Aminda Suomalainen

…is an open-source enthustiastic volunteer sysadmin in the Pirate Party of Finland.

🏳️‍⚧​‍🏳️‍🌈️

• Helsinki, Finland
• Aminda.eu Keyoxide LinkedIn
• GitHub GitLab.com OpenHub
• Email Telegram Signal

‍🏳️‍🌈️​🏳️‍⚧

Table of Contents

• Volunteering, positions of trust
• IT Skills
• Language skills
• Work Experience
• Education
• Courses and Additional Training
• Hobbies
• Societal and Political Activity

Volunteering, positions of trust

• 10.2015– Pirate Party of Finland
  • Web Services and Instant Messaging Maintenance
  • Reference: Utu Hopiavuori
  • Unified the management of the Pirate Party’s IRC channels under the Atheme GroupServ, centralizing access control instead of using individual lists for dozens of different channels.
  • Unified messaging of the party’s communication channels regardless of where messages are originally sent from. Initially I only did IRC to Slack using Slack’s IRC-gateway while it was supported. I was also Slack workspace admin.
  • Set up TeleIRC and Discord-IRC to bridge communication between IRC, Discord, and Telegram for the Pirate Party.
  • Assist the PirateIRC oper team in maintaining the network, communicating with operators from the Pirate Parties of Australia and Sweden, and assisting our users (e.g., Pirate Party of the Netherlands, Pirate Party of Massachusetts).
  • Acted as the contact person for PirateIRC with the Matrix bridge maintained by the Indian Pirates, assisting with the PirateIRC end configurations to set up the bridge.
  • Transitioned from TeleIRC and Discord-IRC to Matterbridge as a better solution, removing IRC as an intermediary.
  • Maintain a Limnoria instance that tracks certificate transparency feeds, monitors Git-webhooks, and fetches titles of linked sites to aid users of various IRC and Matrix clients that do not fetch link titles for users.
  • Set up role-based access control on the Pirate Party’s Discord server to ensure that not all channels are visible to everyone, providing a more peaceful workspace for those channels which need it.
  • Assist in the maintenance of the Pirate Party’s web services, including updating (Debian and Ubuntu) operating systems, writing systemd units, and updating software.
  • Assist with email forwarding and mailing list creation and updates using CPanel.
  • Assist in maintaining the Pirate Party’s Nextcloud instance, creating user accounts for party activists as needed.
  • Created Matrix rooms and spaces for the Pirate Party to allow participation in party instant messaging with (similar as Discord) restricted access to rooms requiring working peace.
  • Communicated with the Austrian Pirate Party, as the Finnish Pirate Party used their Matrix server for matterbridge, and I still maintain a relay on international Pirate Party discussion channel (Global Pirates) on the Austrian Mattermost server, Matrix, Telegram, Discord, and PirateIRC.
  • Assisted PirateIRC in transitioning from four Charybdis IRC servers and Atheme IRC services to a more modern Ergo IRCd solution that integrates both components.
  • Actively communicate with the upstream developers of the software used by the party, especially Charybdis, Atheme, Ergo, Limnoria, and Gitea Forgejo.
  • Translated the TLG_JoinCaptchaBot we use into Finnish.
  • Reolved Nextcloud server crashes caused by low memory with out of the container thinking by improving the systemd.unit and implementing earlyoom, considering additional memory to be unnecessary.
• 19.03.2020 - 04.01.2022 Federated Networks Association ry (Feneas)
  • Committee Member
  • Even after the association’s dissolution, I assist in maintaining Feneas Matrix rooms and engage with the community.
  • Occasionally helped update the Matrix server or the Element client by opening merge-requests for GitLab’s Ansible-playbooks.
  • Act as the Feneas group contact for LiberaChat IRC network, communicating on both sides if there are issues with LiberaChat, registering Feneas namespace channels on their network, serving as channel operator, and requesting vhosts for our members to show their connection to the association.
• 02.04.2019 - 19.04.2020, 07.10.2021-23.11.2021 Privacy Guides
  • Team Member
  • Participated in discussions on GitHub, in the issues and discussions sections, and labeled them to facilitate sorting and finding them in the future.
  • Reviewed pull requests.
  • Particularly involved in creating the encrypted DNS section, gathering information on solutions (DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS, DNSCrypt) and following their developments with interest.
  • Conducted research on suggested applications and services, assessing whether they met the project’s criteria.

