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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: February 14th, 2024

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  • Maybe Musk needs to learn about data normalization and natural keys.

    I’m curious what the actual data looks like. I’ve spent quite a bit of time auditing large data systems.

    I would expect these databases to be largely denormalized with very wide tables, I would expect them to favour natural keys like a SSNs, and built around per department use cases.

    I would not expect them to be highly normalized because then when you need something from another department you need them to ensure consistency.

    These systems probably have like 50 years of legacy code or more in them too.






  • It was fun and I learned a lot. I mostly did small time jobs for local companies and used the money for my tuition. Most sites were just static HTML, and I could program flash, so there wasn’t much risk to it.

    I am glad we have git instead of various backup folders on an ftp server, continuous integration, unit tests, and frameworks/accessible info to prevent the more basic errors.




  • I just wiped the DB and put it back online again.

    I did fix it, but had to rewrite a lot of the PHP backend, which took a couple days.

    And yes, I did release another website with SQL injection… It was a personal website for my brother and the pagination was vulnerable. I had written a simple CMS for it, but Instead of a password I just generated an obscure URL with completely open access to edit the DB directly.

    The pagination got hacked but I fixed it pretty quickly (by checking the page number was in fact a number).

    Surprisingly the CMS never got hacked before I moved him over to WordPress.

    Younger me learned a lot of web dev lessons the hard way.

    ETA: This was all when I was a teen and I had nobody in my life to teach me these things. I was self taught from a PHP book from the library.








  • I don’t think you’re dramatic.

    For me it’s about reclaiming my right to participate in online discourse on my own terms. In a way the fediverse is freedom.

    I plan on trying to self host a mastodon instance for myself and rebuild my blogs.

    I don’t think I’d ever want to self host a lemmy, I like being anonymous to a reasonable degree. But I like that lemmy lets me have a voice without acquiescence to reddits enshittification.

    Also the community is largely great. I love the memes, I love the comments and discussions, and I like that I learn things from fellow internet users again.