37C3 and New Year’s Eve 2023
Another one from the vaults. The 37C3 conference took place in
December, 2023. This report was mostly written in January, 2024.
Mostly finished it at night in my cottage between 28 and 29th
December, then edited and added some stuff in July, 2025. So… Only
1.5 years late?

It was a little ironic, and a little sad, that I was finishing the
37C3 report during 38C3. I didn’t manage to get any tickets for me and
#3 for 38C3 and had to make do with watching the stream.

The links to the talks go to [C … ⌘ Read more

gomdn: Yet another Static Site Generator
Yet another Static Site Generator (SSG), but this one is mine.

It’s a stupidly simple Go program ( wc says 229 lines), more like a
hack, really, but I don’t need something like Hugo. Most of the real
work is done by the goldmark package, of course. This is mostly just a
wrapper, deciding if something needs to be rebuilt.

I’ve been using a Perl script together with cmark (originally
Markdown.pl) since forever. And before that the old [txt2tags](htt … ⌘ Read more

Status 2025-07-21
Morning, computer! Spending my days off trying to figure things out.
Some of them will occur in this post. I think best when I’m writing,
after all.

I’m back from a short vacation since a couple of weeks. I’m still
going to take a few days off every week for a while. I need the break.
It’s been way too many 12-16 hour workdays. I’m nominally working 80%
(~6 hour days), so I figure I’ve been working a lot for free.

Yeah, well, I like the TKey project to succeed. The ideas behind it
have implicatio … ⌘ Read more

TKey: The Next Generation
Not speaking for my employer, just as an interested developer in an
interesting open source project.

As you might have noticed, the platform repo of the Tillitis TKey has
some alpha tags for the next generation, Castor:

https://github.com/tillitis/tillitis-key1/tags

An alpha tag means that all planned features for the platform are in
place, but there’s not yet a complete audit and a lot of testing … ⌘ Read more

Satechi X1 Slim
I bought a Satechi X1 Slim for dad’s iPad about a year ago. It’s a 60%
scissor switch Bluetooth keyboard that you can use wired (USB-C), too
(Fn + Eject). The feel is rather close to the Apple Magic Keyboard.
Yeah, not even mechanical! I know, I know.

For reasons dad’s not using this keyboard so when I recently visited I
brought it back with me. It’s decent enough but in the ISO version
some keys on the right side, close to the return key, are … ⌘ Read more

VPS troubles and the weekend
This weekend I went to the cottage with P on Friday. I hoped I would
have a nice weekend reading in front of the wood stove, but I had also
planned to spend at least a few hours trying to configure Maddy as the
new mail server for hack.org et al.

Then the web server I moved to the new VPS died. Again. I connected to
the VNC console and, like before, the Linux kernel couldn’t find its
root disk. A simple:

# mount /dev/vda2 /sysroot; exit

in the emergency shell solved thi … ⌘ Read more

foss-north 2025
I attended foss-north, a free / open source conference covering both
software and hardware from the technical perspective, at Chalmers
Conference Center in Gothenburg on April 14 & 15. A great conference.
Lots of interesting talks:

https://foss-north.se/2025/speakers-and-talks.html

My own presentation was “Forking QEMU to emulate and secure the
Tillitis TKey”. Recording is here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCsP5ti4-9o] … ⌘ Read more

Computers in school (updated)

A much shorter version of this post was initially published on
2022-05-23 (Pungenday, the 70 day of Discord in the YOLD 3188) in my
gemlog at:

gemini://gem.hack.org/log/computers-in-school.gmi

The text has been edited after speaking with some old school mates and
trying to remember more. I also added a few photos.

When I started upper secondary school as a sixteen year-old in 1988 my
school had what I think were IBM PC/XT computers, one classroom of
… ⌘ Read more

Computers in school (updated)

A much shorter version of this post was initially published on
2022-05-23 (Pungenday, the 70 day of Discord in the YOLD 3188) in my
gemlog at:

gemini://gem.hack.org/log/computers-in-school.gmi

The text has been edited after speaking with some old school mates and
trying to remember more. I also added a few photos.

When I started upper secondary school as a sixteen year-old in 1988 my
school had wha … ⌘ Read more

The return of the tilde
As some of you may have noticed my web page is now under /~mc instead
of just /mc. This is a return to olden times.

