Tag: Saved for Later

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Monitor the Consistency of Your Broadband Speeds with a Raspberry Pi and IFTTT

Monitor the Consistency of Your Broadband Speeds with a Raspberry Pi and IFTTT

We all know you can pop over to a site like Speedtest to check your internet speeds, but most of us only bother when there’s a perceivable problem. If you want to create an actual database of your speeds throughout the day, Make shows off a logging system that uses a Raspberry Pi and If This Then That.

Essentially, you’ll install a command line interface for Speedtest on the Pi, then create a small program that logs the internet speed on a schedule. That log is then sent over to a Google Drive spreadsheet using IFTTT. With the log in hand, you can now complain to your ISP as needed (or automate the complaint process through Twitter if you like). If you’re worried you’re not getting what you’re paying for on a consistent basis, this is a good way to get some data to back up your claims. Head over to Make for the guide.

Use Raspberry Pi to Measure Broadband Speeds to Hold Your ISP Accountable | Make


via Lifehacker
Monitor the Consistency of Your Broadband Speeds with a Raspberry Pi and IFTTT

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Use Raspberry Pi to Measure Broadband Speeds, Dropouts to Hold Your ISP Accountable

IMG_5887Constant drops and outages with your broadband connection can drive you to frustration, but you can use the Raspberry Pi, and a little bit of command line scripting to monitor it.

Read more on MAKE

The post Use Raspberry Pi to Measure Broadband Speeds, Dropouts to Hold Your ISP Accountable appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.


via Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers
Use Raspberry Pi to Measure Broadband Speeds, Dropouts to Hold Your ISP Accountable

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A Big Ol’ Friday News Dump, Courtesy of Hillary Clinton’s Email Server

A Big Ol’ Friday News Dump, Courtesy of Hillary Clinton’s Email Server

Remember how Hillary Clinton used a private homebrew email server to conduct official State Department business? Today—only hours before the agency is expected to release the next batch of Clinton’s emails, and just days before the Iowa caucuses—the sitting administration disclosed that 22 of those emails are now considered top secret, and thus exempt from release:

The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails with material requiring one of the highest levels of classification.

As the Associated Press notes, this could very well contradict the argument (floated by Clinton and her surrogates) that the former Secretary of State “never sent or received information on her personal email account that was classified at the time.” Given the nature of the classification, the Obama administration is not required to explain what exactly the top secret emails were about.

The candidate, for her part, appears to be protesting the classification, which allows the government to withhold the entirety of the emails (as opposed to simply redacting certain portions of them). A spokesperson for Clinton’s campaign told NBC News that “we firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails. Since first providing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clinton has urged that they be made available to the public. We feel no differently today.”

Email the author: trotter@gawker.com · PGP key + fingerprint · Photo credit: Getty Images

via Gizmodo
A Big Ol’ Friday News Dump, Courtesy of Hillary Clinton’s Email Server

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Apple Has Been Directing People Searching For Abortion Clinics To Adoption Centers Since 2011

apple-maps Apple is working on changing an algorithm in Siri and Apple Maps that has been directing people to adoption centers when they asked for an abortion clinic.
Though the company knew this was a problem since at least 2011, it said at the time that this was a “glitch” and promised Siri would get better.
But not much changed in five years.
UCSF researcher Alexis Hoffman tested search… Read More


via TechCrunch
Apple Has Been Directing People Searching For Abortion Clinics To Adoption Centers Since 2011

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Google’s VirusTotal can tell if your firmware is infected

BIOS firmware is the root of your electronic devices, dictating communication between a computer’s hardware and operating system from the boot-up process. It’s an insulated layer in most devices, and organizations including the National Security Agency have focused on infecting firmware because it’s not covered in standard virus-detection scans. Google’s latest VirusTotal tool changes that — in a blog post, VirusTotal security engineer Francisco Santos outlines the dangers of firmware malware and how the company can now pinpoint that bad code.

"Since the BIOS boots a computer and helps load the operating system, by infecting it attackers can deploy malware that survives reboots, system wiping and reinstallations, and since antiviruses are not scanning this layer, the compromise can fly under the radar," Santos writes. "As of today VirusTotal is characterizing in detail firmware images, legit or malicious."

Researchers can upload malware to VirusTotal to see which antivirus products detect malicious code. On top of labeling firmware images, the new tool can extract certificates from the firmware and its executable files, and it can extract portable executables inside the image. PEs are a high-profile source of malicious software, Santos says.

"What’s probably most interesting is the extraction of the UEFI Portable Executables that make up the image, since it is precisely executable code that could potentially be a source of badness," Santos writes. "These executables are extracted and submitted individually to VirusTotal, such that the user can eventually see a report for each one of them and perhaps get a notion of whether there is something fishy in their BIOS image."

The "next interesting step" for VirusTotal’s firmware tool is the ability to dump your own BIOS firmware into its scanning service, Santos says.

Via: PC World

Source: VirusTotal

via Engadget
Google’s VirusTotal can tell if your firmware is infected

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How Drinking Too Much Soda Can Affect Your Body

You probably know that soda isn’t the best thing for your body, but have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn’t drink anything else? These are the health hazards you might run into if you down too many cans of cola.

Having a can of your favorite soda every day isn’t going to kill you if that’s how you like to treat yourself. But if you replace drinking water with soda, you’re certainly not doing your body any favors. This video from the AsapScience YouTube channel shows exactly how soda negatively affects your body, and how drinking too much will lead to numerous health problems. Soda eats away the enamel on your teeth, adds extra calories to your diet that are easy to forget about, can age you at the same rate as a typical smoker (if you drink 600 ml of soda a day), and the high-fructose corn syrup used in most soft drinks isn’t easily metabolized by your body. Artificial sweeteners have their own set of problems as well, so swapping in diet sodas won’t help very much. You don’t have to give up soda entirely, but it’s not a bad idea to look into healthier alternatives so it’s not all you drink. And remember, if you’re thirsty, a glass of water is always your best bet.

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What If You Only Drank Soda? | YouTube


via Lifehacker
How Drinking Too Much Soda Can Affect Your Body