Two decades
inside the web
as it kept rewriting
itself.
I’m Jason, a hosting industry insider with experience across open-source CMS platforms, control panels, cloud infrastructure, and the events that bring the industry together. Today, I focus on building partnerships, programming industry summits, and documenting what is happening across the hosting ecosystem.
- Aug 3, 2026
When the Pentester Never Goes Home
Horizon3's latest funding round signals a permanent shift from check-the-box compliance to automated, relentless security validation.
Read more→ - Aug 2, 2026
Minnesota 1, Grok 0: The Limits of Algorithmic Freedom
A federal judge just told xAI that Minnesota has every right to ban apps that strip clothes off people, proving that some lines aren't meant to be crossed even in the name of free speech.
Read more→ - Aug 1, 2026
Unpacking the Tesla-China Exit Strategy
Analyzing the rumors of Tesla divesting its China business to pave the way for a SpaceX merger amid growing geopolitical risks.
Read more→
The early 2000s were the good years for tinkerers. Open-source CMS platforms were the closest thing we had to a universal starter kit, and PHP-Nuke and osCommerce were how you learned to ship real projects on the open web. I went deep on Joomla for the better part of a decade, contributing code to the project, organizing its community around releases and events, and eventually crossing over into the WordPress orbit that quietly swallowed everything in its path.
From there the story is a tour of the hosting stack: cPanel and the control-panel era that defined shared hosting, the managed cloud wave at Cloudways and DigitalOcean, and the publishing side at webhosting.today. Day to day now I'm at JetBackup, working on backup and disaster recovery and helping hosts protect the infrastructure that keeps everything running. I also program the seasonal industry summits, Atlas Digital Summit and Domain Days Dubai, where the hosting community gathers to set the agenda for what comes next.
The through-line is community, the conferences, the hallway conversations, and the group chats where the industry actually decides what happens next. The technology changes; the people pointing it in the right direction stay the same.
Twenty-something years,
in reverse.
- 2026 – present
FounderAtlas Digital SummitPrivate gatherings for hosting leaders, AI infrastructure innovators, and the builders of the agentic web.
- 2026 – presentFounderConf64
The Conference Operating System for Business Development and Field Marketing Teams.
- 2026 – present
Co-FounderSuperDeployThe advanced migration engine for AI applications. Seamlessly transition your codebase to independent, production-grade infrastructure in minutes.
- 2025 – 2026Director of Business Developmentwebhosting.today
Contract · Business development and partnerships for the hosting publisher.
- 2024 – presentBusiness Development & Partnerships ManagerJetBackup
Backup and disaster recovery for the hosting ecosystem.
- 2023 – present
Chief Marketing Officer, Founding TeamDomain Days DubaiMENA’s domain and digital asset conference.
- 2021 – 2023Senior Manager, WordPress Business Unit → Lead Community Marketing Manager IICloudways / DigitalOcean
Full-time · WordPress community, field marketing, and sales enablement through the acquisition.
- 2019 – 2021Marketing ManagercPanel
Full-time · Event planner and marketing strategist for 500–3,000 attendee events and virtual series.
- 2017 – 2019FounderCMS Summit
The global CMS conference.
- 2007 – 2019CEO | FounderJoomlaxtc.com / Monev Software LLC
Premium Joomla templates and extensions. 101,000+ members.
- 2015 – 2019Board Member, Capital Team ChairJoomla! Project
Leadership, sponsorships, and partnerships for the open-source CMS.
- 2001 – 2005DeveloperPHP-Nuke · osCommerce era
First shipping code in the early open-source web.
Threat Briefing: WP2Shell RCE Chain and Core WordPress Security Alert
WP2Shell Core Vulnerability
- Critical RCE: A vulnerability chain dubbed "WP2Shell" is being actively exploited in WordPress Core, allowing unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) and full site takeover [1, 2].
- Technical Impact: The exploit chains multiple flaws to achieve a combined CVSS score of 9.8/10 [1]. The WordPress Security Team released emergency core updates on July 17th, 2026, to address this threat [3].
- Required Action: Infrastructure teams must ensure all installations are updated to WordPress v.7.02 immediately [6].
Backdoored Plugin & Zero-Days
- Backdoor Discovery: Threat intelligence monitoring (PRISM) identified a backdoored plugin using a
_wploginrequest parameter to bypass authentication via hardcoded hashes [9]. - Fancy Product Designer: A critical zero-day vulnerability is being actively exploited in this plugin; immediate patching is required to prevent unauthorized access [8].
- Frontend File Manager: A critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-16292) has been disclosed, affecting file management security [7].
Critical Vulnerability Tracking
- CVE-2026-63030: This identifier is associated with the critical "WP2Shell" activity impacting site owners globally [5].
- CVE-2026-60137: A newly listed vulnerability via WPScan is currently pending NVD assessment [10].
- Reporting Period: Total disclosures for the week of July 13–19, 2026, indicate a high-volume threat landscape for hosting providers [4].
On the
road.
Conferences, summits, and WordCamps I’ll be at in the months ahead.
- Aug 16 – 19, 2026
- Sep 28 – 29, 2026
- Domain Days DubaiRescheduled
New dates to be announced.
Oct 15 – 16, 2026 - Nov 11 – 12, 2026
- State of the WordDec 2026
- Mar 15 – 18, 2027
When the servers
go quiet.
A small digital label putting out industrial house, progressive house, and dubstep. A different kind of open protocol.
Twenty years of showing up for the projects, communities, and voices that keep the open web open.
A news portal covering the hosting and domain industry — and a running excuse to keep talking to the people who build it.