One thing that stands out here in Tanzania (yupp, I’m still here, greetings from Zanzibar!) is the huge wealth gap. Tourists can easily pay European prices at restaurants and hotels. Wealthy locals drive big SUVs and own generous houses (and other real estate). But many Tanzanians live in tremendously poor conditions, especially in rural areas. …
Author Archives: michael
Usambara Mountains [en]
After two weeks, I’ve left Kigamboni behind (for now) and started to travel north-west. First stop: Usambara mountains. A friend recommended a good guide, Subira from Kigamboni-Eco-Cultural Tours. She is native to the Usambara region, and you can reach her via phone/WhatsApp at +255627944103 or via email at kigamboniecoculturaltours@gmail.com. Here’s some of our impressions… Bus …
Kite Kigamboni [en]
I’ve brought my kite equipment to Tanzania, so I can do some kiting over on Zanzibar in a couple of weeks. Originally I didn’t plan to kite on the mainland. But when visiting the beach in Kigamboni, I was happy to realize that it was somewhat windy. I didn’t see any other kiters or wind …
Africa! [en]
I’m gonna be in Tanzania for the next few weeks. This is my first time in Sub-Saharan Afrika. Let’s hope that I don’t turn into this mamafat guy. I’ve arrived almost 2 weeks ago and I’ve been staying with a friend in Kigamboni. That’s a suburb of Dar es Salaam, but separated from the city …
Fall of Civilizations [en]
A while ago, the YouTube algorithm suggested an episode of the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Not exactly sure why, because I rarely watch history topics online. (I do sometimes read up on history topics on Wikipedia, so maybe that’s why? Although I cannot see any obvious 3rd-party tracking code on Wikipedia.) Even more rarely do …
DIN vs Denkmalschutz [en]
The most German thing I’ve seen in a while: The stairs are closed, because the steps do not comply to the DIN standard.But they cannot be reconstructed, because they are under a preservation order. That’s almost as German as Stackenblochen, but probably more authentic.
XSS Demo [en]
Finally some good use for my new infrastructure. I’ve had this small Angular app lying around, which I wrote for a presentation/demo on XSS a couple of years ago. So far, I’ve run it locally to demonstrate XSS vulnerabilities and how to exploit them. Now I have a place to put it and share it …
The B in BYOK stands for Bullshit [en]
I’ve recently encountered someone, who insisted on a Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) setup for compliance reason. I’ve always been skeptical about that and I didn’t have to search long for confirmation. This is what the Wikipedia article on BYOK has to say: […] a cloud computing security marketing model […] […] gives the enterprise the perceived control …
Let’s Revoke! [en]
Getting TLS certificates from Let’s Encrypt is easy, but that’s just part of the story. It may sound paranoid, but being able to revoke certs is almost equally important. The premise is that there’s always a chance that your private keys will leak. Maybe it will never happen to me, but it will eventually happen …
Let’s Encrypt! [en]
… is where I’m getting the TLS certificates for this blog nowadays (after moving away from CAcert). I’ve been using Let’s Encrypt at work now and then. Many colleagues in my department are heavy users and my employer is a sponsor. So I knew what to expect and how to get started. Nevertheless, here’s a …