The Apache web server, and probably many other web servers, had a
simple way of adding personal web pages for local users. This meant
that an URL ending with ~mc led directly to a subdirectory of user
mc’s home directory. Whatever they put in that directory was
immediately available on the Intertubes! Neat, huh?

We need to bring this back to the modern net! Many tilde pubnixe … ⌘ Read more

Computers in school

A version of this post was initially published on 2022-05-23
(Pungenday, the 70 day of Discord in the YOLD 3188) in my gemlog at:

gemini://gem.hack.org/log/computers-in-school.gmi

The text has been edited after speaking with some old school mates and
trying to remember more. I also added a few photos.

When I started upper secondary school as a sixteen year-old in 1988 my
school had what I think were IBM PC/XT computers, one classroom of
16(?) computers with co … ⌘ Read more

FOSDEM 2025
I recently attended the large Free and Open Source Software conference
FOSDEM 2025 in Brussels, Belgium. I went there by train, of course,
via Copenhagen, Hamburg, and Cologne. The same route back.

Image

I lived in the rather expensive, allegedly fancy hotel Le Châtelain in
Brussels. It was really not that fancy, but they had a … ⌘ Read more

Datalagring, igen!
Some of my usual readers will have to excuse me. This post will be in
Swedish. It’s about proposed Swedish legislation for forcing someone
who offers a message system to the public to cooperate with the law.

— — —

• Första version: 2025-03-10 07:55
  
• Ändrad: 2025-03-12 18:01 +0100: Listan i “En bugg?” hade automatiskt
  numrerats av blogverktyget och HTML så poängen försvann. Nu citerad
  mer korrekt där det framgår att “1.” är borttagen.
  

Nytt lagförslag: Även chatsystem ska va … ⌘ Read more

Datalagring, igen!
Some of my usual readers will have to excuse me. This post will be in
Swedish. It’s about proposed Swedish legislation for forcing someone
who offers a message system to the public to cooperate with the law.

— — —

Nytt lagförslag: Även chatsystem ska vara “anpassningsskyldiga” för
hemlig avlyssning och hemlig övervakning!

Det är väl ingen överraskning bland mina läsare vad jag tycker om det.
Går förslaget igenom gör vi det mer komplicerat för vanliga användare
att meddela sig med varan … ⌘ Read more

TKey SSH CA
I wrote a stupidly simple SSH certificate authority that can you can
use directly over SSH to buy new certificates. It can be used with a
Tillitis TKey both for the private key of the CA itself and for the
user authentication to get a SSH certificate:

https://github.com/tillitis/tkey-ssh-ca

SSH certificates, as you my know, is a way of using not just key pairs
for user authentication, but also solving the problem of public key
distribution … ⌘ Read more

TKey SSH CA
I wrote a stupidly simple SSH certificate authority that can you can
use directly over SSH to buy new certificates. It can be used with a
Tillitis TKey both for the private key of the CA itself and for the
user authentication to get a SSH certificate:

https://github.com/tillitis/tkey-ssh-ca

SSH certificates, as you my know, is a way of using not just key pairs
for user authentication, but also solving the problem of public key
distribution … ⌘ Read more

On my way to FOSDEM 2025
I’m leaving by train for FOSDEM 2025 in Brussels, Belgium tomorrow
morning, arriving tomorrow evening, Goddess willing.

During FOSDEM I’ll probably mostly be in the Security devroom.

My presentation about the Tillitis TKey is on Saturday at 14:30.

I’m bringing some TKeys, both enduser and unlocked, and a couple of
TKey flash programmers if you want to … ⌘ Read more

Living together: Reflections on collective living
[A version of this post was initially published on 2022-05-30 (Setting
Orange, the 4 day of Confusion in the YOLD 3188) in my gemlog at:

gemini://gem.hack.org/log/collectives.gmi

It’s been slightly edited and a few photos added.

Posted on the blog on 2024-12-15 02:33 +0100. Later updated with how
Area 41 ended.]

I dreamt about Dial House last night. I’ve never been there, but it
was like I belonged, like I was meant to be th … ⌘ Read more

Living together: Reflections on collective living
[A version of this post was initially published on 2022-05-30 (Setting
Orange, the 4 day of Confusion in the YOLD 3188) in my gemlog at:

gemini://gem.hack.org/log/collectives.gmi

It’s been slightly edited and a few photos added.]

