Monthly Archives: August 2024

A welcoming community that embraces authenticity – 本物らしさを受け入れる温かいコミュニティ

[ad_1] Here is Ben reading his own story aloud. この記事は日本語でも読む事が出来ます。 My interactions with tech growing up The first time I remember interacting with tech was on my parents’ Macintosh computer when I started primary school. I loved drawing with MacPaint and found it much cooler than my Etch A Sketch. Then, my parents got a Windows 95 computer and we were connected to the internet. My parents would check for important calls before unhooking the telephone to plug in the computer. When Google search came out, my family would sit around the screen, amazed at the “dozens” of search results. We even played a game to see whose name got the most results. I won by a long shot because my middle name Luke (Japanese: ルカ) appears in the word “digital camera” (デジタルカメラ). In junior high, I joined the table tennis club but quickly realized sports weren’t my thing. I switched to the computer club, where I edited my first video, learned about spreadsheets and word processors, and built my first website using a Japanese software called Homepage Builder. I started maintaining a website for my church, self-teaching myself about staging environments and FTP through help docs and online manuals. In senior high, I started looking at the HTML code produced by Homepage Builder. I realized I didn’t have to use the drag-and-drop editor to make edits and taught myself basic HTML and CSS. That’s when I created my first game, an HTML game where players clicked on doors to navigate a maze. I remember someone “hacked” my game by figuring out the URL logic and jumping to the goal. That was my introduction to cyber security and encryption. How information ethics opened my eyes to the diversity in the world In university, I studied information science, which pulled me deeper into the tech world. I continued to master’s and doctorate programs, and started teaching tech classes at three universities. I taught in both Japanese and English to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Subjects included programming basics (C, Java), informatics, and image processing. But my most favorite subject was information ethics, which highlighted how different cultures have varying ethical values in tech. For instance, some communities pirate software out of necessity, some share login credentials to bypass censorship, while other communities consider both these practices unethical. Teaching this course really opened my eyes to global diversity. It taught me the importance of open dialogue, empathetic listening, and creative thinking. How I met WordPress I first heard about WordPress in my university lab. A senior student returning from overseas said it was all the hype in the west, so we moved our lab’s website to WordPress. I didn’t fully understand what WordPress was then, but I decided to ride the hype and move my church websites to WordPress too. Since making the switch in 2014, WordPress has become my Content Management System (CMS) of choice. I tried a brief stint with Wix, but it just confirmed my loyalty to WordPress. And after joining Automattic, I discovered the community behind the software and my love for WordPress has grown even more. How I joined Automattic and the WordPress community At one point, I installed the VideoPress plugin on one of my sites and needed support with a subscription mix-up. The agent resolved my issue in one email and signed off as a “Happiness Engineer,” which made me smile. Years later, I saw a job opening for Happiness Engineers at Automattic and remembered that interaction. I volunteered on the WordPress.com support forums for a couple months building up my support skills before getting accepted into Automattic in 2019. Soon after joining, I learned that WordPress is more than just a CMS. It’s a community built on open-source principles. I didn’t wait long to attend my local WordPress Meetups later that year, and was amazed at the selflessness and dedication of the participants. At those Meetups, I learned the WordPress ecosystem extends beyond the community that creates it. WordPress is composed of the people who use it – the developers, designers, analysts, hobbyists, hosts, marketers, etc. It is a common bond that brings people together from different walks of life to a safe space of diversity and acceptance. It was the first time I had interacted with people quite like that. My journey in the WordPress Training Team In 2020, the pandemic canceled in-person events, but I had opportunities to be part of educational projects within Automattic. I coached Japanese support agents, created internal training materials, and developed a new onboarding program for new employees. These experiences rekindled my love for education. It was around that time that WordPress launched its educational site, Learn WordPress. I was selected for an internal position at Automattic to become a full time contributor to the Learn WordPress initiative, and joined the WordPress project’s Training Team in June 2022. I started in the team by understanding the team’s values, priorities, and challenges. Over the next six months, I worked on improving team processes and documentation. At the end of 2022, I was honored to be nominated as a team rep, since which I’ve led projects like migrating from Trello to GitHub and building an onboarding program. These efforts have increased team member engagement and activity, which in turn is contributing to traffic and engagement increases on the Learn WordPress site, too. WordPress – a safe space to be authentic Reflecting on my tech journey, the moments I felt most energized were when I contributed to creating a safe space of diversity and acceptance. Teaching information ethics laid the foundation, customer support as a Happiness Engineer let me practice this in 1:1 interactions, onboarding new employees allowed me to create these spaces for larger groups, and contributing to the WordPress Training Team extended this to a global community. These were moments when I felt most authentic. Building a safe space where one can be authentic isn’t a one-time project; it’s formed through humble and curious interactions. Every conversation

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Should you have to pay for online privacy?

