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    The Spanner
    Web security blog

    Made by Gareth Heyes
    Follow me on Twitter: @garethheyes

    Javascript for hackers!

    Hackvertor logo
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    Recent posts
    Introducing Feedworm: A Privacy-First RSS Reader That Lives in DevToolsSpeedy RSVP extensionAutoVaderHackvertor history and tag finderShadow Repeater v1.2.3 releaseBurp Hackvertor v2.1.24 releaseHacking roomsXSSing TypeErrors in SafarivalueOf: Another way to get thisMaking the Unexploitable Exploitable with X-Mixed-Replace on FirefoxThe curious case of the evt parameterCSS-Only Tic Tac Toe ChallengeRewriting relative urls with the base tag in SafariBypassing DOMPurify with mXSSNew IE mutation vectorHow I smashed MentalJSMentalJS DOM bypassAnother XSS auditor bypassXSS Auditor bypassBypassing the IE XSS filterUnbreakable filterMentalJS bypassesmXSSJava SerializationBypassing the XSS filter using function reassignmentRPOSandboxed jQueryX-Domain scroll detection on IE using focusEpic fail IEnew operatorDecoding complex non-alphanumeric JavaScriptHacking FirefoxDOM ClobberingBypassing XSS AuditorThe evolution of codeNon-Alpha PHP in 6-7 charsetTweetable PHP-Non AlphaMentalJS for PHPOpera x domain with video tutorialSandboxing and parsing jQuery in 100ms

    The blogs you should read

    By Gareth Heyes (@hackvertor)

    Published 18 years 9 months ago • Last updated March 22, 2025 • ⏱️ 3 min read

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    I've created this list to show my respect for some of web security's greatest minds. I don't usually link to blogs or posts when I write but I have decided to do it more often in order to spread the word and provide a good resource for people to learn. There may be other people in the industry that deserve to be here but I've decided for my own reasons based on knowledge I've gained from reading their blogs.

    Stefan Esser

    He doesn't care what people think nor does he mind what he says but whenever he says something you better listen because this guy is the hacker of all hackers. He has done countless things for PHP security and I would say is "THE" PHP expert. It was a sad day when he left the PHP security list he formed :( Web site link

    Robert Hansen (AKA RSnake)

    RSnake's blog is compulsive reading and the forum he started sla.ckers, is a fantastic resource for security knowledge. He's done some fantastic work with CSS hacking and his XSS cheatsheet is a reference for anyone serious about security. Web site link

    Jeremiah Grossman

    Jeremiah has been so inspirational when I was creating my Javascript LAN scanner and CSS scanners, his work with the CSS history hack really opened my eyes. When he posts he always has something meaningful and interesting to say and it's one of my main RSS feeds reading list. Web site link

    Ronald van den Heetkamp (AKA 0x000000)

    I didn't do any blogging or share much until about year ago, I found Ronald's site on sla.ckers. On his site he challenged someone to hack his comment spam protection. So I did, me and Ronald now share many email conversations about web security and his blog has been an inspirational resource to my research. Every post he does contains some useful information and it is always original high level content. Web site link

    Billy Hoffman

    Billy's work speaks for itself, if you've seen Jikto or his stuff on javascript port scanning you'll know what I mean. Some call his work controversial but I call it pure genius. Again he's inspired much of my work on CSS and Javascript LAN scanning.
    Web site link

    Petko D. Petkov (AKA pdp), David Kierznowski, Mario

    The GNU Citizen group are a team of clever bloggers which participate in open source projects and provide excellent security tips on their blog. David, Mario and PDP have wrote some outstanding stuff and their blog always provides some interesting reading. Web site link

    Sid Karunaratne (AKA Whiteacid)

    Sid hacked my CAPTCHA but I'm not bitter :) I respect his excellent coding skills. He also wrote the XSS post forwarder which is a fantastic tool to highlight POST XSS security flaws in web sites by converting a GET request into a POST request. He's also a regular on sla.ckers. Web site link

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