Category Archives: Technology

Secrets, lies and Snowden’s email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit | Comment is free | theguardian.com

The owner of Lavabit, the encrypted email service used by Edward Snowden finally tells his story. And it makes uncomfortable reading.

Secrets, lies and Snowden’s email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

China bans the installation of Windows 8 on government computers

China believes that Windows 8 poses enough of a future security risk that it’s banning government agencies from installing the operating system on any of its new computers. 

China bans the installation of Windows 8 on government computers.

Apple sued over iMessages that fail to reach ex-iPhone user | Technology | theguardian.com

 

A Californian woman has filed a class action against Apple after switching to an Android phone and finding that text messages sent by friends with iPhones didn’t reach her.

Apple sued over iMessages that fail to reach ex-iPhone user | Technology | theguardian.com.

Java

Duke, the Java Mascot, in the waving pose. Duk...

I really need to pick up and freshen up my Java knowledge. The last time I seriously programmed in it, we had no generic types, no lambda expressions, the Collections framework was not actively in use, and the dynamic object type of choice was Vector.

Related articles

15 Sorting Algorithms in 6 Minutes – YouTube

An interesting look at 15 different sorting algorithms with a visual representation of how well they run. Everything from the classic Bubble Sort, Heap Sort and Quick Sort. Including a few I didn’t even know about. Radix, Cocktail Shaker, Gnome.

Bitonic is a really weird sort method. And Bogo, well, I have no clue what that one is trying to do.

UK government buys last-minute lifeline with £5.5m Windows XP support deal- The Inquirer

THE UK GOVERNMENT has bought a lifeline for Windows XP ahead of the software’s 8 April cut-off date, handing Microsoft £5.5m to continue supporting the operating system for an additional year.
The government’s £5.48m will ensure that Microsoft continues to provide critical and important security updates for Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2003 and Exchange 2003, and comes just five days ahead of the operating system’s End of Life.

UK government buys last-minute lifeline with £5.5m Windows XP support deal- The Inquirer.

Heartbleed and the after-effects

עברית: לוגו של התוסף HTTPS Everywhere לפיירפוקס

Heartbleed certainly shook up a lot of companies, and whilst a lot of companies did their best to get system updated, doing so has caused users side effects, including me.

I use an extension for Chrome/Chromium called HTTPS Everywhere and this forces HTTPS connections to the site you’re visiting. However, since the patching of Heartbleed, some sites have started misbehaving and only work “properly” if I use either the Incognito mode (which means no extensions), or if I deactivate HTTPS Everywhere for the site in question. The side effect of this, unfortunately, means my net traffic to the site in question is exposed via non-secure HTTP. Fortunately, I have encountered only two sites so far which have this problem, neither of them I am too concerned (at the moment) about:

If I encounter any more, I’ll post it here.

Related articles