2026-03-28T00:00:00Zhttps://notes.volution.ro/2026-03-28T00:00:00Z2026-03-28T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2026/03/notes/53ac09b0/

For some time I wanted to design a CDB (Constant DataBase) alternative that fits better my use-case for Kawipiko (high performance read-only static HTTP server).

2025-08-19T00:00:00Z2025-08-19T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2025/08/remarks/66c21fef/

I've made some experiments with compressing individual URLs, and I describe my initial observations (while comparing to standard compression algorithms).

2025-08-12T00:00:00Z2025-08-12T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2025/08/remarks/4727b8b3/

My personal experience in finding affordable EU-based cloud providers for a small personal project. And my pessimistic assessment of the competitiveness in this segment with their USA-based competitors.

2025-05-10T00:00:00Z2025-05-10T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2025/05/remarks/3770e0c4/

About how another instance of "the scientific progress justifies the means", or perhaps "how a corporation milks profits from other people's work", triggers an arms race that piece by piece dismantles the open web, and turns it into walled gardens.

2024-08-11T00:00:00Z2024-08-11T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2024/08/snippets/60066422/

Experimenting with Linux policy based routing, i.e. `man ip-rule(8)`, as a stateless firewall substitute.

2024-08-04T00:00:00Z2024-08-04T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2024/08/remarks/f4996e66/

Demystifying the UEFI boot process with a focus on Linux, simplicity, reliability, and security.

2024-07-25T00:00:00Z2024-07-25T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2024/07/remarks/95c2d5a6/

Updating the Infineon TPM firmware on an HP t620 thin client, which is vulnerable to the ROCA attack (that allows an attacker to recover the RSA private key).

2024-07-23T00:00:00Z2024-07-23T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2024/07/remarks/d97d3e5b/

How about splitting the usage and storage of sensitive documents and data? Plus a few ideas on how to implement a small custom "secure" computer for the storage part.

2024-03-30T00:00:00Z2024-03-30T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2024/03/remarks/311f0a41/

Experimenting with password-based authentication implemented directly in Postgres, all sprinkled with a few twists.

2024-03-13T00:00:00Z2024-03-13T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2024/03/remarks/810d7404/

A subtle, but surprising, realization about password-based key-derivation functions when using long byte sequences as passwords.

2023-09-12T00:00:00Z2023-09-12T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/09/remarks/d031aaae/

Documenting various open-source tools and projects that I've found while experimenting with the Linux container technology.

2023-09-11T00:00:00Z2023-09-11T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/09/remarks/5a784f51/

`sh` is not a programming language! Write application launchers in proper languages!

2023-09-11T00:00:00Z2023-09-11T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/09/remarks/423b80cc/

Immutable OSs are just a minor step towards reliable OS installations. However, for a complete solution we also need reproducible and thus deterministic installations, which implies cleaning-up and modernizing our package managers.

2023-09-07T00:00:00Z2023-09-07T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/09/remarks/64299f31/

A rant about the complexity of modern Linux distributions, which places them on par with the opaqueness of Windows and OSX.

2023-05-15T00:00:00Z2023-05-15T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/05/notes/6b3820d9/

A live document providing learning resources and pointers for those that want to experiment with applied cryptography.

2023-05-13T00:00:00Z2023-05-13T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/05/remarks/faf953cf/

Experimenting with various real-world instantiations of cryptographic random oracles, with applicability from multi-factor encryption, to database record encryption.

2023-05-12T00:00:00Z2023-05-12T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/05/remarks/e175b2ef/

Prototyping an encryption tool that allows combining multiple encryption factors, from PIN's, passwords, to X25519 pairs, and beyond.

2023-04-07T00:00:00Z2023-04-07T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/04/remarks/a2793b5c/

I reflect on my preferences when it comes to choosing open-source tools I need to rely upon.

2023-04-02T00:00:00Z2023-04-02T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/04/remarks/eb5109f6/

Experimenting with OpenSSH authorization keys resolution; from skeleton-key providing emergency access, to simple centralized key management.

2023-03-09T00:00:00Z2023-03-09T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/03/remarks/6d51f70e/

Trying to make the case for permanent irrevocable digital identities, which unfortunately today, by de-facto, are email addresses.

2023-02-05T00:00:00Z2023-02-05T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/02/notes/9f31f54c/

A few words about one of my latest open-source projects, `z-tokens`, that among other thinks, also tries to tackle this problem but providing more added value compared to existing solutions.

2023-02-04T00:00:00Z2023-02-04T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/02/notes/0a9aaa3a/

Although many software engineers know about the topic, especially through their exposure to Base64, there are however many issues and missed opportunities not tackled by the broad community.

2023-01-25T00:00:00Z2023-01-25T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/01/remarks/bd180ff7/

A few words of caution about storage-free deterministic password managers.

2023-01-24T00:00:00Z2023-01-24T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/01/readings/6acdbc3c/

An interesting take on containerized deployments, contrasted with other similar trajectories in the software engineering history.

2023-01-12T00:00:00Z2023-01-12T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/01/remarks/723c5a6a/

Questions (without definitive answers) about how to securely manage secrets in scripts and development environments?

2023-01-11T00:00:00Z2023-01-11T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/01/remarks/5a7d0ba2/

Questions (without definitive answers) about memorable password schemes and patterns.

2023-01-10T00:00:00Z2023-01-10T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2023/01/remarks/456a2274/

Questions (without definitive answers) about password strength (i.e. entropy bits) for offline storage.

