https://kerkour.com (Ab)using technology for fun & profit. en Mon, 16 Oct 2023 05:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/the-limits-of-rust "Is Rust a great fit for this project?" I get this question quite frequently so I think it's time to write down my thoughts if it can help to avoid d343905b0fa523a8e5bacee482d63de6260292ffdb4b687f1ba25ed30dd79908 Wed, 13 May 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-cross-platform-apps The cheapest way to learn is to learn from others, so I always take a day every week to see what other organizations are doing and how they are doing 71002d8cc43d7b52f9d2905bbea33f81d36f513d66c8a0179fc115509da0f76c Wed, 06 May 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-databases Turso, Neon, Polars, Databend, Materialize, DataFusion, InfluxDB, Quickwit and even ripgrep. Outside of DuckDB and PostgreSQL's core, most, if not all, the most-impactful projects in the database world are now 4ee0b3faa5872dbc22a549c37173d52775e62b1785c09047ed27729b37ba16c2 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/intel-panther-lake-avx512 The latest Intel processors, Core Ultra Series 3 a.k.a. Panther Lake, look awesome. They are fast in benchmarks, can consume very little power, enabling a full day of work and 0832e8fc3b4f92fb1e3a00b8e296d3b5402438578b0496f00cfc8fb45ce52c3b Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/post-quantum-cryptography-recommendations-rust There recently has been a lot of noise about quantum computing breakthroughs recently after Google's articles Quantum frontiers may be closer than they appear and Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclosing quantum 72c7bc83c47b72ffb0951863f192ea3250fe0ab9648c79f006ebca5dd1d21434 Wed, 22 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/the-world-is-moving-fast The world is moving fast, very fast, and nothing makes my blood boil faster than someone explaining to me that it has always been done this so that's fine, or 6b65acbc324ab47d4cc10bc50edf90f7f1ddb66bedd62d5f5f203387799c9953 Thu, 16 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-extended-standard-library Supply Chain attacks are all the rage these days, with many high-profile attacks that were carried against the Python ecosystem (with litellm), JavaScript (with axios) and WordPress in the last f9ac577f8462e2a24241f581327a49d096de4f63ac9ef4789e2c112bf1736d6f Wed, 15 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-supply-chain-nightmare An essential part of being able to say "I told you so" is in fact having told you so. Well, here we are. For those living under a rock (lucky f9868bd6c5c67b2516f80880cdbaa13b70b17e633cb8e69f5e84e07b008bc0da Wed, 08 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-compiler-correctness-bugs Over the decades, Humans have proved to be pretty bad at producing bug-free software. Trying to apply our approximative, fuzzy thoughts to perfectly logical computers seems doomed. While the practice 6ad8d9327272b697676ac973ef3dea6781bf82296f75c462283c147301d3947a Wed, 01 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest Growing up with James Bond, Alex Rider and Inspector gadget, I've naturally always been fascinated by gadgets that enable the hero to spy and fight the badies. Fast forward a 74d0825c5151063b5f36fef47998888d5016b654f57980c2f4ca1e0358199a15 Wed, 25 Mar 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-docker-small-secure-images While Docker is now the main way to distribute backend software and CLI tools, you may be wondering how to build minimal and secure Docker images for your Rust projects. 28f7924bd6c0af732dcc33eed977615da1971e91b39705d8090aa064f06a2ddd Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/ai-maximalism I think I've finally understood why some people find value and love to tinker with AI assistants such as WhateverClaw while I find them (mostly) useless or even the idea 81735843d86af55dc8d8af5f912e3b0e556fb2feeb5276972ae1fe0eb104f5ab Mon, 16 Mar 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-eating-postgres While most people see PostgreSQL as a simple database, like MariaDB or CLickHouse, it has in fact evolved into a "data kernel", managing how data is stored and queried, in fa08e9f5dc0fc301aeeb0846ce6ea6e1bdb2ab16e99f8cf067308892001bba3d Wed, 11 Mar 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-postgres-everything I love simple, boring and reliable tools. In the software world, the two best are without a doubt Rust and PostgreSQL. One example: a backend service I'm working on processes 3a8c726f3d7d6c3fb81f57a117a381e1a33a2ee963e6bfae8b3444e67ff27b65 Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/ai-wishlist-riscv May the hardware shortages empower European and Chinese companies to drastically boost investments into RISC-V hardware so it could become a viable architecture for production workloads earlier than expected. 