Weekly Axis Of Easy #65
This week’s quote: “The only permanent truth in finance is that people will get bullish at the top and bearish at the bottom.” by ????
Last Week’s Quote was “Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Big undreamed-of things — the people on the edge see them first. “ by Kurt Vonnegut, winner was Darren J
THE RULES: No searching up the answer, must be posted in the comments below.
The Prize: First person to post get their next domain or hosting renewal is on us.
- WPA3 is here: WIFI to be more secure
- British Airways mega data breach
- Millennials and small biz exiting Facebook in droves
- In Saudi Arabia “Information Crime” nets 5 years in prison, fines
- Google wants to get rid of the URL
- NSA blames technology for crime
- Integrate your domain with Ethereum Name Service
WPA3 is here: WIFI to be more secure
A couple of articles describe the next generation of WIFI security, WPA3. The next wave of implementation will also support two separate certification protocols which are not part of WPA3 per se: The Enhanced Open and Easy Connect protocols. WPA3 brings Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE), which is a new method of authenticating a new device trying to connect to the network, it replaces Pre-Shared Key (PSK) method of key exchange which has been used since the advent of WPA2 in 2004.
Read: https://www.wired.com/story/wpa3-wi-fi-security-passwords-easy-connect
British Airways mega data breach
British Airways disclosed late Friday that customers who booked travel through the ba.com website between August 21 and September 5th had their financial details, but not their travel or passport information, compromised. A spokesperson put the number at 380,000 transactions. Kudos on the fast disclosure, but under the new GDPR rules in Europe, the airline could potentially face fines of up to 4% of it’s global annual revenue. Wow.
Millennials and small biz exiting Facebook in droves
Two separate articles here, same phenomenon: Facebook is facing headwinds. Maybe it started with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or maybe people are just realizing independently that it’s an asymmetric relationship. A PEW research poll showed that a staggering 44% of millennials, people under the age of 30, have deleted the Facebook app from their mobile device, something we recommended everybody do several weeks ago. For millennials the effect must be compounded because for people under 30, mobile is mostly it. Desktops are in the same bucket as rotary telephones for those guys.
The other demographic that is turning away from Facebook are small businesses, who find themselves at the mercy of Facebook’s arbitrary changes to feeds impacting their reach, and it’s costing them real money. Why spend the time building up a Facebook following when Zuck can take it away on a whim? (Or Jack over at Twitter for that matter). That’s why it’s best to have all roads lead back to your own website on your own domain.
In Saudi Arabia “Information Crime” nets 5 years in prison, fines
The Saudi office of Public Prosecution announced last week that anybody committing “an informational crime” that disturbs the public order will face prison terms up to 5 years and fines of 3 million riyals ($800,000 USD). Another example of why the UN put Saudi Arabia in charge of a panel on human rights. But hey, I heard it’s legal to bring females into restaurants now, so there’s that.
Google wants to get rid of the URL
With Google Chrome turning 10 years old, the company wants “to move toward a place where web identity is understandable by everyone… But this will mean big changes in how and when Chrome displays URLs. We want to challenge how URLs should be displayed and question it as we’re figuring out the right way to convey identity”
I’m just waiting to find out what exactly that means. Do they want to get rid of the location bar? Or even supplant the underlying DNS system that scaffolds URLs? For now, Google isn’t elaborating on what they’re thinking.
(Also, something we wrote 10 years ago: How to explain URLs so anybody can understand them: https://axisofeasy.com/blog/2008/10/28/how-to-explain-urls-so-anybody-can-understand-them/)
NSA blames technology for crime
This scathing editorial by way of the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the NSA out for mishandling their own collected data, lack of transparency and blaming it on technical failures, while simultaneously blaming technology for violations of federal law. The article hones in specifically on the NSA’s mass deletion of phone records which has prevented them from fully completing an annual transparency report to congress. While the article admits having the records deleted is probably a good thing, personally, I call b/s on that. It’s the NSA for cripes sake, they haven’t lost anything.
Integrate your domain with Ethereum Name Service
As announced last week, Ethereum Name Service (ENS) integration for .XYZ domain names is here. You can register a new .XYZ domain for the special price of $7.50 and use that name for your wallet or smart contract. MyEtherwallet, Metamask and many more systems support ENS addressing now.
See: https://axisofeasy.com/blog/2018/09/02/ethereum-name-service-ens-integration-now-live-on-mainnet/