2022-09-11T00:00:00Z2022-09-11T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/09/remarks/794866f7/

Given a simple enough HTTP server, and by employing seccomp, one could easily achieve a quite secure(er) server, with a small enough attack surface that the potential attacker might want to look elsewhere in the stack for vulnerabilities.

2022-09-03T00:00:00Z2022-09-03T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/09/notes/b08118d8/

When it comes to static sites, there are a myriad of solutions for authoring and compiling, but talk about hosting these static sites, and we are still in the early 2000s. I discuss the challenges one faces when hosting, and even make a proposal to solve some of these.

2022-08-13T00:00:00Z2022-08-13T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/08/remarks/7685f695/

A few Firefox addons I use on a daily basis.

2022-07-29T00:00:00Z2022-07-29T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/07/notes/1290a79c/

About the many types of hash functions, their use-cases, dos and don'ts, with suggestions for currently accepted algorithms.

2022-04-02T00:00:00Z2022-04-02T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/04/remarks/41dc175e/

2022-03-27T00:00:00Z2022-03-27T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/03/remarks/c2082f05/

2022-01-25T00:00:00Z2022-01-25T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2022/01/notes/fbf3f06c/

In support of software packages that come in the form of a single binary executable (statically linked or portable), that one can just copy anywhere in `${PATH}` and execute, without needing `sudo`, or downloading half the distribution's packages as dependencies.

2021-07-28T00:00:00Z2021-07-28T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2021/07/notes/43f2f234/

Articles and tools I've found interesting in the last few days.

2021-03-23T00:00:00Z2021-03-23T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2021/03/notes/eb8a57e6/

About how the largest romanian bank tries to give its clients a "warm-fuzzy-feeling" of security, that is actually zero in real security terms.

2021-02-19T00:00:00Z2021-02-19T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2021/02/notes/50d93d5c/

Articles and tools I've found interesting in the last few days.

2021-02-14T00:00:00Z2021-02-14T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2021/02/notes/378ae6f6/

About the hidden costs of forced automatic initialization of dependencies. And a plea for library developers (in any language) to think about their global state initialization requirements.

2021-01-03T00:00:00Z2021-01-03T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2021/01/notes/502e747f/

About the fatal perils and traps of many modern tools that handle "shell commands" as passed through `system(3)` or `sh -c`. Or, how by the end of 2020, we still haven't given up on shell's equivalent "SQL building", or how shell's equivalent "SQL injection" still thrives in our engineering world... Plus a `glibc` bug, then a Linux man pages bug, then a POSIX specification bug...

2020-05-05T00:00:00Z2020-05-05T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2020/05/snippets/f36697ea/

Trying to identify which compression tool and level yields the "best" outcome for "textual" archival purposes. (Spoiler: "it depends...")

2020-05-04T00:00:00Z2020-05-04T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2020/05/snippets/47ef345c/

How to compact and clean Git repositories of "dangling" commits and objects.

2020-05-04T00:00:00Z2020-05-04T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2020/05/snippets/b1ad317c/

How to properly sort a list of FQDNs in Bash, first by TLD, then by domain, then by sub-domain and so on.

2020-03-08T00:00:00Z2020-03-08T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2020/03/notes/d73a4684/

A visual history of `microsoft.com` (thanks to the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine).

2020-03-07T00:00:00Z2020-03-07T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2020/03/notes/621aab63/

A visual history of `google.com` (thanks to the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine).

2019-10-08T00:00:00Z2019-10-08T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/10/notes/97efdbab/

Articles and tools I've found interesting in the last few days.

2019-08-15T00:00:00Z2019-08-15T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/08/notes/e8700e9a/

A visual comparison between HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 in the context of many small resources and with real-world latency.

2019-08-04T00:00:00Z2019-08-04T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/08/notes/23e3644e/

About obtaining Go current goroutine ID, and why sometimes we should trust the developer to do the right thing... Else the developer is forced to embark on a journey that looks more like a mission impossible data exfiltration movie, than a day-to-day job...

2019-06-28T00:00:00Z2019-06-28T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/06/notes/16948a48/

Articles and tools I've found interesting in the last few days; and about the start of a new "column".

2019-06-27T00:00:00Z2019-06-27T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/06/readings/33981a72/

About the "DevOps culture" plus related technologies, less about containers, but all about our professional careers as software developers or operators.

2019-01-24T00:00:00Z2019-01-24T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/01/notes/a202c8b9/

About choosing the "right" RAID5 chunk size on Linux systems, and related benchmarks. This part provides the raw data from the CDNjs benchmark.

2019-01-19T00:00:00Z2019-01-19T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/01/notes/31afcf40/

About choosing the "right" RAID5 chunk size on Linux systems, and related benchmarks. This part summarizes previous work published by others on the internet.

2019-01-16T00:00:00Z2019-01-16T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2019/01/readings/0af5b88f/

About an high level overview of the application development security at the end of 2018.

2018-12-15T00:00:00Z2018-12-15T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2018/12/notes/274b00bd/

About choosing the "right" RAID5 chunk size on Linux systems, and related benchmarks. This first part presents a few benchmarks at the "block-device" level (i.e. without an actual file-system).

2018-11-27T00:00:00Z2018-11-27T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2018/11/notes/a0a5f486/

About the "sanity" of developing sites that "just work" on mobile devices.

2018-11-22T00:00:00Z2018-11-22T00:00:00ZCiprian Dorin Craciunciprian.craciun@gmail.comhttps://notes.volution.ro/v1/2018/11/notes/9512589f/

About this site, it's purpose and goals.