Editorial

The Wrong Side of Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji

On occasion I partake in online sales. These usually take the form of Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace listings and an in-person meeting to either buy or sell an item. The vast majority of the time, things go according to what’s agreed upon. But to say this environment is a cesspool is an understatement. It can bring out people intent on the shadiest of things. Today, I offer a bit of a different story…

Case Study

Fighting Through an Open Redirect Compromise

In mid November of 2025, a web property I manage had the distinction of being compromised. Locking this site down had been difficult because of how many had permission over the installation. Too many things change, too often. None of these things I could control, but when it broke, they came to me for the fix. In I.T., this is usually not a position we want to be in, but sometimes I relish this kind of challenge.

How-To
Help-Keyboard

The Strange Case of Keyboards Locking on Windows Boot (and a Fix)

As this fellow was booting up the computer, an unusual thing started to happen: the keyboard wasn’t working or initializing on boot. Not only that, but also the built-in mouse was failing. Now, if one were to connect the power, or perhaps an external USB-based mouse, the computer’s keyboard would then work. Disconnect all this, shut down the computer completely and no keyboard….

How-To
Monopoly by Christopher Dombres https://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherdombres/6481031319

Publishing Your Book DRM-Free on Amazon Kindle

News that Amazon is changing the way they offer their e-books books in Digital Rights Management (DRM) free formats. DRM is that evil force of enshittification that locks your media to a device or ecosystem as a means of protecting authors and destroying interoperability. Naturally, authors are keen on protecting their works from rampant copying, […]

News

25-25-25

This year was undoubtedly the one for the numbers freak in your life. Christmas day is said to fall on December 25, 2025 or 25/25/25. For the vast majority, this is just a mere coincidence that will never occur again, but for the meme creating numbers freak, this is nirvana. This all began last year […]

News

RustDesk Has Its Certificate Revoked

In a bizarre and damaging scenario, RustDesk (a popular open source remote access tool) saw its code-signing certificate revoked by the company that provides it; Sectigo. This then led to a chain of events where RustDesk clients couldn’t run or be configured because of Windows SmartScreen errors and virus scanner false positives; effectively making the […]