When purchasing a home broadband connections you generally have two main options for what type of connection you want: fiber and copper. These two terms describe what type of cable is used to transmit your data. … [Read more...] about Fiber vs. Copper Internet
Internet
What Is HPKP?
HPKP is a deprecated web security response header, the acronym stands for HTTP Public Key Pins. It was intended to prevent a compromised or rogue certificate authority from issuing a publicly trusted, but hacker-controlled, HTTPS certificate for a website. In this scenario, the hackers would be able to decrypt any intercepted HTTPS traffic to the affected website. … [Read more...] about What Is HPKP?
What Is a Warrant Canary?
A warrant canary is a method of negative speech, through which a website or company can inform its users that they have complied with a gagging court order to hand over user data. A canary must be prepared in advance, as it relies on the company no longer saying that it has not complied with such a warrant. … [Read more...] about What Is a Warrant Canary?
What is HTTP/2?
All web traffic over the internet uses the well-known HTTP protocol. What you may not know is that there have actually been multiple versions of the HTTP protocol published and used across the internet. The first published version was HTTP V0.9 and was released in 1991, version 1.0 was released in 1996 and replaced in 1997 with HTTP/1.1. … [Read more...] about What is HTTP/2?
What is HSTS?
HSTS is a web security response header. The name is an acronym for “HTTP Strict Transport Security”. The function of the HSTS header is to force browsers to connect to websites using HTTPS. … [Read more...] about What is HSTS?
Chrome: How to Use an Ad-Blocker in Incognito Mode
An ad-blocker is an almost essential tool for many people when browsing the internet. An ad-blocker can obviously block advertisements, but it can also help protect you from trackers and malicious websites too. When you enable incognito mode, however, all of your browser extensions are disabled by default. This also disables your ad-blocker, leaving you unprotected from … [Read more...] about Chrome: How to Use an Ad-Blocker in Incognito Mode
What Is IPv4?
IPv4 has been the standard Internet addressing scheme since the first version was deployed on the ARPANET in 1983. IPv4’s successor, IPv6 was standardized in 2017 but still faces slow uptake, despite draft versions being public since 1998. The move to IPv6 is seen as urgent as the available IPv4 address space has been exhausted. … [Read more...] about What Is IPv4?
Is WEP Good for WI-FI Security?
Pretty much every home has a Wi-Fi network. While many of those networks may have no password, most people have password-protected their home network. What you may not know is that the password isn’t just used to restrict access to your Wi-Fi. It's also used as an encryption key to encrypt the data being transmitted between your devices and your home router. This encryption … [Read more...] about Is WEP Good for WI-FI Security?
What Are Vector Graphics?
Vector graphics is a computer graphics concept that that defines an image as a set of points that are connected by lines and curves. This is in comparison to raster graphics which individually saves the value of each pixel. This design concept means that vector images can be scaled up and down at will with no loss of quality or increase in file size. In comparison scaling … [Read more...] about What Are Vector Graphics?
Why Is It Important to Route DNS Traffic Over Your VPN?
One of the main reasons people use a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is for privacy purposes. Many people don’t want their ISP, or Internet Service Provider, from knowing or tracking what websites they are accessing. Even if you are using a VPN though, your ISP may still be able to track what websites you’re browsing to, through your use of a protocol called DNS. … [Read more...] about Why Is It Important to Route DNS Traffic Over Your VPN?