WhatsApp Files Lawsuit Against the Indian Government

Mike Isaac, reporting for The New York Times:

The lawsuit, filed by WhatsApp in the Delhi High Court, seeks to block the enforceability of the rules that were handed down by the government this year. WhatsApp, a service owned by Facebook that sends encrypted messages, claimed in its suit that the rules, which were set to go into effect on Wednesday, were unconstitutional.

Yes, Facebook is evil, but the current Indian Govt. is riding the same boat. It’s good to see WhatsApp challenging these ridiculous new rules (may even be unconstitutional), and I hope other companies join the suit.

That said, this doesn’t absolve WhatsApp from their new Privacy Policy changes. Scumbags.

May 26, 2021 ✚ Permalink

1Password Adds an Archive

Chris De Jabet, writing on the 1Password blog:

We learned from customer feedback that some people would make a vault named Archive and move these items there, and others were storing those items in the Trash. While both solutions work, neither was ideal. That’s why we’re rolling out the new Archive feature in our latest updates.

For the longest time, I’ve had an ‘Archive’ vault in 1Password to hold old items that I no longer used, but still wanted to store in 1Password to reference. Items such as old server passwords, accounts from sites that are now dead or moved, random secure notes, etc. were all moved to this ‘Archive’ vault. I can finally delete that vault now that 1Password has native support for the Archive.

May 25, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Cloudflare Announces a New Initiative to Replace CAPTCHA Annoyances

Thibault Meunier, writing on the Cloudflare blog:

We want to get rid of CAPTCHAs completely. The idea is rather simple: a real human should be able to touch or look at their device to prove they are human, without revealing their identity. We want you to be able to prove that you are human without revealing which human you are! You may ask if this is even possible? And the answer is: Yes! We’re starting with trusted USB keys (like YubiKey) that have been around for a while, but increasingly phones and computers come equipped with this ability by default.

Let’s face it, CAPTCHAs are annoying. I may have clicked on thousands of little photos of traffic lights so far, and it’s been an annoyance every single time.

If you have a YubiKey, you can try out the flow on https://cloudflarechallenge.com — a test website setup by Cloudflare.

I’d love to see where this initiative goes.

May 13, 2021 ✚ Permalink

BMC to Start Six More Vaccination Centres Today in Mumbai

The BMC said it is starting six more vaccination centres today. Matoshri Sports Club at Sundar Nagar HP (JVLR), BMC Community Hall (Jogeshwari), Aadhar Kendra (Vile Parle), Gadkari HP Videocon Atithi (Chembur), Yoga Kendra (Ayodhya Nagar), and Najambaug (Dongri) are the centres. Apollo Spectra in Deonar and Saifee Ambulance in Bhendi Bazar are two private vaccination centres that will also start today.

We really need more vaccination centres for 18-44 north of Jogeshwari

May 6, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Twitter Expands Engineering Team in India

Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director of Twitter India and Nick Caldwell, VP of Twitter Engineering, writing on the Twitter Blog:

Expanding the team in India aligns with our overall belief that having more employees at Twitter, living and working in places that are representative of all perspectives and cultures, and sharing local context about these conversations will help us build a better service and company. By committing to hire and develop local engineering talent, we will play an important role in the company’s journey to become the world’s most diverse, inclusive, and accessible tech company. The engineering team in Bengaluru, which has expanded rapidly over the past two years, will continue to focus on building more daily utility for new and existing audiences, with capabilities ranging from product development, research and design as well as data science and machine learning.

April 20, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Vodafone India's BGP Hijack Takes Down Several Global Networks

Ax Sharma, writing for BleepingComputer:

A large BGP routing leak that occurred last night disrupted the connectivity for thousands of major networks and websites around the world.

Although the BGP routing leak occurred in Vodafone’s autonomous network (AS55410) based in India, it has impacted U.S. companies, including Google, according to sources.

You should also read Anurag Bhatia’s fantastic analysis here.

Time and again, these companies prove that initiatives like this one and this one need to be taken a lot more seriously for the Internet to become a better place.

April 19, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Apple Developer Program Enrollment Through Developer Now App Available in India

Apple today announced that it’s not possible to enroll into the Apple Developer Program through the Developer app on iPhone & iPad using local payment methods in Canada, France, India, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, and Spain.

Developers can start and finish their membership purchase with local payment methods on iPhone or iPad. And since membership is provided as an auto-renewable subscription, keeping it active is easy.

I still remember the days when you had to FAX a enrollment form to the US to enroll into the membership.

April 9, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Daft Punk 1993 - 2021

February 22, 2021 ✚ Permalink