Colas Nahaboo personal site, with discussions about programming code, web and computing topics, surfing and SUPing, and various musings. Zola 2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00 https://colas.nahaboo.net/tags/personal/atom.xml 2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00 2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://colas.nahaboo.net/blog/i-recovered-my-facebook-account-read-how/ <h2 id="what-happened">What happened<a class="zola-anchor" href="#what-happened" aria-label="Anchor link for: what-happened">🔗</a></h2> <p>On 2024-10-24, <a href="https://colas.nahaboo.net/blog/my-facebook-account-has-changed-hacked/">my Facebook account was hacked</a>. Alas, Facebook did not allow me to get back my account, or even report the account as compromised, without entering the current password that whad been changed by the hackers. So I had to create a new account, and moved on.</p> <p>However, I recently created a test account on Instagram, to try to generate RSS feeds to follow Instagram accounts more comfortably via my RSS-Bridge. And I was surprised to see that my "new" account was in fact the account of another user that had been blocked, then unblocked.</p> <p>This prompted me to try to re-log into my old Facebook account and... it worked! <strong>I was able to reset the password</strong> without knowing the current one. I thus will remove the new account after some time.</p> <h2 id="nice-but-why">Nice, but why?<a class="zola-anchor" href="#nice-but-why" aria-label="Anchor link for: nice-but-why">🔗</a></h2> <p>But looking a bit (for instance about <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://riskbasedauthentication.org/state-of-practice/">Risk-Based Authentication (RBA)</a>, it appears I was lucky to try to re-use my account just days after a 6 month delay: Facebook relaxes accounts the security measures 6 months after a detected suspicious activity!</p> <p>The behavior I experienced — being blocked from recovery despite having valid contact info, followed by a sudden "opening" of access — is apparently a documented pattern in Facebook’s security ecosystem, notably their <strong>automated risk assessment</strong> procedures.</p> <h3 id="the-security-freeze-why-i-was-stuck">The "Security Freeze" (Why I was stuck)<a class="zola-anchor" href="#the-security-freeze-why-i-was-stuck" aria-label="Anchor link for: the-security-freeze-why-i-was-stuck">🔗</a></h3> <p>When a hijacker changes a password, Facebook’s "Trusted Device" and "Location" protocols often trigger a lock. Even if my email and phone were correct, Facebook may refuse a reset if:</p> <ul> <li>I cannot provide the current password, aka <strong>The "Current Password" Requirement</strong>. This is a common defensive measure when Facebook detects a "conflict of ownership." If the system sees two different locations (mine and the hacker's) trying to claim the account, it often demands the <em>current</em> password to prevent the owner from being "kicked out" by someone who isn't actually the owner. Needless to say, this is a really bad design, as hackers first move is to change the password.</li> <li>I use another browser. As I tried many ways to recover my account, I also tried to use another browser on another machine, to start afresh. But this failed Facebook <strong>IP Reputation</strong> detection: Seeing I was trying to recover the account from a network or device the system didn't "trust" at that moment, it applied the most restrictive recovery path to the account.</li> </ul> <h3 id="why-it-suddenly-worked-the-6-months-cooldown-period">Why it suddenly worked (The 6 months "Cooldown" Period)<a class="zola-anchor" href="#why-it-suddenly-worked-the-6-months-cooldown-period" aria-label="Anchor link for: why-it-suddenly-worked-the-6-months-cooldown-period">🔗</a></h3> <p>Nothing is actually officially documented, but here is the likely scenario:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Risk Score Decay:</strong> After 6 months of inactivity (or if the hacker eventually triggered a "Security Lock" that made the account go dormant), the "Risk Score" associated with the account drops.</li> <li><strong>Account Dormancy:</strong> Facebook often flags accounts that have been compromised as "checkpointed." After a certain period of time without successful logins from the hijacker, the system may lower the threshold for recovery for the <em>original</em> owner, especially if he are using a device or IP address that was associated with the account for years before the hack.</li> <li><strong>The "Verification Reset":</strong> Facebook occasionally clears the "verification debt" on accounts. If the hacker was blocked by Facebook’s automated systems (e.g., for spamming), the account enters a state where the next person to provide valid 2FA or email confirmation is granted access without the "current password" hurdle.</li> </ul> <p>All of this is totally automated, with no human intervention, by the system's <strong>"Identity Verification"</strong> logic resetting itself after a period of dormancy. Once the "Pirate" was no longer active, the system stopped viewing my recovery attempt as a "hostile takeover" and allowed the standard email/phone reset to work.