For the length of a few days, it was not possible to logon to KairosPlanner.com, create an account or reset your password. Why? Well, I told you about my encryption problem. In order to read out all data in the database, decrypted, and encrypt it again, I had to be sure, the database wasn’t being changed while working on it. Everything is working again. I hope. But that is something, the Beta Test Group can decide best, I guess.
Funny thing, actually, that encryption thing. Not only the new encryption method is more secure than the old one, but in the old situation, there was one “password” to encrypt and decrypt. In the new method, there is a unique “password” for each encryption. Sort of. I can’t give details about it, that would be the same as a note on my console of my home alarm, with the location of the passcode.
But why is this funny, and not just “a good thing” or something? Well, I told earlier about reading a book called “Who moved my cheese?”, remember? Well, this is a perfect example of somebody who moved my cheese. I was using mcrypt as encryption method, and I was fine with that. Then I discovered, that mcrypt would not be supported by a newer version of the script language I am programming in (PHP). Although the webserver, KairosPlanner.com is running on, does not have PHP 7.2 yet, I know the day will come it will. And that day, KairosPlanner.com would not work at all. So I could be Mr. Hem, and shouting: “Who moved my cheese? Where is my cheese? I want my cheese back”. I could be Mr. Hah, waiting a long time, and then begin thinking about finding another way while staying on the same spot, and eventually move on to find a better place. But I became a Sniff. I sniffed a bit around, read articles about encryption, and found out that I needed to get out into that labyrinth, and find New Cheese. And when I’ve found it, I would discover that New Cheese is way better than Old Cheese.
Perhaps, the new encryption makes KairosPlanner a few milliseconds slower. That is a very low price to pay for a better security.
Have a nice and effective week!
Albert