Week 16: April 16, 2018 - April 22, 2018
Facebook latest news
Another accidental oops moment for Facebook. Many Facebook users in Europe reported that got messages that prompted them to enable Face recognition. The wording of the message is such that want to show you that this feature will help you against malicious uses of your face.
You have to continue even if you want to turn off this "feature". The flow is designed (this is not only for Facebook but on other sites too) to click the one they want you to click, but portray it as your choice. Let's see how that will work for them.
Infected Chrome Extensions
Some semi popular adblocking extensions for Google Chrome have been reported to be malicious.
The co-founder of AdGuard checked the requests the extensions made and found out that many have the ability to remotely execute code and update their code without an official update.
Since then the extension were removed from the store, but Meshkov (the co-founder) says that the extension store is full of low-quality and malicious/sketchy apps.
Microsoft release a linux kernel and a Chrome extension
This week Microsoft released a linux kernel called Azure Sphere. Azure Sphere is a software and hardware stack that is based on the Linux operating system.
Microsoft has come a long way and after 43 years this is the first time Microsoft released a custom linux kernel.
On the Google app side, Microsoft released a Windows Defender extension for the Chrome browser. Although Google block malicious sites, Microsoft claims that this extension blocks even more malicious sites and 99% of the phising attempts.
Samsung to use blockchain to track shipments
Samsung is searching for a distributed ledger system to track their international orders, a system which is estimated to cut down prices by 20%. The shipping industry in general has a lot to earn by this move. Transparency and efficiency are very important here.
Pornhub adds crypto payments
The adult industry always pioneering and the porn site Pornhub, has added crypto payments as an option to pay for the premium services of the site.
The coin they are accepting is Verge tokens. Verge has a strong focus to anonymity and is the reason Pornhub claim that they choose this.
Telegram tries to bypass the Russian block
Russia government recently blocked Telegram to users in Russia and Telegram is running out of alternatives for the app to work. Google disabled a method many apps where using to bypass government blocks and Telegram founder, Pavel Durov is now offering paying with Bitcoin any administrator that is offering proxy services and VPN. Russian users are about 7% of the total Telegram users but the founder says that it is very important to him personally to support the Russian users.
ICOs on the rise
Initial coin offerings for the year 2018 have already surpassed the previous year. This year the ICO have raised $6.3 billion which is 18% more than the previous year and it isn't even the middle of the year. The number of ICO are above 50% of 2017. This includes the massive $1.7 billion Telegram ICO. How many are legitimate is a valid question though. And how many of those will have a good future?
That is all for this week's Bits in Technology. Feel free to comment any of the news in the comments. See you all next week.
Have a great week! - Chris Myll
