SSH.chat, Integration, Matrix, IPv6, Briar

1. Found interesting project, ssh.chat (@ ssh.chat) , which is awesome, it's actually exactly what I've been looking for. Small private chat, which you can connect using your SSH keys. Nice option to run everything on self-hosted secure platform. As example in docker on own decidated docker host server.

2. Can't buy integration (@ martinflowler.com) - Usually technical part of system integration is the small part. Logical part is the major challenge, because someone should decide what they actually want (in detail). Business as usual. I've been just working with project where they wanted very simple standard solution, and a few more extra requirements to logically mangle the data started to roll in. Oh joy! We don't like True, we want it to be TRUE, and so on. All of these as really slow "there's a bug" trickle. When the requirement wasn't specified anywhere. Instead of simple technical export, they after all wanted really complex logical data transformation. And then they start asking how exporting data can be so slow and expensive. Ha.

3. Matrix encryption, message retention (on server (available to client), in server database (maybe not available to client), clients own history database (sometimes called cache), different devices, key backups on server, key / message exports / imports). It's all complicated. I decided that I'm not going to get involved with any of those discussions anymore. DRY. It's all documented and different clients work differently. Topic is also full of complex traps, so it's almost impossible to give "correct simple answer" because it's always contradicted by some exception.

4. Just noticed that Element Android (Matrix) client is totally broken. It doesn't show any warning to users when encrypted channel receives plaintext messages without signature. Those look just as good an authentic as correctly signed messages. There are also many flaws with cross-signing, channel encryption, etc. Things seem to be just as broken, as everything usually is. Which usually means bad specification and implementation, unfortunately. Btw. These things have been broken for quite a while, I did expect the usual response. Oh ss... check again fixed. But as mentioned, some organizations work differently than other organizations. And then there are the big organizations which usually don't give a bleep about anything, as I've mentioned earlier.

5. Lots of whining that IPv6 doesn't provide equivalent for IPv4 127/8. One workaround is to assign ULA address(es) for the local loopback as necessary. "lo: inet6 fd1e:599b:3114:10::1/128; 64 bytes from fd1e:599b:3114:10::1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.053 ms"; and now it works. Of course the standard way is using the 127/8 in IPv6 format: ::ffff:127.0.0.0/104.

6. If I would have a lot of extra time and energy, I would write a Briar Connector bot. IT would allow initiating and creating new Briar sessions via Briar alone, which currently isn't possible. It would allow inviting / connecting users without out of band key exchange which is currently required. Making Briar to work like most of other messengers. Current design needs both parties to share their public keys in public chat or board before they can connect via Briar, and that's not always desirable. I've asked for this feature from Briar development team a few times, and they say, they don't want to support this feature. Which means that the bot should be useful.

7. One thing which has been really annoying me, is how hard many windowing systems make to move a window. I want to move an off screen window with keyboard alone to the screen. It totally sucks with Windows and Linux. There's no simple sane and reliable way to move a window. Quiz question, how do you do it? Don't know, excellent, it shouldn't be so hard. Especially that move is disabled if window is full screen or maximized. So first you have to select the window, then unmaximize / end full screen mode, then move and even then you'll need to hit cursor button once before the window actually sticks to mouse.

8. Spent quite a while thinking which game it was with that beautiful ambient theme music while harvesting. And it's Star Control II - Ur-Quan Masters (@ Wikipedia) the real classic. One of the games with most awesome and memorable music!

9. Very enjoyable flashback moment. Yet I naturally immediately remembered this amazing Amiga tracker tune by name: Space Debris (@ markuskaarlonen.com).

2023-02-26