Blog Post: HeartBleed

What is it?

-Heart bleed is a bug of Open SSL which could allow someone to get the web server's memory such as passwords from your account! Open SSL was originally for making accounts secure. This bug can be found in famous websites as well such as Facebook, Google accounts etc.

How did it happened?

-As we know about Open SSL, which is famous of  websites that include a log in feature; so basically it is safe and secure for our accounts. And in the Open SSL has a feature called "heartbeats" which is a "call and response" action ; when you access to a web server, it will respond to your request. However, the issue of the bug heart-bleed is that, the hackers could request "beyond" the web to the web's "memory", this allows them to see your log in pass-codes, web cookies and other data.

Who got effected?

-People that are going on internet, logging in to their accounts with their passwords got effected; this is almost everyone in the world. Just imagine Facebook, how many friends of yours have gotten their Facebook account online to socialize with their friends? Also in educational case, you might need an account such as Gmail, or even online bank accounts!

What was the damage?

-The damage is that, the hackers would do anything to the account in however way they want to. For example, a hacker would damage your reputation by saying something bad using your account being a "fake you". The worst could be online bank accounts! The damage would be basically losing all your money since the hacker know your pass-codes already.

How to prevent it or recover from it?

-To prevent from this bug to happen to your account as well, you should definitely think about changing your passwords recently, probably once a month. Keep on changing passwords will be hard for hackers to hack your account since they can't log in anymore with your old passwords.

What did you learn from it?

-I learned that, it is not about strong passwords such as super long passwords, because once they've got into the web's memory and see all those data that they shouldn't have been seen, they could still get into your accounts! So it is better to change your passwords recently; and make sure not all your log in required accounts has the same password too!

Citations:

Griffin, Ben. "What is Heartbleed and how do I make myself safe?" Digital Spy. 29 Apr. 2014 <http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/feature/a565757/what-is-heartbleed-and-how-do-i-make-myself-safe.html#~oCbmepDl5aOehG>.

"What Is Heartbleed And How Does It Affect Me? :: YummyMummyClub.ca." What Is Heartbleed And How Does It Affect Me? :: YummyMummyClub.ca. 29 Apr. 2014 <http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/christella-morris-tech-this-out/20140417/what-is-heartbleed-and-how-does-it-affect-me>.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/heartbleed-bug-article-1.1751982v
http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/12/heartbleed-explained/?ncid=rss_truncated
https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/PayPal-Forward/OpenSSL-Heartbleed-Bug-PayPal-Account-Holders-are-Secure/ba-p/797568#

Blog Post: 11 Google search tips!

There are a lot of information that can be found just by Google it. Even though there are a lot of information, it is still a bit hard to find the 'exact' information that we are looking for. You won't know if its accurate or it is the one that you are expecting to get. Sometimes you just want to ask a simple question, but Google would just give many pages for you to find it out yourself, isn't that too much to handle? Here is 11 tips that everyone should know when they are trying to research for the 'exact' information that they are looking for.

First tip --> You should Find new stories:

Sometimes, you want to find information that had been revealed long time ago, but sometimes you want to get the latest piece of information, and if you just type in your question or keywords that you are going to search for, it will show out all the results from long time ago till the latest therefore it is hard to recognize whether this piece of information is new or old. Google now has this tool called Search Tool; you can choose the date range, either from custom or from Google itself, this made it a lot easier for you when it comes to researching.

Second tip --> You should search for a specific phrase:

To search for the exact information that you want to search without getting other "related" information, it is better to put a double quote for the exact thing you want to search for. Example: "H&M", from putting double quotes, you will get to search only the information about "H&M" not "H" , "&",  or "M". 

Third tip --> You should Search a Specific site:

For searching specific site, you can add "site:" and then add the site address TOGETHER with the specific key word that you want to find from that site by adding the word with double quote, you will eventually find what you want ti find quicker and easier. 

Fourth tip --> You should Eliminate a term from search results:

You can eliminate a term by adding a "minus" mark in front of the term or the keyword that you are searching. Basically you don't want that word to appear.

Fifth tip --> You should use image to search:

Do you ever have hard time trying to find something without knowing their names? Google allows you to simple drag a picture of yours that you saved, into the searching bar. It will automatically find similar pictures for you and see if you could get the name of that picture from the results.

Sixth tip --> Searching for local results:
Normally, your search engine know already about your location unless you didn't turn it on. If you didn't turn it on, you can add a zip code to the end of your search to find the information in that area; or you can select your location under the Search Tool.

Seventh tip --> Searching for the appropriate contents for children:

Sometimes it is hard to find information when you are looking for university-level texts for your research paper, or easy and simple understandable texts for children. If the citations about your research report is too simple, the teacher might not accept it; if the texts for children are too hard that they couldn't understand, it is hard to find again with all the results that Google provide. So here's the tip which is to turn on the reading Level. When that is being turned on; basic, intermediate, and advance will be sorted for you. Other than that, you can also turn on the Safe Search so that you won't find something that is not appropriate while searching.


Eighth tip --> Finding apps for your smartphones and tablets!

This might be the most useful tip since everyone nowadays are really into their smart devices. For this tip, you are able to search some games that you want to play without knowing the exact name but just some keywords. When you type it in, click on more tabs and find "APP", then you will be able to find the related apps, you can even check if its free or not.

Ninth tip --> Finding a product:


This tip will be a great tip for ladies that likes to shopping but doesn't know which specific site to go search for. Easy tip! Google the product's name or category and then click on Shopping. You can choose the color of that product you are searching, and even the price range for example, minimum **** price to maximum **** price.

Tenth tip --> Solve a math problem:
This is what I used pretty much sometimes when I'm lazy to get a calculator. Basically you can just type in those simple math that you want to solve such as "1  + 1 ".


Last tip! --> Get immediate results:
Basically, you can just enter something that would give you result immediately. For example, if you want to search a word's meaning, you don't need to go dictionary.com or search "what does xxx mean". All you need is to type in the word, or if the word is too wide to search its definition, just add "define" before the word, it'll show the definition immediately.

Major Concepts:
This whole article is talking about searching tips that we can use in Google to make our-self easier when it comes to researching something. With these tips, we can save our time, we don't need to look over those information that is unnecessary to our research. These tips made our live easier and made our research more organize as well!!

Disadvantages and Advantages:
Advantages are that, it is way faster and easier for us, especially students, when it comes to the time that we have to do a serious research paper with accurate contents (dates etc). But the bad thing is that, if we used too much of Google Tool, we might end up not using other resources since it saves much more time, such as physical copy of books. Even though it might take longer time to find in the library, but the books there are always accurate and are trust-able.

Question:
But does much of the people use Google tool?

Citation:
"11 Google Search Tips Everyone Should Know | TIME." Time. Time. 07 Apr. 2014 <http://time.com/39291/11-google-search-tips-everyone-should-know/>.