It is a sad day for me.
TheBlackshepp / TBS / bright-shadows.net has now been marked as down.
It was the site where my programmer career really started.
It was the site i got crazy and knowing about hacking, cryptography and reversing.
It was the site i met dozenz of great people in IRC.
It was the site i stole many ideas for the wechall functionality.
It was a great site.
Now they put it down because of
the new european GDPR.
I think this is a wrong move by Erik and TBS. The GDPR should protect people. Now it seems that GDPR put down a site that really helped to protect people; By teaching them how all this tech works.
It is rediculous. Every website now warns about cookies.... Hello? everyone who operates a browser should know about cookies and can disable them in the preferences. Most major browsers even offer to block only 3rd party cookies or ask you. Whats the problem?
The GDPR has almost 100 pages and all major sites just try to explain what a cookie is and that they use them .... rediculous.
Of course cookies are used... most sites need to keep some state about a session. cookies are made for that requirement.
It is the abuse of data that should be punished, not small hobby sites.
The 100 pages are not about cookies only. They are about how you handle private data.
Wechall for example does not include any 3rd party code, right?
Should wechall be required to hire a lawyer to write a terms of use and privacy implication page. Every day in fear to be sued by a person who does know nothing about http1.x-http2.0?
NO!
Wechall should reconsider how to protect indviduals from data abuse more efficiently.
- Wechall should offer functionality to hand over your own logfiles. I have never seen this on a site, but it wouldn't be the first time that we are first to implement a feature that increases security for the users.
- Wechall should make sure all your data can be erased easily. Of course in old logfiles and backups you will still be there. Everything else is technically difficult and requires a sophisticated process that is unfeasible in practice.
- Wechall should make sure your data does not get into the hands of malicious people (crackers). Have we been hacked? yes, twice. We have written about it as well. Shit happens. At least we encourage you to not reuse passwords.
- Wechall should ensure old logfiles are erased regularly, so a successful attacker has less of your data.
- Wechall should implement encryption of private messages so only you and your friend do know what you write about
These are things that could be done from our side to enhance your privacy.
But i will
not put a js popup that explains what a cookie is
Anyway, we should not give up. Instead we should face this fear with a smile and continue to create hobby websites, blogs and whatnot. One day, courts will say i am right. Cookies are not a problem unless they are exchanged with companies to identify indivuduals and harm their privacy.
For TBS it might be problematic that GoogleAdwords has been added. It is a 3rd party that is known to target individuals.
I hope they will hand over the project to dloser and me, so we can rebuild what has been a starting point for many great minds, without ads and with a working signup page, and even do the manual solution checking of linux exploits and other challs.
gizmore