Following up from my last post, where I talked a bit about proxy TLS termination and third-party interception, I think it raised an obvious question: if TLS (as it is typically used today) can’t be 100% relied on to verify origin, what can?
I mentioned in a previous post that using Cloudflare’s reverse proxy services (such as “tunnels” or “proxied domains”) comes with certain security and privacy implications. Essentially, to function as a reverse proxy, CF must be able to intercept and decrypt your traffic. This Man-In-The-Middle position gives CF the ability to hypothetically capture or alter your traffic without any obvious indication.
In this post, I’d like to demonstrate how that would work.
I will be relocating my servers again in the next few months. These servers host this blog, a couple websites, my Fediverse server, and various internal services. My internal services will simply be down during this process, but for the external-facing services, I wanted something a little more elegant. Namely, a proper maintenance page.
For a while now, I’ve followed a pretty strict rule: public services are public, and private services are private.
For me, that meant that the only things on my network that were exposed to the public internet are my blog and public websites. Private services, like Home Assistant or Navidrome, are only accessible from my local network (or remotely via VPN).
Today I changed that a bit…
Can IPv6 play a role in resisting internet censorship?
I relocated last year. During the process, I tried to add my new mailing address to a banking application, however, I encountered a slight problem: the bank uses a very popular online Maps service to validate addresses and my new address was part of a newly developed neighborhood. No problem, I thought: I’ve been a Maps “local guide” for about a decade, I’ll just add the street myself. The street was even visible in the satellite image, so I just carefully traced the street and submitted the path and name to Maps. It went into the usual pending queue…
Note: Welcome to a post in my “Ramblings” category. This is category is reserved for the occasional semi-off-topic post. Today’s entry is a look at the “W” social media platform, specifically the narrative and messaging around its announcement. I typically focus on my personal hobbies and interests on the blog and avoid political topics like the plague, but occasionally the two will cross paths in way where it becomes impossible to talk about one without the other. This might be one of those times.
If you’re not interested, that’s fine. I’ll be back to my normal stuff next time!
Officially known as “W”, wsocial.eu was announced in January of this year (2026). The social media platform was introduced as not just another twitter “X” competitor, but as a “strategic instrument for democracy” and a cornerstone of European “digital sovereignty” 1.
I recently learned that the CompuServe website is not only still online, but features current events, news, and photos.
“Wait, what?!,” you may by thinking, “didn’t they go out of business in the 2000s?”
Let’s explore a bit.