8dfe8f14f6cce2398d59302019e260a6ba7ae48b9d493d96a539686ecb33bfab Wed, 25 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/sha256-length-extension-attacks Some time ago, we saw that SHA-2 (SHA-256 & SHA-512) should probably be your function of choice for 2030 and beyond, because SHA-3 is too slow and BLAKE3 is (unfortunately) 953565b1238bbd6c7fb0962297802413ead91048fe4ca29c5bb4175003befa92 Tue, 24 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/nist-cryptography-backdoor While common people suffer from insecure systems (data theft, identity and financial fraud, blackmail...), governments love to be able to stick their nose wherever they want, whenever they want, something 978b0d0c679bc837a8d5d5ce65c01bcbc9421fadc1429c18d680f7f8e4a92a8d Mon, 23 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-software-engineering-reliability A lot of reasonable people may perceive my enthusiasm for Rust as misguided fanaticism, but it isn't. It's cold pragmatism. Sherlock Holmes liked to say "When you have eliminated the 0b3674bc75293ab2f98ab9030ad9889200ed4e4d6b8b1e445855138d78b5e116 Wed, 18 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/use-phone-too-much How much time (and how many times) did you use your phone this weekend? What about at this restaurant? While waiting for red lights? In bed, before sleeping and just 960f0ad2a48c7501bfb56e098f275ef46c80eaed0d82bf4bbf485f2bc63e2fec Sun, 15 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-production-checklist While a lot of time is spent on design patterns and low-level tricks such as SIMD accelerations, I'm suprised that very few resources are available to actually deploy Rust software 779cf70514673cea4481a5df7e80943b59b6527d7086f0711379efbac485c9bd Wed, 11 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/turso-sqlite I love Rust and I love SQLite, so you can guess. Iwas pretty excited when I lerned that "SQLite was rewritten in Rust" What is SQLite, actually? 2 things: a 5cfb1a17f3f6003da34a52acd424fd73d259b65bcb433b280c28996267246b40 Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-async-combinators-concurrency While combinators are a great way to make your code more functional and declarative, Rust has something even better in its sleeve: async combinators. You may be wondering: what combinators 58004468e76de8691de9979202f56d46972f0c35672476530a5cdb11ba0a0692 Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/aes-context-commitment Cryptography is full of footguns reguraly blowing the feets of unsuspecting developers that can't believe that the algorithm supposed to secure their data are actually full of holes. One of 7ea71ac90d379e7acb5148bb5a4003d3d03da13a7df74b7827bf2fbfe7c97da6 Fri, 16 Jan 2026 06:01:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/lets-encrypt-everything A few years ago, I received a letter in the mail addressed to my then-toddler. It was from a company I had never heard of. Apparently, there had been a 32af4c4fb37fdd9234274ed816b6ee703c23c3b3fcd8c991f762f22dd3ab8df2 Thu, 15 Jan 2026 06:01:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-cryptography-ecosystem-2026 37.2% of vulnerabilities in cryptographic libraries are memory safety issues, while only 27.2% are cryptographic issues, according to an empirical Study of Vulnerabilities in Cryptographic Libraries (Jenny Blessing, Michael A. 8912f6afcacb66804c7573748361f259ad93c15d62b82be86869e8023079090d Wed, 14 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/chacha12-blake3-is-now-chacha20-blake3 chacha12-blake3 is now chacha20-blake3 ChaCha12 vs ChaCha20 I spent a lot of time studying the ChaCha stream cipher (and its parent, Salsa) to be able to say with high confidence 7d41d8d8cfae12da8c483d5cb926b15f264470f34448c3b29c0aa871a4f3cebb Mon, 12 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/btree-serde-sqlite Most programming language haves built-in data structures such as Hash Maps and B-tree for in-memory processing, but what about serializing these data structures to save on disk or send over 321f7a204960462ac38f605a2c22300d7bea8b1f29dd1ea4e1d319ab920a4d2f Fri, 09 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/introduction-rust-simd I've recently tasted AMD Zen 5 CPUs (AWS' m8a instances) and... Whooaaa. Even before talking about GPUs and NPUs, the next 5 years of CPUs will be very exciting! For 0d213d93511dc1f8f1e60aef1726d3e83d98aa39c1c44983f6f9550f692ada7c Wed, 07 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/smartphones-blackhole They can bend spacetime without you even realizing it. People often get offended when I tell them that I don't have a phone, thinking that I'm lying and I just d5f17cb9fbad80c8ad0c7c19b41eb364987a6d5f15e7c902050efc1d546f2938 Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/social-media-manipulation Stop reading the News and go run this marathon. 4bfe1d26c6800fe5e02f59d61feb358b6ab79890fffe61f77b2d546f4e63bde9 Mon, 22 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-devcontainers Another day, another successful supply chain attack that could have been easily mitigated with basic measures. As I've previously written many times, supply chain attacks are low effort / big 49b6bfa295a410a2df90f78dd184d5326ce81a0a79a5e1147e86ef4f381601fb Wed, 17 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/video-formats-codecs-containers I was wondering why sone .mkv videos can be played in web browsers, why some others can't and what would be the best format to archive videos. This led me 13693a365b23ac43a87a2559cc2a66f1a37882b0e56e3b9023dd9a09b81f228d Mon, 15 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/firecracker-deep-dive-rust The microVM revolution 9282e6b04342aca92e2474f9dae8d21e5f6c24b011cdf943bd99e457eb12cd4d Wed, 10 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/encryption-protects-against-criminals There is this weird framing floating in the