</p> <h3 id="summary-of-known-behavior">Summary of Known Behavior<a class="zola-anchor" href="#summary-of-known-behavior" aria-label="Anchor link for: summary-of-known-behavior">🔗</a></h3> <table><thead><tr><th style="text-align: left">Stage</th><th style="text-align: left">System Logic</th><th style="text-align: left">Result</th></tr></thead><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: left"><strong>Initial Hack</strong></td><td style="text-align: left">High-conflict state; system protects the "active" user.</td><td style="text-align: left">Recovery denied despite valid email.</td></tr> <tr><td style="text-align: left"><strong>The 6-Month Gap</strong></td><td style="text-align: left">Account goes dormant or hacker is "checkpointed."</td><td style="text-align: left">Security tension on the account relaxes.</td></tr> <tr><td style="text-align: left"><strong>Recovery</strong></td><td style="text-align: left">System recognizes you are the owner IP/Location and valid contact info.</td><td style="text-align: left">Password reset allowed without "Current Password."</td></tr> </tbody></table> <h3 id="what-to-do-once-the-account-is-recovered">What to do once the account is recovered<a class="zola-anchor" href="#what-to-do-once-the-account-is-recovered" aria-label="Anchor link for: what-to-do-once-the-account-is-recovered">🔗</a></h3> <ul> <li>Check the Settings for <strong>"Saved Login"</strong>, <strong>"Where you're logged in"</strong>, and <strong>"Apps and websites"</strong> immediately. Sometimes hackers leave a "backdoor" by authorizing a specific browser or app that doesn't require a password.</li> <li>Change the password, enable 2FA (Two-factor authentication).</li> <li>Remove all apps connected to the account.</li> <li>Check other sites that authorized logins from this Facebook account, change their passwords andf look for suspicious activity.</li> </ul> 2024-10-24T00:00:00+00:00 2024-10-24T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://colas.nahaboo.net/blog/my-facebook-account-has-changed-hacked/ <p> <div class="obsolete-overlay"> OBSOLETE </div> <style> .obsolete-overlay { /* Position fixed to cover the screen as you scroll */ position: fixed; top: 45%; left: 35%; transform: translate(-50%, -50%) rotate(-45deg); /* Look and Feel */ font-size: 12vw; /* Scales with screen width */ font-weight: 900; color: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.4); /* Red text with 40% opacity */ background: rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.2); /* Yellow background with 20% opacity */ border: 15px solid rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.3); /* Red border 30% opacity */ padding: 20px 50px; /* Technical magic */ z-index: 9999; /* Keep it above everything else */ pointer-events: none; /* IMPORTANT: Allows clicking through the text */ text-transform: uppercase; white-space: nowrap; user-select: none; /* Prevents highlighting the watermark */ } </style> <div class='info warning'><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="24px" viewBox="0 -960 960 960" width="24px" fill="#1f1f1f"><path d="M449.5-85Q435-91 423-102L102-423q-11-12-17-26.5T79-480q0-16 6-31t17-26l321-321q12-12 26.5-17.5T480-881q16 0 31 5.5t26 17.5l321 321q12 11 17.5 26t5.5 31q0 16-5.5 30.5T858-423L537-102q-11 11-26 17t-31 6q-16 0-30.5-6Zm30.5-74 321-321-321-321-321 321 321 321Zm-40-281h80v-240h-80v240Zm68.5 108.5Q520-343 520-360t-11.5-28.5Q497-400 480-400t-28.5 11.5Q440-377 440-360t11.5 28.5Q463-320 480-320t28.5-11.5ZM480-480Z"/></svg> Warning: obsoleted by <a href='/blog/i-recovered-my-facebook-account-read-how/'>this new version</a>.</div> Warning: on 2024-10-24, my Facebook account was hacked. Alas, Facebook did not allow me to get back my account, or even report it, so I had to create a new one.</p> <p>So please never use my old account anymore ( https://www.facebook.com/colas.nahaboo ) and block it under Facebook to be safe, as hackers are going to use it to hack and phish others, and use my new account: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567836084230</p> <p>I changed my profile picture (on Facebook only for now) to differentiate the two accounts:</p> <p><img src="https://colas.nahaboo.net/blog/my-facebook-account-has-changed-hacked/Avatars-old-new.png" alt="" /></p> 2022-02-24T00:00:00+00:00 2022-02-24T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://colas.nahaboo.net/blog/one-year-retired/ <p>I have been retired for one year now, and what happened? Well...</p> <ul> <li>I basically stopped coding and reading about anything computer-related for eight months. I didn't expect it, I was thinking I would start coding at once, going through my huge todo list of various projects.</li> <li>I enjoyed being able to go SUP surfing at will, but I ended up actually less on the water than before, simply because i didn't feel pressured into going on the water if the conditions were not enjoyable: I have now all the time in the world, I can wait for better conditions.</li> <li>I started what I should have done years ago: Stretching at least 30 minutes daily, and warming up a full 10 minutes before going surfing. Work and play for me were mainly sitting in front of a computer, and I had become awfully stiff. I will detail my routine in later posts, it is worth it.</li> <li>I dived deep in modern physics: astrophysics, cosmology and quantum mechanics. This also will warrant a full separate post.