The Major Security Issues with Shortening URLs

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Shortened URLs can pose several major security risks if the user isn’t weary of them nor know how to spot a contaminated link. How do these pose a risk to unsuspecting users? First, they don’t offer any description of the link you’re going to. Usually, URLs contain the main website and perhaps the article or sub-page you’re being directed to go to. This can be easy for phishing and malware sites to be entered unexpectedly. Cases of this has emerged, such as when researchers found that shortened URLs that redirected a user to websites such as Facebook and Twitter infected computers with malware and sent users to a phishing site; a site that mimics the look of another but is solely used to steal one’s information. In 2014, a shortened goo.gl URL was sent out by mass via email as a “ACH” notification and just redirected people to a site that automatically downloads a malware infected file. Albeit, this isn’t directly short URLs fault, this is malware and spyware, but short URLs are being taken advantage of to send users to sites which contain contaminated files.

Another security risk could be brute-forcing shortened URLs. Essentially, because there is only a limited amount of combinations for short URLs, one with an extremely powerful set of computers with top range CPUs could create a piece of code that could search all the combinations of possible shortened URLs, revealing private files and information kept on cloud platforms, services such as OneDrive, a cloud based file uploaded, uses shortened URLs with only six characters. One could easy use all the combinations with powerful CPUs, download the files and then shift through them looking for private information.

There is low risk if the security of the shortened URL service can detect this and block overloading of the server from one internet connection. If you want a shortened URL with great security and no fuss, use toroox.

The Latest Breakthroughs in 3D Printing

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3D printing has been around for a long time, with the first patent on a 3D printer that constructs projects in a 2D layer from the ground up, being in 1989. But we’ve came a long way since then, with 3D printers nearly being a common site in factories and businesses now. 3D printing has just gotten more and more efficient from its origin. 3D printing is assumed to get over one-hundred times faster in the next two decades, making manufacturing using 3D printers become mainstream and a common site for all manufacturers; for example, Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT), have developed a new 3D printer that is ten times faster than the models currently available for commercial purchase.

3D printers will become more environmentally friendly, with the advent of being able to 3D print plant-based protein, to make meats. Livestock produces at least a fifth of all greenhouse gases on earth, so this will be huge in terms of reducing the global carbon footprint, as well as in the future, being able to 3D print meat for space colonies. 3D printing is a lot like LEGO, making items out of little parts, visit stonefoot for the best LEGO reviews and products.

Medical advancements have been in 3D printing. Soon you’ll be able to 3D print drugs, soon it’ll be able to 3D print chemical reaction vessels, which is the process of creating a pharmaceutical drug. This is called “reactionware”. Bioprinting is a large ethical issue but it could benefit living mankind but faces the same controversy as stem cells. Bioprinting is the ability to print living cells. Bioprinting is sometime used in testing already, such as skin products to see how it would react to the cells. Also, fashion is starting to catch on, with designers using software to design clothes then print them out. This could become a staple in high street fashion soon.