Today, there are going to be a few changes regarding this blog and this newsletter. I decided to redo the entire design direction of my website and this blog along with it. I'll talk more about that further in the article.
I also changed how I write these articles. Before, I wrote them directly in English, which worked fine. But since it's not my native language, I sometimes miss a few words or turns of phrase. And since it's now way easier to get a good translation with LLMs, I'm going to write in French first, and then my friend Claude will handle the English translation. So the articles might end up a bit longer.
Bug bounty
I love bug bounty and the practice of it so much, but with everything that's happening right now, it's pretty demotivating. What I really love about bug bounty is the challenge side of it, confronting something hard, spending time on it, and finally finding something (or not). That adrenaline rush, a bit like a treasure hunt, is really exciting.
But now with Claude it's quite different. You have an idea, you throw Claude at it and go do something else. Sure, it's way faster, it finds bugs when you guide it well, it helps tremendously, and it can bring in good money if managed right, but it's not fun. I don't really enjoy doing it anymore. I keep going because I love it, but I'm trying to see things differently.
On top of that, programs are flooded with reports, platforms are drowning in garbage AI-generated bugs, so triage times have gotten insanely long, which is even more frustrating. We're losing a bit of that magic. It's as if we all got an ultra-efficient magic wand that lets us find bugs more easily. And I totally understand that everyone is jumping in, and that many good bug hunters are doing nothing but this now because without it, you're less efficient than the others. We also have quite a few programs shutting down or changing direction.
I don't know where all of this is headed, whether it will stabilize or not, whether this job is destined to disappear or not, and I think that's a shame. Where before, knowledge and pure skill were the main elements for success, now it's the money you put into Claude, the speed, and the creativity of guiding Claude to the right places.
It's been a good 3 to 4 months since I last opened a code editor to write code myself. We only look at the functional and visual result of what we build, and that's scary. But on the other hand, it's so efficient. And there's no going back. I'm not trashing it, I love being able to bring my ideas to life ultra fast and iterate so easily. I just can't figure out where we're headed and what to do next.
I think a lot about the future and what direction to take. Going all in on bug bounty alone isn't a great idea in my opinion, but I still enjoy doing it so I have no reason to stop for now. I'm just trying to put my eggs in other baskets to prepare for what comes next!
Ecotrail
Last week, I completed probably the hardest challenge of my life: running 80 km. I set this challenge for myself by getting a bib number last year, and the time had finally come to do it.
I went in prepared. I had a coach, I was doing long runs of 4 to 5 hours every weekend. It was really exhausting.
It took me 12 hours and 30 minutes to finish. I should have done it in less than that, but for a first ultra trail, I'm super happy. I discovered the aid stations, the cheese and saucisson during the race, which was something.
I suffered quite a bit. Cramps, knee pain, calf pain, and foot pain. A lot of stomach issues, moments where I wanted to quit. But luckily, friends came to support me, and that helped me not give up and see this adventure through to the end.
At first, I told myself I would never do this again. But a few days later, my completely crazy mind thought, why not actually? To be continued.
New design direction
I've been wanting to change the design direction of my sites for a while and bring some consistency. I liked the old theme of my blog a lot, but I discovered a blog with a more minimalist direction and I loved it.
So with the help of my friend Claude, I changed everything, both my personal site and the Ghost theme of my blog. It took me a small afternoon to get a nice result. If you spot any bugs, don't hesitate to let me know.
I also decided to change the images of my posts, which always had a bit of a Ghibli/ChatGPT vibe. It was nice, but it didn't fit the new style. So I hired a new designer, named Gemini 3, who works really well for image generation.
I hope you'll like the new design! Have a great rest of the week!