04Apr 2018 by richard@baronsoftware.com

goo.gl is shuttering Google shortening service

News Items
goo.gl is shuttering Google shortening service Google announced that it is shutting down its URL shortening service, goo.gl. The company says that new and anonymous users won’t be able to create links through the goo.gl console as of April 13th, but existing users will be able to use it for another year, after which it will be discontinued completely. Firebase Software Engineer Michael Hermanto says that the company introduced the URL shortener in 2009, and that since then, the ways in which people share information on the web has changed, while additional URL shorteners have grown in popularity. He notes that Google is refocusing its efforts by replacing it with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL), which allow users to redirect to specific locations in iOS, Android or web apps. Existing users will be able to…
Read More
03Apr 2018 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Why Microsoft is splitting up Windows in its latest reorganization

News Items
Why Microsoft is splitting up Windows in its latest reorganization Microsoft is embarking on yet another reorg, arguably the biggest since Satya Nadella took over as CEO four years ago. In this one, Windows will be split into sections all in the name of making Microsoft over to focus on its high-growth businesses. Microsoft is splitting up its Windows and Devices Group and moving the pieces into two new engineering units: Experiences & Devices under Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha and Cloud + AI under Executive VP Scott Guthrie. A couple of units that are currently part of Microsoft's AI + Research group are going to be moving into Guthrie's new organization. Windows and Devices chief Terry Myerson is leaving the company as part of the reorg. Microsoft is making these moves…
Read More
03Apr 2018 by richard@baronsoftware.com

15 percent or less are fully confident of recovering data in a disaster

News Items
15 percent or less are fully confident of recovering data in a disaster In a new survey data protection specialist Arcserve reveals that while downtime is a top concern, many businesses lack confidence in their ability to recover data. The study indicates that IT decision makers across America, Europe and Japan, 57 percent of respondents say they aren't confident in their ability to recover their business data in the event of a downtime or disaster event. Only just over 14 percent say they feel very confident they could recover their data. It was also reveal that over half at 56 percent that their customers don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place. Of those customers that do have a plan in place, 59 percent test it, at most, once a year. This is…
Read More
28Mar 2018 by richard@baronsoftware.com

The FTC confirms it’s investigating Facebook over its privacy practices

News Items, Software Events
The FTC confirms it’s investigating Facebook over its privacy practices The Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that it is investigating Facebook’s privacy practices after it was revealed that the company allowed Cambridge Analytica access to the personal data of some 50 million Facebook users without their expressed consent. “The FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices,” the agency said in a statement, after declining to comment last week when Bloomberg reported that an investigation has been opened. Specifically, the investigation seeks to find whether Facebook violated a consent decree — which requires the social network to obtain explicit permission from users to share their data with third parties — that it signed…
Read More
25Mar 2018 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Vast amount of Servers are leaking huge amounts of passwords and keys

News Items, Software Events
Vast amount of Servers are leaking huge amounts of passwords and keys Thousands of servers operated by businesses and other organizations are openly sharing credentials that may allow anyone on the Internet to log in and read or modify potentially sensitive data stored online. In a blog post published late last week, researcher Giovanni Collazo said a quick query on the Shodan search engine returned almost 2,300 Internet-exposed servers running etcd, a type of database that computing clusters and other types of networks use to store and distribute passwords and configuration settings needed by various servers and applications. etcd comes with a programming interface that responds to simple queries that by default return administrative login credentials without first requiring authentication. The passwords, encryption keys, and other forms of credentials are used to…
Read More