</li> <li>I started re-coding in the last four months: <ul> <li>The first month I began working on various bits of code (shell scripts), progressively getting back to speed, and also deciding to learn the language Go. I was looking for a very longtime for an efficient language to replace lisp or C as compliment to scripting (I never liked Java), and was hesitating between Rust and Go. A discussion with <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.arsac.org/olivier/">Olivier Arsac</a> convinced me to try Go.</li> <li>I switched to git (I was using mercurial) for version control, and <a href="/code/moving-to-github/">moved</a> my publicly available source codes from my personal web site to my <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://github.com/ColasNahaboo">GitHub</a>. It may sound ridiculous, but at now 61, setting things up so they do not disappear when I do is becoming an important consideration. I will thus progressively stop using self-hosted sites to publish on places that will survive me, as nobody in my family is tech-savvy enough to maintain a web site.</li> <li>Then in December I stumbled upon the <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://adventofcode.com/">Advent of Code</a> challenge that I decided to do in bash for the challenge, and it was unexpectedly productive? I learned more in these 25 puzzles than in my last 10 years of professional bash scripting. You can see my solutions in my post <a href="/code/bash-lessons-learned-with-aoc-2021">Bash lessons learned with AoC 2021</a>.</li> <li>Thus, after finishing the Go tutorial, I decided to do the previous AoC years in Go. And I just <a href="/code/completed-the-2015-advent-of-code-challenge-in-go">finished the AoC 2015 in Go</a>. This definitively made me a Go enthusiast, I realized that the designers of Go had exactly the same opinion of what should be a general programming language: They worshiped readability, simplicity, performance and maintainability while hating inheritance and the feature creep of most modern languages.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>That was my first year. And now, embarking for the next one!</p> 2021-02-25T00:00:00+00:00 2021-02-25T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://colas.nahaboo.net/blog/retired-at-last/ <p>At last, I am now retired!</p> <p>I ceased all activity on 2021-02-17, and my work account will be destroyed on 2021-02-28. A new era of full time surfing, coding and playing opens up. For now it is mostly playing with the new <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.valheimgame.com/">Valheim</a> game that is making a huge debut(*), as the waves are not good (winter storms) and I take a (small) coding break.</p> <p>I will try to make a post per week on this site, starting now 2021-03-01. I know there is no way I will be able to keep the rhythm, but let's say it should be my long-term goal.</p> <p>(*) I strongly recommend you read <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/02/23/valheim-7-lessons-from-their-amazing-marketing/"># Valheim: 7 marketing lessons from their amazing launch</a>, which tries to shed some light on its phenomenal success.</p> 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://colas.nahaboo.net/about/contact/ <table><thead><tr><th></th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody> <tr><td>Email</td><td><a href="mailto:colas@nahaboo.net">colas@nahaboo.net</a></td></tr> <tr><td>WWW</td><td><a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://colas.nahaboo.net">https://colas.nahaboo.net</a></td></tr> <tr><td>Bluesky</td><td><a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://bsky.app/profile/colas.nahaboo.net">https://bsky.app/profile/colas.nahaboo.net</a></td></tr> <tr><td>GitHub</td><td><a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/colas.nahaboo/">https://github.com/ColasNahaboo</a></td></tr> <tr><td>YouTube</td><td><a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/user/cooolas">cooolas</a></td></tr> <tr><td>Mastodon</td><td><a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://mastodon.social/@ColasNahaboo">https://mastodon.social/@ColasNahaboo</a></td></tr> <tr><td>Facebook</td><td><a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/colas.nahaboo/">https://www.facebook.com/colas.nahaboo/</a><br>It was pirated, but <a href="/blog/i-recovered-my-facebook-account-read-how/">I got it back</a>.</td></tr> </tbody></table> <p>To send me feedback &amp; comments, do not hesitate to either send me an email at <a href="mailto:colas@nahaboo.net">colas@nahaboo.net</a>, or leave a comment at the bottom of any page of this site. You can write me in English or French. All the posts on this site related to the digital ecosystem (computers, programming, tech industries video games...) will be in English.