I got to host Bart’s show, Let’s Talk Photography at lets-talk.ie/…. My RecoLive Tutorial is up at ScreenCasts Online, check it out at screencastsonline.com/…. I go on a bit of a rant about how the Live Show almost died because of a guy doing a takedown notice on YouTube of an interview we did with his company. That rant is followed by another one where I explain why I am neither sad nor surprised about the mess Samsung is in. If you get value out of the show, please consider pledging support at podfeet.com/patreon. I do a deep dive into the Reminders app for iOS and macOS. Then I walk you through my experience setting up the $50 Amazon Echo Dot. Bart Busschots jumps in for an out of band Security Medium where he explains what happened to the Internet this week. We talk about DNS and how the servers work, the role insecure IoT devices played in it and some suspicions about who was behind the attack.
Hi this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Mac Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Macintosh bias. Today is Sunday October 23, 2016 and this is show number 598.
Chit Chat Across the Pond
I had a total blast this week on Chit Chat Across the Pond. I got to interview Shelly Brisbin, author of the excellent book iOS Access for All. This time we didn’t talk about accessibility but rather the process of self publishing. It’s super geeky and gets into file formats and how she wrote her own custom CSS in order to format her books. Shelly is always delightful and this interview is not an exception to that. Please go check it out at Chit Chat Across the Pond #460 or subscribe to the show with your pod catcher of choice.
Let’s Talk Photography
This week Bart needed to be in Belgium with his family but it was the week he would normally do a Let’s Talk Photography. I offered to stand in for him and I was glad he accepted. He always helps me and I rarely get to do him a favor. He said the hard part was thinking up a topic and arranging the time when the most panel members could attend. I wanted to talk about smart phone photography and I was super lucky to get Mark Pouley of Twin Lakes Images, Victor Cajiao of Terratech and Antonio Rosario of Switch to Manual. We had so much fun, we agreed on a lot, and some good arguments and really dug into the topic of how amazing smart phone photography has really gotten. Check it out over at lets-talk.ie/….
RecoLive MultiCamTutorial Now on ScreenCasts Online
I just finished a really fun tutorial for Don McAllister’s ScreenCasts Online podcast. It’s on the $5 app RecoLive MultiCam for iOS that lets you use an iPad (or iPhone) as a video switcher and record the video. It’s a crazy powerful tool and the tutorial was nice and challenging to make because MultiCam can use up to four video devices at once. These video devices can be your Mac screen, a Mac-connected webcam, or other iOS devices. It’s really cool and I’m super proud of how well it turned out. If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can get a free 14 day trial and watch the RecoLive MultiCam video and anything in the back catalog. Go check it out at screencastsonline.com/…
Blog Posts
The Day the Live Show (Almost) Died
Why I Am Neither Sad nor Surprised About Samsung
Support us on Patreon
If you get value out of listening to the NosillaCast each week, I’d like you to consider supporting the show through Patreon. Do you think you learn a dollar’s worth of information out of each show? Maybe my silliness or my rants are worth a quarter a show. Maybe you’ve been looking for a way to contribute for a long time and you’d like to pledge eeven more. It’s all up to you. If you head over to podfeet.com/patreon, you can sign up to become a patron of the NosillaCast. Thank you to all of the people who have already pledged their support.
Reminders is a Hidden Gem in iOS and macOS
Echo Dot 2nd Gen is Clumsy on Initial Setup
Security Medium – What Killed a big Chunk of the Internet This Week?
On Friday (21 October 2016) a massive DDOS attack crippled DNS servers belonging to Dyn (http://dyn.com), a company that provides network services to many large internet companies. A look at their homepage just now shows them as providing services for Twitter, Netflix, Pfizer, Sodexo, SalesForce, TMobile, TripAdvisor, and LinkedIn.
A global provider like Dyn doesn't use a single data centre to provide a service, instead, they spread their datacentres around the world, and use Anycast routing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anycast) to service everyone's request from the nearest data centre to them. Basically – with Anycast routing, many servers spread over the internet share a single IP, and the one closest to you will deal with your requests.
In this case, the attacks seemed to focus on Dyn DNS servers providing service to the US and Europe.
Just a reminder – the job of an authoritative DNS servers is to provide a mapping between a human-friendly domain name like netflix.com, and the IP address that is providing that service.
The attack on Dyn affected lots of major websites, including: Twitter, Amazon, Tumblr, Reddit, Spotify and Netflix, CNN, PayPal, Pinterest, Fox News, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
There is an interesting link between Dyn and Brian Krebs, the first victim of a major Marai-powered attack – Krebs has been working with Dyn security researcher Doug Madory to expose links between companies that sell DDoS protection, and companies that sell DDoS services – in other words, people profiting by selling both the disease and the cure! The timing of the attack on Dyn seems to coincide with a talk given by Madory at a meeting of the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) in Texas.
It now appears that attack on Dyn was carried out using a botnet of IoT devices powered by the Mirai malware. Specifically, at least one Maria command and control server issued an attack command against Dyn, and the botnet controlled by that server was made up almost entirely of IoT devices from Chinese company XiongMai. It's possible other botnets were involved in the attack too.
Links:
- Major cyber attack disrupts internet service across Europe and US – www.theguardian.com/…
- DDoS on Dyn Impacts Twitter, Spotify, Reddit – krebsonsecurity.com/…
- Hacked Cameras, DVRs Powered Today’s Massive Internet Outage – krebsonsecurity.com/…
That’s going to wind this up for this week. Don’t forget to send in your Dumb Questions, comments and suggestions by emailing me at [email protected], follow me on twitter @podfeet. Remember, everything good starts with podfeet.com/. podfeet.com/patreon, podfeet.com/facebook, podfeet.com/googleplus, podfeet.com/amazon! And if you want to join in the fun of the live show, head on over to podfeet.com/live on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific Time and join the friendly and enthusiastic NosillaCastaways. Thanks for listening, and stay subscribed.