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   32 bit addresses
   August 14th, 2022
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   Written on my phone
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A recent tweet [1] cited a super-old text I wrote (and an even older
tutorial by +fravia [2]), in the context of some more recent URL 
obfuscation techniques.

At the time of 3564020356, what stroke me was that I could have my own
"domain name" for free just by using one of many conversions of the 
server's IP address -in my case the 32-bit version- as domain name in
my webserver's configuration. 

356* +friends seemed to enjoy this, and when the static machine's IP 
address changed I decided to register an actual .org domain with the
same long number. We experimented more and think I still have a 
configuration which allows apache to answer to the hex URL... ;-)

It is interesting to see how some old hacks we used to play eons ago
are still actual -and not just in the field of computer security- 
simply because they never really became mainstream, and the very fact 
they are still obscure makes them useful for different purposes.

I noticed something similar with webbits [3] (I still find lots of
useful stuff with the "index.of" trick and I had a lot of fun showing
it to generations of students and seeing their reactions), and I 
wonder whether my underutilized "hashmaze" has any application 
(I think probably something related to geometric deep learning, but
this is another story ;-)).

Btw if you are interested in what I wrote about 32 bit addresses you 
can find more info here: [4]
I find it quite cringy that I called that rant a "little paper", but
at the same time I am in awe of the creativity and productivity of my
younger self.



[1] https://twitter.com/malmoeb/status/1557754211852554243?s=21&t=N7wOzXdri54brwKgqq5jpg
[2] https://fravia.net/obscure.htm
[3] https://fravia.net/rabbits.htm
[4] http://3564020356.org/tutes/32bitadr.htm