</p> <p><span class="twiki-macro FRFLAG"></span> Pour me donner vos opinions sur ce site et son contenu, un email à <a href="mailto:colas@nahaboo.net">colas@nahaboo.net</a> sera le bienvenu, mais vous pouvez aussi laisser des commentaires en bas des pages de ce site, en Français ou en Anglais. Si les articles traitant de tout ce qui touche au numérique seront en Anglais, pour son universalité, certains autres sujets, notamment sur le surf, pourront être bilingues Anglais et Français</p> 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00 Unknown https://colas.nahaboo.net/about/me/ <p>I am French, and grew up in <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Rapha%C3%ABl,_Var">Saint Raphaël</a>, a nice little town on the French riviera. I loved physics, and started engineering studies when I had in the mid-seventies two revelations what changed my life, <strong>computers</strong> via new devices, the programmable calculators and <strong>surfing</strong> via a new sport that was starting then: windsurfing. Since then, I have been hooked on everything related to these two passions. I have a beloved wife, 2 adorable daugthers, and ... lots of cats! I love reading, mainly English sci-fi books (see my <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/43224227-colas-nahaboo">goodreads</a>), cooking, and Boogie Woogie music. I always worked in <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Antipolis">Sophia Antipolis</a>, near Cannes in the south of France, but recently moved to <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seignosse">Seignosse</a>, in the south-west of France.</p> <h2 id="computers">Computers<a class="zola-anchor" href="#computers" aria-label="Anchor link for: computers">🔗</a></h2> <p><strong>1970s:</strong> In 1977, a student in my Higher School Preparatory Class bought a electronic calculator, the <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-57">TI-57</a>. I discovered on it the fascinating art of programming and spend a whole night coding a moon landing program. It was a true revelation of the digital world that changed my life forever and got me hooked on all things computer. I thus choosed my engineering school based on the quality of its computer courses and machines, not even bothering to attend the renowed ENS Ulm oral exam because they lacked a computer system.</p> <p><strong>1980s:</strong> In 1984, after my engineering degree at "<a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique">X</a>", I made a PHD thesis in computer science under the direction of the insanely bright <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Berry">Gérard Berry</a> (I designed and implemented LEDA, a syntaxic editor build from a special graphic toolkit I designed on top of <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeLisp">LeLisp</a>) at INRIA Sophia Antipolis - still on the French Riviera -, then, as a researcher in user interface technlogy at <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.bull.com/">Bull</a>, in the Koala team created by <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IB44BAgAAAAJ">Vania Joloboff</a>, a lisp-like language <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://foldoc.org/WOOL">Wool</a>, (with even a <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US5974253A/en">patent</a>) an X window manager based on it <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.freshports.org/x11-wm/gwm/">GWM</a>, (<a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://tronche.com/gui/x/gwm/html-manual/wool.html">manual</a>) and many "bleeding edge" things in the brillant X Window System community. At home I invested myself on the Apple IIe, then the Atari ST, and the Commodore Amiga.</p> <p><strong>1990s:</strong> I also had other revelations in the form of <strong>Unix</strong> and the <strong>GNU</strong> manifesto, and was fortunate to meet extremely influential people such as <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Scheifler">Bob Scheifler</a> and <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman">Richard Stallmann</a>, and many others of these finest hours of the computing ecosystem, and especially the various industry-wide consortiums such as the <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#The_MIT_X_Consortium_and_the_X_Consortium.2C_Inc.">MIT X Consortium</a> and <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation">OSF</a>. Our small Koala team that I then led, part of <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_Bull">Bull</a> but hosted inside <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Institute_for_Research_in_Computer_Science_and_Automation">INRIA</a> at <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Antipolis">Sophia Antipolis</a>, eagerly explored the new software technologies, the web, java... while contributing personally to lots of open source projects, mostly personal tools, but also <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://twiki.org/">TWiki</a> and then <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://foswiki.org/">Foswiki</a>. We instantly drew close bounds to the <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.w3.org">W3C</a> and did a lot of things web-related. At home, I switched to PC hardware, with Linux for programming and DOS+Windows for games.</p> <p><strong>2000s:</strong> In 2000, myself and the remaining Koala team members (along the years, a lot of members have migrated to most major computer companies) went then to work at <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOG">ILOG</a> an innovative French software company, where I worked on graphics and business rules, before designing an innovative intranet - based on wikis - and inventing and developing the usability team after being granted my latest revelation, <strong>Usability</strong> (I am one of the co-founders of the usability association "use-age". Alas, I progressively stopped my open source work (and the maintainance of this site) as the increase of my work time (with this new job) and my surfing time (by discovering <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standup_paddleboarding">SUP</a>, I was more and more on the water).