If Nobody Does It, Do It Yourself - pdf-encrypt-lib
I published my first JavaScript library: pdf-encrypt-lib brings AES-256 PDF encryption to pdf-lib, filling a gap that most PDF libraries leave open.
alestre
alestre@ascend-digital.net
Netizen & Crypto-Enthusiast
How Democracy Abolishes Itself - Again - and Slides Into Authoritarian Rule
The German government is working to effectively abolish the IFG, while the EU is once again pushing to extend and expand Chat Control.
250 Years of the Declaration of Independence, Democracy Gone Astray
The USA celebrates 250 years of independence and democracy. But was the country ever a true democracy? A critical assessment from Roman roots to financial oligarchy.
Alice and Bob are now lawfully under surveillance by the three-letter agency
Why encryption makes you suspicious, what steganography is, how LSB embedding works, and how Stegofile-Concealer hides AES-GCM-encrypted data inside a PNG.
Seed Phrase in Your Head
BIP39 mnemonics you can actually memorize, brute-force last word, and browser tools that recover missing words - and why none of this makes sense online.
Publishing and/with AI - Poetry, Authorship, and Questions we need to answer
A reflection on publishing poetry before AI changed everything, and the open questions around AI-generated content, media literacy, and authorship.
Nostr and Tor Against Big Data and Techno-Feudalism
Nostr and Tor are the architectural answer to techno-feudalism. On decentralization, cryptographic identity, and escaping Big Data's feudal grip.
Four Years of Tail Emission
Monero celebrates four years of tail emission. What it is, why PoW consensus without a permanent miner incentive is structurally fragile, and why the Monero community got this right from the start.
FuKyu Beta Is Open
FuKyu, a new browser-based strategy game about conquering space, is in beta. How the game idea came about, what 普及 means, and where to try it now.
The Invisible Memory of Your Photos
Photo may carry hidden metadata. GPS coordinates, camera model, timestamps, author details. What EXIF data reveals, why WebP is affected too, and how to remove it cleanly.
Don't Feed the Kraken
On tracking pixels, passive revenue schemes and why I release everything under GNU GPL v3. A rant about the web, data aggregation and Big Tech.
The Digital Estate: Seed Phrases and/or Passwords Could Drive Your Family to Despair
Between 2.3 and 3.7 million Bitcoin are gone forever - not hacked, but because no heir knew the keys. Shamir Secret Sharing fixes that.
Why Our Stegofile Tool Failed With Brave
Brave Shields protects against canvas fingerprinting but breaks pixel-accurate canvas operations in the process. How the Stegofile tool was affected and how it was solved by bypassing the canvas API.
Does the Babel Fish speak Klingon?
A follow-up to the first post about AI and me - this time with Douglas Adams, Klingons, and the question of why 45 AI-generated languages are simultaneously impressive and utterly unspectacular.
From Pixels to Characters, from Characters to Pixels
Two new browser tools on ascend: the Asciifile-Creator turns images into ASCII art, the QRcode-Generator creates QR codes with no account, no tracking, fully offline.
AI and I
A full-stack developer on AI as tool, not threat - on productivity, historical acceleration, and why engaging with new technology is unavoidable.