IT Skills

• Linux administration since 2008
  • Arch Linux, Debian, (Ubuntu, ) Fedora, SailfishOS
  • systemd (system/user units (services, timers), networkd, resolved, timesyncd…)
  • OpenSSHd, CUPS print server, UFW and firewalld firewalls
  • Chrony time server
• Git
  • At least a decade of experience in all sorts of git magic, including managing bare repositories without pretty user interfaces, moving remotes, setting upstreams, fetching pull request remotes directly from terminal (git config --add remote.origin.fetch '+refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*'), etc.
    • One of the most active GitHub users in Finland in 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, …and now.
  • Follows best practices in her opinion including .gitattributes, pre-commit, .editorconfig, which can be found in most of my repositories.
  • GitHub/GitLab/Gitea/Forĝejo organizations, issue tracker, labels
  • GitLab/Gitea/Forĝejo repository mirroring
  • GitHub/GitLab pages
• DNS
  • DNSSEC, zone management, Unbound
  • DNS-over-HTTPS (iOS 14 and Windows 11 clients) and DNS-over-TLS (Android, systemd, Unbound clients)
• IPv6
  • SixXS, Tunnelbroker, radvd, radvdump, Yggdrasil
• Windows Server
  • Active Directory, Group Policy…
• IRC
  • Charybdis+Atheme, Ergo services and servers
  • KiwiIRC, Gamja browser-based clients
• WordPress troubleshooting
• bash scripting and Python basics, see Mikaela/Scripts
• MySQL-basics
• \LaTeX -basics, see. LaTeX directory of Mikaela/gist
• Centralized management of web browsers through policies
  • I have written two blog posts on the subject, part one on enforcing HTTPS-only mode and part two on installing and managing Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin.

Language skills

• Finnish 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (native)
• English ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⚫ (CEFRL: C1)
• Esperanto ⭐⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫ (CEFRL: A1)

Work Experience

• 13.09.2021-28.11.2021 Digitalents Academy
  • On the job training
  • Created a GitHub Pages-based CV (cv.aminda.eu).
  • Got acquainted with the basics of Python and JavaScript.
  • Briefly explored the Flask web framework.
  • Assisted other trainees with using git.
• 03.2020 - 09.2020 Unicus Finland
  • On the job training
  • Prepared for the ISTQB Foundation Level exam.
  • Briefly explored programming with Python 3, Ruby, and Go.
  • Familiarized myself with Firefox Developer Tools, especially for accessibility testing.
  • Learned about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and accessibility testing, and understood how accessibility benefits me personally.
• 28.10.2019 - 19.12.2019 Robuntu Osk
  • On the job training
  • Performed various tasks in support of the cooperative’s operations.
  • Assisted in marketing the cooperative’s services by exploring mass communication with Thunderbird extensions and Facebook Marketplace.

Education

• 14.03.2024 - 11.10.2024 Taitotalo (Helsinki)
  • Partial Degree in Information and Communication Technology: Maintenance of Cybersecurity
• 08.08.2012 - 29.05.2015 Etelä-Kymenlaakson Vocational College (Hamina)
  • Vocational Qualification in Information and Communication Technology: User Support Training Program

Courses and Additional Training

• 25.05.2015 - TIEKE: Computer User’s AB Certificate
• 16.09.2014 - CCNA Discovery: Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP
• 28.04.2014 - CCNA Discovery: Networking for Home and Small Businesses

Hobbies

• Cybersecurity: I constantly follow industry news and online communities (IRC, Matrix).
• “Software Testing”: I often find issues or missing features in the software I use and, if a clear reporting channel exists, I report them.
  • Requires a user account to view the list of my issues in other people’s GitHub repositories, GitLab.com.
• Political Activity: I am active in the Pirate Party and assist with campaigns in Helsinki, including discussing with people, distributing flyers, making coffee, or helping to set up slideshow presentations at the campaign booth.
• Languages
• 11.07.2014– Maintaining my personal websites Mikaela.info, 114077943.xyz, and Aminda.eu, and writing a blog
  • Webmaster
  • I registered my domains with Gandi and have since used services from Cloudflare, EasyDNS, and PorkBun, especially after Gandi was sold. Currently, all three of my domains are managed by Cloudflare (though only mikaela.info is registered through them).
  • I maintain multiple sites on GitHub Pages. I originally wrote my main site (aminda.eu) in HTML+CSS, later transitioning to the Jekyll CMS, which generates static pages. However, it doesn’t do everything for me, so I occasionally work with HTML and CSS, especially when I need more advanced tools than markdown.
  • I write blog posts on various topics, including my life and more technical subjects like IRC and Matrix protocols, as well as previously mentioned browser policies.
  • I often ponder what improvements I could make, what I could blog about, and frequently outline what I want to write in the site’s issue tracker.
• Reading
• Localization
  • I maintain the Finnish translations for FluffyChat (since 19.11.2021) and Nheko (since 04.04.2022) Matrix clients using the Weblate translation tool. Outside of Matrix, I have translated TLG_JoinCaptchaBot (since 11.04.2022), which combats spam in Telegram groups.
  • I discuss the meaning of original messages with other translators, how they have been translated into other languages, or what special meanings they may have.
  • I follow discussions and feedback on translations in Matrix Finland.
  • I also support users of these applications in their respective support channels.

Societal and Political Activity

• Pirate Party Council
  • Deputy Member 26.09.2020-25.02.2021, Full Member 25.02.2021-18.06.2022
• Young Pirates Finland Board
  • Member 2017-06.06.2018, Deputy Member 2018-2019-01-11, 19.01.2020-18.12.2021
• Pirate Party Helsinki District Association, Deputy Board Member
  • 2017-2018, 2019-2021, 13.07.2022–
• Finnish Association for Autism, Deputy Board Member
  • 14.04.2018 - 12.04.2019
• Pirate Party Municipal Election Candidate in Helsinki 2017

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