</p> <p><strong>2010s:</strong> Then, in 2009, ILOG was acquired by IBM, where I went on working on collaborative intranet tools and designed and implemented a system and an innovative language for Role-based access control (<a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-based_access_control">RBAC</a>). Since 2016, I have entered a semi-retirement mode, as by moving in the world-renowned surf village of <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seignosse">Seignosse</a> (close to Hossegor), I can now surf in the mornings and (remote) work in the afternoons. And I should resume my open source work in March 2021, when I will fully retire, and then surf in the morning and code open source projects in the afternoons.</p> <p><strong>2020s:</strong> I fully retired on February 17th, 2021, with all my time devoted to SUP-surfing in the morning, cooking for lunch, napping in the afternoon, and coding or playing video games in the evening. To my surprise I could not code anymore, but it came back after 6 months.</p> <h2 id="surfing">Surfing<a class="zola-anchor" href="#surfing" aria-label="Anchor link for: surfing">🔗</a></h2> <p><strong>Windsurfing:</strong> In the summer of 1975, I discovered this new sport, Windsurfing, via Maurice Lejeune who had established in <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9jus">Fréjus</a> a Waterskiing and Parasailing school, and discovered Windsurfing at its world championships in 1975 in Bandol, and started a Windsurfing school. I loved Windsurfing, especially the excitement of being among the pionneers, inventing techniques, but I still remember the day when I was pushed by a mere 1 foot wave and had my first surfing sensation. I was instantly hooked for life, and Maurice Lejeune pushed me to go to Biarritz take some surfing lessons with his pal Jo Moraïz, one of the French surfing pioneers ("The Tonton Surfeurs" - "The surfing uncles"). In the meantime I cured my addiction to waves by Windsurfing in waves, as early as the fall of 1975 as you can see in this <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lolyTk0pNtE">vintage video</a>. I was specially found of the board shapes by Barland and Marco Copello, and sails by David Ezzy.</p> <p><strong>Surfing:</strong> After learning to surf in Biarritz, I discovered there were waves in the French Riviera, and pioneered a lot of surfing spots around Fréjus, with my brother Vincent. As I could see the spot from my parents house, I rarely missed a session. I ended up surfing mostly between Fréjus and Italy, with (not enough) trips to Biarritz at first, and then only Hossegor once I discovered these magic, but elusive and fickle waves in clean waters. I also discovered <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201119130904/https://blog.bicsport.com/corporate/Inside-BICSport/news/whats-up/news-details/the-destiny-of-gerard-dabbadie.html">Gérard Dabbadie</a> ("Superfrog"), and ended up with a quiver made only of his boards.</p> <p><strong>Snowboarding:</strong> I was lucky to take up snowboarding when it started. Quite fun times! But I reckon water has less appeal for me in its solid form than the liquid one...</p> <p><strong>SUP:</strong> In the mid-2000s, I was surfing and windsurfing less and less. I was not motivated enough to get out in mediocre conditions, so I was less and less physically fit and ma technique regressed. An awful vicious circle. Then, I (re-)discovered strapless windsurfing, and in 2008 bought a board that was also a SUP hybrid. I was not really attracted by mere paddling on a board instead of using a sail, so I didn't think anymore or it. But in 2009 I saw a sale on SUP paddles, so I bought one to try. My first sessions were a disaster, as the board was too short to learn on, but my curiosity was awaken. On the summer of 2009, I bought a true 9'6" SUP, and was hooked for life. SUPing acted as a wave magnifier, so I could again experience the full surfing sensations even in crappy waves. I was on the water at least 2 days a week all year round, and became fit again, feeling younger by 20 years... I haven't touched windsurfing yet again, and only prone surfed a handful of times.</p> <p><strong>Gong:</strong> My first SUP board was a bit cumbersome, though, so I bought after 3 sessions with it a SUP by the French brand <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.gong-galaxy.com/">Gong</a> of Patrice Guénolé, and knew I have found my favorite shaper again. I am now and ambassador of the Gong brand, and have owned more than 50 Gong boards!</p> <p><strong>Seignosse:</strong> We finally moved in 2016 to Seignosse, my little surfing paradise, for a surfing retirememnt.</p> <p><strong>Foiling:</strong> I started foiling in 2017 (reports in <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/Foiling/SUP-foiling--my-first-steps-">English</a> and <a rel="noopener external" target="_blank" href="https://forum.gong-galaxy.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&amp;t=8892">French</a>), a very technical and interesting new surfing/flying experience, altough I must say I still prefer surfing. I guess foiling for me reminds me too much of Windsurfing and it has a "déjà vu" flavor.</p>