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Daily Archives: April 20, 2020

You Can Now Check If Your ISP Uses Basic Security Measures

Wired: “For more than an hour at the beginning of April, major sites like Google and Facebook sputtered for large swaths of people. The culprit wasn’t a hack or a bug. It was problems with the internet data routing standard known as the Border Gateway Protocol, which had allowed significant amounts of web traffic to take an unexpected detour through a Russian telecom. For Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, it was the last straw. BGP disruptions happen frequently, generally by accident. But BGP can also be hijacked for large-scale spying, data interception, or as a sort of denial of service attack. Just last week, United States Executive Branch agencies moved to block China Telecom from offering services in the US, because of allegedly malicious activity that includes BGP attacks. Companies like Cloudflare sit on the front lines of the BGP blowback. And while the company can’t fix the problem directly, it can call out those that are slow to contribute defenses. On Friday, the company launched Is BGP Safe Yet​, a site that makes it easier for anyone to check whether their internet service provider has added the security protections and filters that can make BGP more stable…”

2 billion phones cannot use Google and Apple contact-tracing tech

ars technica: “As many as a billion mobile phone owners around the world will be unable to use the smartphone-based system proposed by Apple and Google to track whether they have come into contact with people infected with the coronavirus, industry researchers estimate. The figure includes many poorer and older people—who are also among the… Continue Reading

New England Journal of Medicine – In Pursuit of PPE

This note was published on April 17, 2020, at NEJM.org: “As a chief physician executive, I rarely get involved in my health system’s supply-chain activities. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed that. Protecting our caregivers is essential so that these talented professionals can safely provide compassionate care to our patients. Yet we continue to be stymied… Continue Reading

Report – “State of America’s Libraries 2020”

“Today the American Library Association (ALA) released its 2020 State of America’s Libraries report, an annual summary of library trends released during National Library Week, April 19 – 25, that outlines statistics and issues affecting all types of libraries during the previous calendar year. Although the report focuses on 2019, libraries are shown to be… Continue Reading

Why in times of COVID-19 you should not walk/run/bike close behind each other

Towards aerodynamically equivalent COVID19 1.5 m social distancing for walking and running: Full article – preprint – List of questions and answers Belgian-Dutch Study via Medium – “In a lot of countries walking, biking and jogging are welcome activities in these times of COVID-19. However, it is important to note that you need to avoid… Continue Reading

Patients with heart attacks, strokes and even appendicitis vanish from hospitals

Washington Post – “Soon after he repurposed his 60-bed cardiac unit to accommodate covid-19 patients, Mount Sinai cardiovascular surgeon John Puskas was stumped: With nearly all the beds now occupied by victims of the novel coronavirus, where had all the heart patients gone? Even those left almost speechless by crushing chest pain weren’t coming through… Continue Reading

Mary Meeker’s Coronavirus Trend Report

Via Axios – “Bond Capital, a Silicon Valley VC firm whose portfolio companies include Slack and Uber, told its investors [April 17, 2020] via email that the coronavirus’ high-speed spread and impact has similarities to the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906…Bond’s best-known partner, Mary Meeker, is a former bank analyst renowned for her annual… Continue Reading

Facebook & Carnegie Mellon University COVID-19 Symptom Map

About This Map “This map shows an estimated percentage of people with COVID-19 symptoms, not confirmed cases. Facebook uses aggregated public data from a survey conducted by Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center. Facebook doesn’t receive, collect or store individual survey responses. This map is not intended for diagnostic or treatment purposes, or for guidance… Continue Reading

Everything You Wanted to Know About Isopropyl Alcohol

iFixit: “Isopropyl alcohol is having a moment. Not an uplifting celebration, unfortunately. It’s more of a panicked where-can-I-find-it, is-this-the-same-stuff moment. Isopropyl alcohol is a disinfectant at its higher percentages, and you can use it to make homemade hand sanitizer. As such, there’s a shortage, and recent prices are triple what they were a month ago.… Continue Reading