I dreamt about Dial House last night. I’ve never been there, but it
was like I belonged, like I was meant to be there.

Last I heard anything about Dial House they were trying to gather
enough money … ⌘ Read more

The Uniform
[Based on a story I wrote during upper-secondary school based on real
events. I translated it recently from Swedish and edited some of it. I
removed most (all?) elements of fiction.

Not a typical night, since it’s at an event in another city, but it
gives a taste of what partying in, say, 1989(?) was like. And yes, I
really usually drank two bottles of wine during a pre-party in those
days. Not unusual in the crowd I was hanging out with, I’m afraid.]

I was maybe 17 or 18. I was going to Härnösand, two train sto … ⌘ Read more

sec-t 2024
[This has been in my draft folder since September. Sorry! It’s been a
few months with ups and downs, mostly downs. Energy to spend time on
blogging has been low. Hell, energy to do much of anything has been
low. I’m trying to clean out the drafts folder and will post more
stuff.]

I attended the security conference sec-t 2024 in Stockholm the other
week. I held a presentation during the Community Event, Wednesday
September 11: “Verifying the Tillitis TKey”.

The TKey uses a novel way of helpin … ⌘ Read more

Experiment in Digital minimalism
I recently read Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism. It really
resonated with me, despite (or because of?) being glued to my computer
many hours of the day.

Cal suggests a month of digital decluttering, at first cutting off
everything that your job and other obligations don’t depend on. At the
end of the month you evaluate what, if anything, is to be let back
inside.

I did a decluttering plan for April. It ended up being an ongoing
project when I’m writing this in June.

Status 2024-06-08
Evening, hackers! I feel a column coming on!

TL;DR: In which we learn about the EU parliament election, some
ruminations about the death of XMPP, MC’s flat being without drains
for two months, a visit at the Lund Linux Conference, another at the
Security Fest conference, fighting against a Supermicro server, and
some other recent shenanigans,

I voted today. Yes, I know. The EU is still a strange marvel of
functional bureaucracy and not the federated worker’s Union of Europe
we all would lik … ⌘ Read more

Dream Setup
I love Daniel Bogan’s Uses This blog, even though it seems a bit Apple
heavy at times. People sharing what tools, both hardware and software,
that work for them is very helpful. A lot of things I never knew
about came from this or similar sites, or just people’s own home pages
copying Uses This’ questions and giving their own answers.

I love to see photos of people’s setup, like Reddit’s
/r/battlestations or the incredibly detailed interviews at … ⌘ Read more

About death
I’m on a train again. This time I’m going home from Hudiksvall after a
grueling weekend.

I went from Malmö on Thursday morning and worked the entire day on
trains. I arrived in Ljusdal after close to nine hours. I checked in
at the only hotel in town again and, after a quick meal and glass of
wine, went over to a very sad dad with a bottle of Macallan. We didn’t
empty it but we sure tried. I got back to the hotel pretty late.
Wasn’t able to sleep much.

The day after it was my dad’s wife’s funeral. Met up at dad’s … ⌘ Read more

Status 2024-02-25
Status report again!

Image

Sitting in front of the wood stove in my country cottage. It’s nice
and quiet. Meanwhile it seems NordicFuzzCon is going on in Malmö.
4,000 furries. I had no idea! That seems fun!

On the other hand I just read that at least 10,000 were protesting in
Malmö today against the Israel-Palestine conflict. I’ve seen the much
smaller protest … ⌘ Read more

Presentation at Sundsgymnasiet school
I was invited by Mats, a teacher at the Sundsgymnasiet school in
Vellinge, to give a talk to his students, all three years of the
Technical Programme. Sundsgymnasiet is an upper secondary school,
probably what in the US would be called senior highschool, with
students normally starting in the year they turn 16 and finishing
at 19.

I didn’t know what to expect, really. Mats told me I could talk about
whatever I wanted, so of course I talked about … ⌘ Read more

Keyboard layouts
I’ve updated my article about keyboard layouts with XKB after 13
years!

https://hack.org/mc/writings/xkb.html

I’ve edited it so the focus is on the layouts if you just want to grab
them and don’t need any handholding. Also added Thinkpad layouts along
with the original HHKB layouts.