[ad_1] Getty Images It is an increasingly common message from websites: browse for free – if you allow us to track your data and target you with personalised ads – if you don’t, hand over some cash. The model is known as “consent or pay” and, while it may be becoming increasingly common, questions remain over whether it is ethical or even legal. The UK data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched a consultation on the practice – it will report its findings later this year. “In principle, data protection law does not prohibit business models that involve ‘consent or pay,’” the ICO says on its website. But it continues: “However, any organisation considering such a model must be careful to ensure that consent… has been freely given and is fully informed, as well as capable of being withdrawn without detriment.” At issue are several competing demands. Regulators, like the ICO, want to make sure people remain, as far as is possible, in charge what happens to their personal data. Websites, meanwhile, are wary of the shifting sands of online advertising – and fearful of losing revenue to more upstart parts of the online world, such as influencers. “Fundamentally it comes down to an argument between a right to do business and a right to privacy,” says Philippa Donn, a partner at DPN Associates, a consultancy which advises on data protection issues. You are the product There’s a common way to understand internet business models: “If you’re getting it for free, you are the product.” What that means in practice is websites give away their content away for free and in return you feed them with your personal data. They then sell that information so you can be targeted with ads more personal to you – and more lucrative for them. But, since 2018, there has been a threat to that model: websites in the UK have had to ask for explicit consent to use cookies and similar tracking technologies. Everyone has become familiar with the pop-up when you visit a site, asking you to “accept all” or reject nonessential cookies. The problem for websites is that if you reject tracking they gather less information, which means advertisers pay them less because they as less confident about how well directed their ads are. Which is where “consent or pay” comes in – it is an attempt by websites to make up for the money they lose if you say no to your data being collected and sold. Budget black hole One of the industries this particularly affects is the print media, which is largely funded by advertising and paywalls online. But online advertisers have taken their spending elsewhere – on social media sites, influencers and brand deals – leaving a black hole in newspaper budgets. Newspapers such as MailOnline, The Sun, The Independent and The Times have all recently brought in “consent or pay” models. “It’s basically saying, ‘We’re giving people a choice. They can either pay and get ad-free access to our articles, or they can be tracked, or they can walk away and not read it,’” Philippa Donn says. This question being considered by the ICO and others is – is that a fair choice? The idea of freely-given consent has to meet a “very high bar,” says Eva Lu, associate at law firm Stephenson Harwood. For Ms Lu, it comes down to whether the user has “a genuinely free choice to how their personal data should be used by the organisation.” This means that whether or not the model is allowed may come down to a case-by-case basis. The amount users have to pay for privacy may be taken into account. Another factor considered will be the size of the company and if there is an alternative option for users. “If you can’t read a certain article, you might just choose not to and you can go read about it somewhere else,” says Ms Lu. But for other industries, such as film and TV streaming, “it could be a lot harder to justify,” she adds. “From a user’s perspective, if I want to watch a film or a TV show and it’s only available on that streaming service or platform, then that the alternative may not be there elsewhere.” Getty Images The question has been tested on social media in the EU, where Meta put a “pay or consent” policy on Instagram and Facebook. Under this model, Facebook and Instagram still track your behaviour on their apps in order to feed the recommendation alogrithm. But that data is not used to target ads at you. In general in the EU, the tech giants such as Meta are held to higher standards than smaller companies when it comes to regulation. In July, the European Commission informed Meta that preliminary findings suggest its “pay or consent” model is against EU law. Meta now has the right to review the evidence gathered by the EU and mount a defence. Meta maintains it is acting within the law and “subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries”. The company is currently in discussions with the ICO, the UK data regulator, about bringing the model to the UK in the future. A company spokesperson says they are “engaging constructively” and will share more information in the future. No decisions have been made yet. [ad_2] Source link

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Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Patched in WPML WordPress Plugin – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The popular WordPress Multilingual plugin, WPML, which is installed on over 1,000,000 websites, has patched a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability (CVE-2024-6386) that researchers have classified as “Critical,” with a CVSS score of 9.9. Users are strongly advised to update their websites to the patched version, WPML 4.6.13. Security researcher Mat Rollings (stealthcopter) discovered and reported the vulnerability through the Wordfence Bug Bounty program, earning a bounty of $1,639. Wordfence’s István Márton explained: “The WPML plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 4.6.12 via Twig Server-Side Template Injection. This is due to missing input validation and sanitization on the render function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to execute code on the server.” Matt Rollings dubbed this vulnerability “a classic example of the dangers of improper input sanitization in templating engines” and has shared more technical details about this vulnerability on his blog.  In the past eight days, researchers have earned $21,037 as bounties for reporting three critical plugin vulnerabilities: GiveWP, LiteSpeed Cache, and WPML. [ad_2] Source link

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Leicester vs Aston Villa – Premier League: Live score, team news and updates as Unai Emery’s side look to bounce back from defeat plus the latest from the rest of the afternoon kick-offs

[ad_1] By Ed Carruthers Published: 08:31 EDT, 31 August 2024 | Updated: 08:32 EDT, 31 August 2024 Advertisement Share or comment on this article: Leicester vs Aston Villa – Premier League: Live score, team news and updates as Unai Emery’s side look to bounce back from defeat plus the latest from the rest of the afternoon kick-offs [ad_2] Source link

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Five tips for turning gaming from a hobby to a job

[ad_1] Want to turn your gaming hobby into a sustainable career? That’s exactly what Jordan Smith, who goes by the username Peeceful, did. The 31-year-old gamer started with Call of Duty 4 on a laptop, before navigating his way through competitive gaming, streaming, and eventually leading a games company. Putting together a portfolio of work, staying consistent and networking are among his top tips for budding gamers. Video edited by Nathan Aviss [ad_2] Source link

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