media that encryption is used by criminals to commit their misdeeds and hide in the shadows. As is too often with mainstream b7c3cd62cc8e0d5781111b5bccbed3658fb6615e733e3a02a9559086ce47aca8 Tue, 09 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/crdt-end-to-end-encryption-research-notes Local-first vs Offline-first Found this article, from a great series about local-first applications: Local-first is not offline-first. TL;DR: local-first = the source of truth is the local state stored on 897a604821abf48b0af1238956adbf9e18bc058a158b67722b046279e3778dac Mon, 08 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-crdt There are, I believe, very few technologies that are like CRDTs, Conflict-free Replicated Data Types: very easy to use, very powerful and yet not much known, so we don't see 75f6f3eaa4112b46a44a3a6edb574204474b31e58bd51fe48db0e041a4253ec2 Wed, 03 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/dont-block-bots It's now a common pass time for bloggers, content publishers and website administrators to share their best tips and trick on how to best block scraping bots. I've also spent 001a5a9ea8551a26904ad459f6e2b244849d33325315c52c8e4202f5016a5e5e Tue, 25 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/entrepreneurs-and-athletes Entrepreneurs and athletes are all the same: they find the red zone and stay there until they win... or die of exhaustion. Actually, many entrepreneurs are also athletes, as if c079b81c998202d85adb9e7be36691881178fe1489dc96c96b235ce89aa8e9b8 Fri, 21 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-is-inevitable Proofreading yesterday's analysis of Rust usage at Cloudflare made me put words on a deep feeling that I have since long time, as this blog can attest. Rust is not 2d39fdc6ea4db3cda75a1e130bd0a5c2ff63643036243650c3fde0604e53065e Thu, 20 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/how-cloudflare-uses-rust Yesterday, on Novemver 18, 2025, Cloudflare deployed 0652c6874971d24ddd2617060cea145bbe56619683da79b9892e04f03edbf84e Wed, 19 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/cloudflare-down-november-2025 A significant portion of the web is currently down due to a Cloudflare outage. This is the second / third time that something like that happen in less than 30 ecfbd8b399683c845cfd1e80a0cb40ebac7b84a1835f397ec06dba89fb53213d Tue, 18 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-is-eating-the-world Many reasonable people like to repeat the mantra "You should use the right tool for the job", but what if there was a single tool that enabled developers and organizations ab43f651f70055577ccd9f412b7abd042a85497f98c8e488f47922d25056d702 Wed, 05 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/signal-app-rust In an age where most companies try to steal (let's face it, you didn't really consent to this) as much data from you as possible, in order to build marketing 2e378c35963aeab1136c7266e6e7196e9344ba02d89bba5e6d1b9f5c32b250dc Wed, 29 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-lifetimes-rc-arc Lifetime annotations are one of the things that distract the most new rustaceans. From my experience writing and digging into Rust codebases, lifetime (annotations) induce a cognitive load that distracts 8fbf7fb651238a47e6d4e95bbec887204888a20f576f16e547eebbc0a6bfd6fe Wed, 22 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/pingoo-on-mastodon I just created a Mastodon account for Pingoo: @pingooio@mastodon.social Follow us to get the latest updates and technical deep dives on how we are building the fastest and most secure a37ff880ede60265de6ed64767f7dd3d3cdb1947a8d671ec66224f8fdb5277f4 Thu, 16 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/pingoo-on-bluesky I just created a Bluesky account for Pingoo: @pingoo.io Follow it to get the latest updates and technical deep dives on how we are building the fastest and most secure 1c3cc262f547891d13ced4887db25ea89fc9a3ada90a0aa5b62a90525e285c59 Wed, 15 Oct 2025 06:01:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/sqlite-extension-rust How many times have you wanted to implement a feature, only to learn that your cloud provider don't offer this or that PostgreSQL extension and thus you need to bloat 538741cb015b3f31fd680d9cf9e77ea74f39b359d3653ee239c7dc39492dbbe6 Wed, 15 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/cloud-vcpu-thread-x86-arm64 When renting x86 VMs in the cloud, you generally get a single (often shared) thread per vCPU. 1 core = 2 threads = 2 vCPUs. On the other hand, ARM64 37fcb0de1f4c66f0472ee1699dc6977c5236603725772a54b04f79b3476ba565 Tue, 14 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/rust-pingoo-high-performance-allocations-mimalloc-heapless One of our missions at Pingoo (the fast and secure Load Balancer / API Gateway / Reverse Proxy with built-in service discovery, GeoIP, WAF, bot protection and much more) is 384396b524c0759cd1064952ebd54ea58d4858a595b7889ef3e59ade6ca17a9c Wed, 08 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000 https://kerkour.com/choosing-between-postgresql-and-sqlite With the recent announcement of Litestream v0.5.0, the SQLite continuous replication tools, I thought it was the perfect time to share my decision process to choose between PostgreSQL and SQLite d15cd6f8834b9eb4938eff8db7410d18aae8ebb0a35fc030f32bc362a8277ea4 Tue, 07 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000