The Antares Rocket and Those Old Soviet Engines
Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket exploded seconds after launch this week, and it turns out its engines were refurbished Soviet moon-rocket hardware from the 1970s.
CVS Just Turned My Apple Pay Off
CVS and Rite Aid quietly switched off their NFC terminals days after Apple Pay launched, and the reason traces back to a retailer-backed rival called CurrentC.
My Phone Works at Every Register Except the One I Actually Wanted
Apple Pay worked fine at Walgreens and Panera this week, then CVS flat out refused it. Turns out that's on purpose, and the reason is dumber than you'd guess.
Apple Pay Works Great, Except at CVS
Apple Pay worked great at Walgreens this week and then died completely at CVS, and it turns out that's on purpose, not a glitch.
Finally Killing SSLv3 On This Server
A weekend chore I put off for a week and a half: patching SSLv3 out of this blog's nginx config after the POODLE disclosure, with the actual lines I changed.
I Finally Used Apple Pay, At Walgreens Of All Places
Apple Pay went live this week, so I actually tried it at Walgreens instead of just reading the keynote recap, and it was rougher around the edges than advertised.
Turning Off SSLv3 Before POODLE Gets You Too
A quick, practical walkthrough for disabling SSLv3 on Apache and Nginx after this week's POODLE disclosure, plus a small rant about 2014's parade of protocol bugs.
POODLE, Yosemite, and a Saturday I Didn't Get Back
A weekend spent patching SSLv3 off my own server after the POODLE disclosure, plus some grumbling about Yosemite's new flat icons and flaky Continuity.
Patching Around POODLE
Google's security team disclosed the POODLE SSLv3 vulnerability this week, and it cost me an evening patching nginx. Here's the one-line fix and why the browser vendors' response matters more than yours.
Yosemite Looks Great, My WiFi Disagrees
I installed OS X Yosemite the night it launched and now my WiFi won't stop dropping. A rundown of what I like about the new look and what's already driving me nuts.
That Dropbox "Hack" Was Just Your Old Passwords Coming Back
A "Dropbox hack" making the rounds this week wasn't actually a Dropbox hack at all, it was password reuse doing what password reuse always does. Some notes on fixing that, and why so few sites still bother with 2FA.
Killing SSLv3 Before Bed
Google's POODLE disclosure means it's time to kill SSLv3 on your servers — here's the quick Apache and nginx fix, plus why 2014 has felt like one long string of vulnerability patches.