CTO at Public Sector Network @ConnectPSN. 25 years building and scaling SaaS and AI startups. Full-stack dev with AI/ML and devops background.
Cape Town, South Africa
Joined February 2009
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Vaughn Dickson retweeted
More private keys by the Indian certificate authority have been discovered. These are all small numbers.
People are suspecting that they interpreted 384 bit keys to mean that they should pick numbers from 1-384 to use as their private keys.
So how do you get into farming and/or living off the land as a feral mountain man? Asking for a friend...
private keys from 8 intermediate CA certs have been compromised (eMudhra)
Happy "Update everything" day to all my pager-carrying friends
emudhra.we-have-a-problem.co…
Anyone care to estimate how many unmaintained PHP sites are out there with confidential data?
🚨 PHP warns of two critical vulnerabilities as emergency patches arrive tomorrow
The PHP security team will release updates on October 21 at 14:00 UTC for two vulnerabilities, each rated 9.2 under CVSS v4.0.
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Security researchers identified the flaws as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 and described them as remote code execution vulnerabilities reportedly affecting PHP versions 5 through 8.
PHP has not yet confirmed the affected versions, exploitation requirements or fixed releases.
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The vulnerabilities were reportedly leaked before their planned disclosure. Researchers said they have not observed active exploitation, while PHP warned it may release the patches early if technical details become public or exploitation is detected.
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Administrators should identify PHP installations now and prepare to apply the updates as soon as they become available.
New Tesla Roadster prototype idea: self-rechargeable, greener power. Especially useful for vegans living off beans. Waiting for @elonmusk’s call now…
flappycar.com
#tesla #TeslaRoadster
A one-button game for this week's flying-car demo: a sports car on cold-gas thrusters (🤫😀), same course for everyone every day, and a challenge link that carries your run and the standings round your group chat. flappycar.com
#indiegame #gamedev
Flappycar's share link carries your whole run. Fixed-step physics, a course seeded from the date, and the taps as two-byte gaps. A 92-second run is 351 characters, with no backend server. Write-up, including what broke: vaughndickson.com/2026/10/18… #gamedev #javascript
AI is just taking the piss these days. "I estimate 5 weeks of human development time" and then proceeds to do it in 15 minutes...
1/ I read a lot of Markdown and every reader I tried was an editor with a preview pane or an Electron app that takes two seconds to open a 20 KB file, then shows it in a narrow column in the middle of a 4K monitor. I only wanted 10% of what they do. So I built it.
2/ Ten years ago I'd have put up with the 90% I didn't need. A GUI app for one person was never worth the time. Now the hard parts are open source (egui, pulldown-cmark, syntect) and the glue is what AI is good at typing. A couple of hours with Claude Code, 4,300 lines of Rust.
3/ Cold start to first frame is about 110 ms. An 800 KB document parses in 4 ms. Outline left, reading column middle, rest of the folder right. Nothing else.
Remixing open source into something tailored is now a weekend job, not a project. What's broken?
github.com/vaughnd/mdread
I just scored 103 points on today’s Flappycar course (Daily #3) in 25 tries 🥈
…🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🔥💥
I made it past 103 points. Where do you crash? Beat my ghost 👻
flappycar.com/c/100/?mode=da…
The closest I'm getting to a rocket car is one I vibe coded 😅 flappycar.com
Often I'll look at software I use (local and SaaS) realise I only use maybe 10% of the features and vibe code a replacement that's faster and cheaper. SaaS can't compete on feature count anymore. The more crap you pile in to try differentiate your product, the less I want it.
The value of software is decreasing, but the value of data is increasing. There's going to be a lot of money in digging the mess of data out of legacy systems so it can be used to train AI, especially with public data running out and model collapse issues.
Developers bemoan the loss of craft in the age of AI, but I find myself spending more time polishing and improving my software than I ever could have justified before AI.
AWS owes me some new pants... teapawt.net/AWSSupport/status/2078…
📣 Service Update: AWS Billing Console
We are investigating issues with Cost Explorer reflecting inaccurate estimated billing data.
📊 Track status: go.aws/aws-hd
#AWS #AWSSupport
Vaughn Dickson retweeted
The planet can spell your name – literally. 🔤🌍
This Earth Day, see your name written in landscapes captured by Landsat: go.nasa.gov/4ak4Cdu
ALT Landscape image collage spelling "NASA"