IT companies are “Big Tech”, but it’s really hard to avoid it. I’m going to try though, for as much as I can, because frankly, I’m very fed up with it.

    I’m fed up with every other website telling me “we value your privacy”, and then showing me an opt-out list of hundreds of vendors they’d like to share my information with. If it’s free, you’re the product. Even when it’s not free, that seems to be the case.

    I’m fed up with algorithms that are designed to make people addicted, and to influence people. To amplify misinformation. To lure people to the political extreme right. They are influencing elections and polarising our society.

    I’m fed up with those big companies being able to switch off email or in theory my entire device, in case the US government asks them that. This isn’t even hypothetical, as Microsoft already switched off the email of the head prosecutor of the ICC.

    I’m fed up that even if Big Tech gets fined, it’s meaningless to them. They make billions of dollars, to them, it’s just an expense item. They treat employees whatever way they want and do as they please. It’s like the law doesn’t apply to them.

    I’m fed up that Big Tech doesn’t care about the environment. They keep building bigger data centers because we all “need” AI. They force people to replace their (still functional) hardware, because it no longer supports the newest OS, or because they can’t upgrade the processor, memory or storage.

    This isn’t even a complete list of what bugs me so much about them. Due to all this, I have been, and will be, moving away from several services. In the coming blog posts I’ll write more about how I’m avoiding Big Tech as much as I can.

    I realise switching to other services and hardware is not for everyone. People might lack the knowledge or money to do so, or just not have the energy. It’s also not an all-or-nothing thing. You can do as much or as little as suits you. For me, it’s a process that is sometimes frustrating, but all in all, I’m starting to enjoy more open software, more flexibility, and more independence.

  • Hacked

    As I wanted to set up my new blog, I found that past me already created a repo on GitHub1 for it. There was only an index.html with the words “Hello world!”. So far, so good. But when I used my custom domain name, I ended up on some vague gambling site, which was definitely not mine. Was I hacked? How was this possible, I set up 2FA everywhere?!

    First I checked at my domain hosting provider (Hover). Everything looked normal there. And the direct link to my GitHub Pages looked fine too. I noticed that the custom domain name in the settings of my blog’s repo wasn’t filled in, so I did that, but couldn’t save my changes. That domain name was already taken. WHAT?! This is my domain!

    I now suspect that I never filled in the custom domain name that I had, because there was no real content on the blog yet. If someone (likely a bot or a script) then scans a list with domain names, checks if they redirect to a GitHub Pages IP address, and then notices there is no actual site connected, they can fill in that domain name on another GitHub Pages repo. There they can either host their site, or more likely, set up a redirect to whatever site they want to promote.

    Luckily this can be avoided. For one, you should (apparently 😅) always make sure that your custom domain name is filled in at your repo’s settings, if you point your website to a GitHub Pages repo. Ideally, you should also verify your custom domain. That way only repositories owned by your personal account / your organization can be used to publish a GitHub Pages site to the custom domain or its immediate subdomains. Verifying my domain also meant that I could reclaim it.

    1. This site is now no longer hosted on GitHub. Instead it’s moved to WordPress, hosted by Hezner ↩︎