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AWS outage hobbling major sites and services

Amazon’s AWS S3 service is having some technical issues that are causing major websites and services throughout the internet to have errors, or to be completely unusable. According to the latest update from Amazon they are “continuing to work to remediate the availability issues for Amazon S3” and that “AWS services and customer applications depending on S3 will continue to experience high error rates”. The issues seem are connected with Amazon’s “US-EAST-1” data center, located in Northern Virginia. Amazon has not yet stated what may have caused the issues.

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Safe & Happy New Years. May your 2017 be filled with happiness, accomplishment, and prosper!

Are we giving up privacy for convenience?

Amazon Alexa — Photo Credit: Cort S./jageekblog.com

While watching the NBC Nighty News today and I saw an a story about authorities in Bentonville, Arkansas seeking the recordings from an Amazon Echo unit in connection with a murder. The authorities seem to believe that the Echo may have recorded something relevant to the murder. They have issued a warrant for Amazon to turn over the recordings. Amazon for their part is holding firm on the side of privacy, and has not yet turned over anything. The legal bar has not been met, in their opinion.

South Carolina’s Chumley files bill to create law to block porn

Image Credit: **© Diana Eller | Dreamstime.com**

South Carolina state representative Bill Chumley (R-Spartanburg), has introduced a bill designed to fight human trafficking by blocking pornography on any device sold in the state. According to GoUpstate.com, the bill will require manufacturers of devices to install digital blocking on all computers and phones sold within the states borders. The manufacturers of the devices would be able to remove the block by paying the state $20 per device sold. The end users of the products would also be able to get the blocks removed by proving their age, confirming they have received a written warning of the dangers, and paying the $20. The proceeds of the fees will go to the states fund to combat human trafficking. It should be noted that Rep. Chumley represents South Carolina’s upstate region, which according to authorities is a “hotbed” of human trafficking activity.

Hackers stole details for over 1 Billion Yahoo accounts

Yahoo Headquarters (Photo Credit: Coolcesar/Wikipedia) — Photo Credit: Coolcesar/Wikipedia

It is being widely reported that internet company Yahoo was breached by hackers, back in 2013. Yes, you read that right, 2013. Here we are three years later, and it is just now being revealed that account information for a record-breaking billion accounts may have been compromised. If this sounds familiar that is because it is. In September of this year, Yahoo reported a breach resulting in data for over 500 million accounts stolen. However, according to a Tumblr blog post from Yahoo, this attack is separate from the attack that took place in 2014.

Amazon Go – Physical stores, without checkout lines?

Internet retailing powerhouse Amazon announced its latest venture into the physical marketplace. It is launching a new brick-and-mortar food market it is calling, Amazon GO. Amazon has forayd into various offline markets in recent years. They launched a physical bookstore in Seattle, and 4 more in cities around the country. The Amazon Go stores are advertised by Amazon as “compact”, at about 1,800 square feet, “so busy customers can get in and out fast”. In addition they will use technologies to eliminate lines, and the checkout process altogether.

4 tech necessities when traveling light

I am a pretty big geek, and I love to travel and take day trips. I am also someone who prefers to stay connected, be it for business purposes, or personal. When I’m out and about I use every downtime opportunity to get online. In many cases I don’t want to carry a bag with me when I’m out exploring, so I have to slim down to the bare essentials.

Here is my list of 4 absolute necessities that I carry when I plan to be out for an extended period. The idea here is that everything on this list is able to be carried in your pants pockets. Unless of course you prefer skinny jeans, then it might be a bit tight. These items probably won’t be enough for more than a day, but should be enough to get you through a full days adventure, and possibly even an overnighter.

AT&T in FCC crosshairs over net neutrality, and the debate continues.

Net Neutrality

The FCC now has AT&T in is crosshairs over violating net neutrality rules by allowing its users to use its new DIRECTV Now video streaming service, without charging them any data, a practice known as “zero rating”. According to an article on Cnet the FCC sent a letter on Thursday informing AT&T that they believe, through a preliminary investigation, that this zero rate offer is in violation of net neutrality rules. It should be noted that zero rating is not specifically prohibited, but the FCC can take action on a case by case basis. The FCC is also investigating Verizon over claims that it is doing the same with access to its GO90 service.

1 Million+ Google Accounts Compromised by Gooligan Malware

Credit: Bakhtiarzein | Dreamstime.com - — Credit: Bakhtiarzein | Dreamstime.com –

News is spreading across the internet that more than 1 million Google accounts have been compromised by a malware known as “Gooligan”. The Gooligan malware, which is a type of Trojan Horse, infects Android devices through infected apps that a user installs on their device. Once infected the malware than steals the users authentication key and has full access to the users Google account, including photos, email and docs. According to Google, the Gooilgan malware is a variant of malware that has been around since 2014, called “Ghost Push”. Another variant of Ghost Push was found in SnapPea, an Android backup and sync application, last year by security researchers at Checkpoint. They are estimating that 13,000 new accounts are being compromised daily.

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