It now also includes instructions for use with the River and Sway
Wayland compositors as well as X11.

I will probably update it soon with some images of different Thinkpad
keyboards. ⌘ Read more

Laptop stand
We have a decent 3D printer (Prusa MK4) at dayjob so we printed some
foldable(!) laptop stands. Here they are:

Image

Here’s my laptop on the stands:

Image

It’s printed in PLA and printed in one piece! ⌘ Read more

Status 2024-01-29
Friday is my day off from work, as usual. So when I’m typing this I’m
in front of the hackstation (not a battlestation, obviously) with my
third cup of coffee, writing an update again.

I’ve been doing these status updates on my Gemini log, but I’m
increasingly aware of the dropping amounts of traffic, so I’m thinking
about doing them on the blog instead, but see below for some thoughts
on Gemini.

In which I speak about an intense week, feeling good(?), spending … ⌘ Read more

MC in the US: OSFC, SF, Seattle, Microsoft

Image

I attended the Open Source Firmware Conference (OSFC) on Oct 10-12 in
Sunnyvale, spent a long weekend in San Francisco, took a very long
train ride to Seattle, spent a week in the Seattle area, and held an
intimate talk at Microsoft. Managed to meet friends, drink some nice
beverages, and even see a show but came home with a heavy heart. Then
tried to relax in the cottage.

Tillitis TKey
The Tillitis TKey, which I first wrote about in September last year,
is now available for sale at the the Tillitis webshop.

The TKey is a small bare-bones RISC-V computer in a USB stick form
factor with no persistent storage that measures apps uploaded to it
and derives a deterministic secret every time the same app is started.
You can use it, for instance, as a security token to keep your private
key and do signing operations. Everyt … ⌘ Read more

H3: Instead of C3
[Updated with correct Gemlog link.]

A version of this was posted on on 2023-01-06 but I thought it might
also fit here. Go to my gemlog for somewhat more personal takes and
see what I publish first. IPv6 only!

gemini://gem.hack.org/mc/log/

As long-time readers know I have participated in the Chaos
Communication Congress (C3) in Germany every year since 2008.

Since C3 was cancelled this year I thought I’d arrange a very small
conference of my own. I would at least try to gather some friends and
acquaintances … ⌘ Read more

H3: Instead of C3
A version of this was posted on on 2023-01-06 but I thought it might
also fit here. Go to my gemlog for somewhat more personal takes and
see what I publish first. IPv6 only!

gemini://gem.hack.org/log/

As long-time readers know I have participated in the Chaos
Communication Congress (C3) in Germany every year since 2008.

Since C3 was cancelled this year I thought I’d arrange a very small
conference of my own. I would at least try to gather some friends and
acquaintances in chat and video conference and watch t … ⌘ Read more

Tillitis Key 1
The secret project I’ve been mentioning in my gemlog is out!

This week we presented the Tillitis Key 1 at the Open Source Firmware\
Conference (OSFC). What we unveiled is a new kind of USB security
stick and a new company, a sister company to Mullvad VPN: Tillitis.

The stick is a small computer that can load and run small programs
uploded to it from a host computer. It always measures … ⌘ Read more

Gemini capsule
Gemini is a lightweight Internet protocol. It’s heavier than Gopher
but lighter than HTTP(S), especially if combined with all other web
technologies. The name makes sense if Gopher is Project Mercury and
the web is the Apollo program.

One of its uses is to serve gemtext, which is a lightweight
Markdown-like markup language, instead of HTML. Gemini browsers don’t
have support for neither Javascript, nor CSS, nor any of the other new
web technologies. It can be beautiful anyway, s … ⌘ Read more

Gemini capsule
Gemini is a lightweight Internet
protocol. It’s heavier than Gopher but a bit lighter than HTTP(S).
It’s the Gemini programme if Gopher is Mercury and HTTP is Atlas.

One of its uses is to serve gemtext, which is a lightweight
Markdown-like markup language, instead of HTML. Gemini browsers don’t
have support for neither Javascript, nor CSS, nor any of the other new
web technologies. It can be beautiful anyway, see for instance
[Lagrange]( [http … ⌘ Read more

From Netnod to Mullvad
Tomorrow is my last day at Netnod after seven years. While at Netnod I
have mostly spent my time helping build several different anycast DNS
solutions, but I also did some IX provisioning stuff, some security
work, and in some small way also helped bring the Network Time\
Security protocol forward.

