Yes Privacy really improves productivity

This is an interesting research.

Massive attack against Dyn

Last week’s  DDoS attacks against Dyn are being reported everywhere.
If I had to guess, though, I don't think it's China. I think it's more likely related to the DDoS attacks against a person than the probing attacks against the Internet infrastructure, despite how prescient that attack seems right now. And, I’m sure China is not going to launch a preemptive attack on the Internet.

MIM Attact Is That Possible WhatsApp ?

Forbes is reporting that the Israeli cyberweapons arms manufacturer Wintego has a man-in-the-middle exploit against WhatsApp.
It's a weird story. I'm not sure how they do it, but something doesn't sound right.

Another possibility is that CatchApp is malware thrust onto a device over Wi-Fi that specifically targets WhatsApp. But it's almost certain the product cannot crack the latest standard of WhatsApp cryptography, said Matthew Green, a cryptography expert and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. Green, who has been impressed by the quality of the Signal code, added: "They would have to defeat both the encryption to and from the server and the end-to-end Signal encryption. That does not seem feasible at all, even with a Wi-Fi access point.
"I would bet mundanely the password stuff is just plain phishing. You go to some site, it asks for your Google account, you type it in without looking closely at the address bar.
"But the WhatsApp stuff manifestly should not be vulnerable like that. Interesting."
Neither WhatsApp nor the crypto whizz behind Signal, Moxie Marlinspike, were happy to comment unless more specific details were revealed about the tool's capability. Either Wintego is embellishing what its real capability is, or it has a set of exploits that the rest of the world doesn't yet know about.

Who was behind the arrest of the well known torrent site kickass ?

Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the torrent directory service KickassTorrents, was arrested in Poland earlier this week, charged with copyright infringement and money laundering. As we dig deeper as to what exactly happened, it turns out Apple and Facebook were among the companies that handed over data to the U.S. in its investigation. Department of Homeland Security investigators traced IP addresses associated with KickassTorrents domains to a Canadian ISP, which turned over server data, including emails. At some point, investigators noticed that Vaulin had an Apple email account that was used to make iTunes purchases from two IP addresses -- both of which also accessed a Facebook account promoting KickassTorrents.if you're wondering where exactly iTunes came into play, here's a further explanation. It all started in November 2015, when an undercover IRS Special Agent reached out to a KickassTorrents representative about hosting an advertisement on the site. An agreement was made and the ad, which purportedly advertised a program to study in the United States, was to be placed on individual torrent listings for $300 per day. When it finally went live on March 14th 2016, a link appeared underneath the torrent download buttons for five days. Sure it was a short campaign, but it was enough to link KAT to a Latvian bank account, one that received $31 million in deposits -- mainly from advertising payments -- between August 2015 and March 2016. Upon further investigation of the email accounts, and corresponding reverse lookups, it was found that the account holder had made a purchase on iTunes.

A Safe Bet Verizon-Yahoo

Yahoo is set to be bought by Verizon

Why the telecom company is interested to invest in a Internet poortal ? Here is why

Finally, Someone has come forward to buy Yahoo! Guess Who? Its Verizon

Yes, Verizon Communications Inc. is reportedly closing in on a deal to acquire Yahoo’s core business for about $5 Billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Since the agreement between the companies has not been finalized, it is unclear at this moment that which Yahoo's assets the deal would include.

"In order to preserve the integrity of the process, we're not going to comment on the issue until we've finalized an agreement," a Yahoo spokeswoman said in a statement provided to CNNMoney.

You might be wondering Why Verizon is buying Yahoo! Well, I’ll come to it in the second half of my article, because before discussing this point, let’s first focus on why Yahoo! wants to get acquired.

Why Yahoo Was Up For Sale?

Founded in 1995, Yahoo! was once the brightest star of the Web. But when its rivals including Google, Facebook and even few-years-old companies like Snapchat and WhatsApp have won over users, Yahoo! has not been able to maintain that glory.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer - formerly a Google executive - has spent billions on acquisitions so far to improve Yahoo's mobile products, expanding its audience by acquiring Tumblr and doubling down on premium media content.

But Mayer struggled to slow the overall ad sales decline of Yahoo! and failed.

Last Monday, the company accepted that its revenue fell 15% in the second quarter, after excluding accounting adjustments, and its operating profit fell 64%.

So, after keeping investors at bay for years, Mayer said Yahoo! would explore strategic alternatives, including selling its core assets.

Verizon has long been considered a suitable buyer for Yahoo’s Internet assets, which the telecom giant wants to combine with AOL - the American global mass media corporation bought by Verizon last year for $4.4 Billion.

Now, the two companies are in one-on-one discussions, and Verizon will reportedly acquire Yahoo! for about $5 Billion.

So, why does a mobile telecom provider want to acquire the core editorial business of a failed Internet portal?

The sure short answer is: Advertising!

With the success in the wireless industry, Verizon has been buying up Internet and ad technology companies, like AOL, to compete in a mobile advertising market dominated by two big players, Google and Facebook.

And for this same reason, it is now buying Yahoo!’s ad and content businesses.

Yahoo! has millions of users, and a collection of websites like Flickr, Tumblr, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo Sports, including some digital-ad technology like Flurry and BrightRoll.

Since the growth of Verizon’s traditional telecom business has been decreased, companies like Yahoo! and AOL would necessarily help Verizon make money from digital advertising on mobile devices.

The deal would not only give Verizon a powerful collection of content and revenue from ad related to that content but also give the telecom company a considerable amount of user data to provide target advertisements to users by the telecom as well as others.

So, this is the kind of deal Verizon was interested in when it acquired Yahoo!