[{"content":"","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Blog","type":"blog"},{"content":"Welcome to kaitak.org, a website where you\u0026rsquo;ll find the personal ramblings of an opinionated, seasoned engineer.\nWhy kaitak? It\u0026rsquo;s short (especially useful now, when trying to get short meaningful domain names is very difficult), and it is (was) the name of a spectacular airport serving the country where I was born. Sadly an airport that no longer exists!\nWhy org? Because I\u0026rsquo;m not a company (kaitak.com had already been claimed anyway).\nAnd the Dragon? I was born in the Chinese year of the Dragon.\nThe side-bar image you see here consists of a montage of pictures of numerous items that represent significant elements in my life so far - calculators, pencils, circuit diagrams, computer software, audio cassettes, and chillies!\nUnless otherwise stated the copyright and other intellectual property rights relating to the content of this website is owned or licensed by kaitak.org. Copying, adaptation or other use of the aforementioned material without my written permission is prohibited.\n","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"kaitak.org","summary":"","title":"kaitak.org","type":"page"},{"content":"All too often I’m presented with the following “rules” selecting a new password for a website or service: –\nYour password must have\u0026hellip;\nAt least 8 characters At least 1 number At least 1 uppercase letter At least 1 special character None of these rules make a secure password. It\u0026rsquo;s the length of a password more than its complexity that makes it secure. According to Hive Systems, an 8-character password with a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols could be cracked in about 11,000 years—but by simply increasing it to 15 lowercase characters, it could take 477 million years. And an 18 character lowercase-letter-only password would take 6 trillion years.\nThe key takeaway? Your password doesn’t need random characters to be strong — it just needs to be long and unique. The other advantage to just using letters is that it\u0026rsquo;s easy to remember. This xkcd article sums that fact up perfectly:-\nPassword Strength by Randall Munroe, xkcd.com, used under the CC BY-NC 2.5 licence.\n","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/secure-passwords-do-not-need-special-characters/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Secure passwords do not need “Special characters”","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/topics/software-development/","section":"Topics","summary":"","title":"Software Development","type":"topics"},{"content":"","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/topics/","section":"Topics","summary":"","title":"Topics","type":"topics"},{"content":"It’s often a lot more efficient when visiting Gibraltar from Spain to park at one of the underground car-parks in La Línea de la Concepción and then walking across the border, which is only a few hundred metres away.\nThe entrances to the Frontera Telepark can be found at: –\n///chase.pints.slams ///forum.races.hotel When entering the car-park take a ticket, which will be associated with your registration number.\nAlthough there are a lot of spaces in the car park the spaces are very small so parking is often a challenge, especially if you have a big car.\nParking is charged by the hour or you can pre-pay, saving some money on the rate for a whole day. To pre-pay for the day (€8 at the time of writing) visit a pay machine before leaving the car-park (near the 2nd entrance at ///loser.scuba.damage). The machines look like this: –\nYou need to select the Prepaid ticket option from the display. You can select an appropriate language from the first option, which simply moves to the chosen language when you press the option. When you get to your language (English?) you will see the Prepaid ticket option: –\nYou are then prompted to enter your parking ticket. Do this and then select the appropriate option, a daily option should be there for €8.\nWhen leaving the car-park you probably won’t need your ticket – the barrier should recognise your registration number, the fact you’ve already paid, and the barrier should open.\n","date":"18 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/gibraltar-parking-at-la-linea/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Gibraltar (parking at La Línea)","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"18 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/topics/spain/","section":"Topics","summary":"","title":"Spain","type":"topics"},{"content":"","date":"18 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/topics/travel/","section":"Topics","summary":"","title":"Travel","type":"topics"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"Last updated: 24 October 2026\nWho we are # kaitak.org runs this website. If you have a question about your privacy, send an email to privacy@kaitak.org.\nCookies and analytics # This website sets no cookies. It uses no analytics and no tracking. It loads no content from other websites.\nYour light or dark choice # The website has a button that changes the page colours to light or dark. When you click it, your browser stores your choice on your device. The website uses this choice only to show the colours that you selected. Your choice does not go to us or to other organisations. To delete it, clear the site data for this website in your browser.\nOur hosting provider # GitLab Pages hosts this website. When you open a page, the GitLab servers record your IP address and other request data in their logs. GitLab uses these logs to operate and protect its service. We do not use these logs to identify you. For more information, read the GitLab privacy statement.\nYour rights # You have rights about your personal data. For example, you can ask for a copy of it, or ask us to delete it. To use these rights, send an email to privacy@kaitak.org.\nIf you are not satisfied with our reply, you can complain to the Information Commissioner\u0026rsquo;s Office (ICO).\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/privacy/","section":"kaitak.org","summary":"","title":"Privacy notice","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"}]