A few years back I was the team leader for the develop … ⌘ Read more

Chatcontrol, searching messages for illegal content
On July 6 the EU parliament voted yes to a proposal from the EU\
commission (PDF) on a temporary law to allow services to automatically
search messages for suspicious content with a focus on child
exploitation.

We have quite strict confidentiality laws within EU even when it comes
to electronic communication. Its current basis is the … ⌘ Read more

YOLD 3186 ⌘ Read more…

Religion ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/religion.html

Religion ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/religion.html

Videotex and online services ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/videotex.html

Tre knappar! Jag vill ha tre knappar! ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/treknappars.html

Incompatible Timesharing System ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/its.html

IPsec at FSCONS 2012 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/fscons2012-2.html

27C3: 27th Chaos Communication Congress ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/27c3.html

OE IPsec part 3 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/ipsec-dns3.html

New xcb-util breaks mcwm ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/mcwm9.html

Lätt asocial MC, FSCONS och 27C3 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/asocial.html

IPsec HOWTO ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/ipseckey-howto.html

HHKB-möte ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/hhkb-hhkb.html

org-static-blog ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/org-static-blog.html

Hacker school at Internet discovery day ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/hackerschool.html

Local newspaper writes about hacker/maker culture ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/sydsvenskan-hackers.html

BTNS Progress Report 4 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/btns4.html

Jaeger-LeCoultre ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/jlc.html

CST L-Trac-X ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/cst-ltracx.html

Gislövs läge ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/gislov.html

Tangentbordsmappningar i FreeBSD-konsollen (och några till X) ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/freebsd-console.html

FreeBSD 7.2 på Thinkpad X60s ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/freebsd-x60s.html

Errors in press release about BTNS project ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/btns2.html

No more X11! ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/no-more-x11.html

Apple Photos and photo captions ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/apple-photos.html

mcwm ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/mcwm.html

Firefox som annan användare ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/firefox-annan-user.html

MC turns 40 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/mc-40.html

Ändra tangentbordslayout med XKB ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/xkb.html

Experiments with Raspberry Pis ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/raspis.html

Going native on a Chromebook ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/native-chromebook.html

Genesi Efika MX Smartbook ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/smartbook.html

FSCONS 2011 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/fscons2011.html

Teleservice offers IPv6 over 6rd ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/6rd.html

Fotoalbumgeneratorn simgal ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/fotoalbum2.html

Datorer till folket! Nät åt alla! ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/datorer-till-folket.html

Symbolics and the Lisp machines ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/symbolics.html

Locked Shields 2019 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/locked-shields-2019.html

Fiber to the (weekend) home ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/ftth.html

racoonctl talks to racoon ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/ipsec-dns8.html

IPv6, autokonfiguration och DNS ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/radns.html

radns, del 3 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/radns3.html

Rockbox på SanDisk Sansa Clip + ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/sansa-rockbox.html

Tangentbordsmappning i FreeBSD, del 2 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/freebsd-console2.html

Hackjunta #1 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/hackjunta.html

MC får stipendium? ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/internetfonden.html

Delete your Facebook account ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/facebook.html

My Window Manager Gets Icons ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/mcwm11.html

JohnnyLove and the Nano Technology ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/johnny-love-coat.html

Ubuntu LTS: Unity, Sugar and Wayland ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/ubuntu.html

Visiting Aida ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/aida.html

µWM — Another XCB-based Stacking Window Manager ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/uwm.html

Barcelona ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/barcelona2013.html

Multi-user chat, SCTP och nätverksbibliotek ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/chat-sctp.html

Minix på Atari ST ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/minix.html

Happy Hacking Keyboard och XKB ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/hhkb3.html

Fönsterhanteraren mcwm, del två ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/mcwm2.html

Open Source Days 2010 ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/osd2010.html

Using DuckDuckGo as a Tor Hidden Service in Firefox search box ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/duckduckgo-tor.html

IPv6 tunnel from HE with dynamic endpoint on FreeBSD ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/ipv6-tunnel-dynamic.html

mcwm i FreeBSD ports ⌘ https://hack.org/mc/blog/mcwm5.html