Heya,
This month, I get to relax while Bogdan slides into the captain's chair. Bogdan is a machine whisperer for whom the term "Full Stack" seems minimalist. He's also someone who spends a lot of time in rabbit holes, so you know his links will be quality. They include:
⚖️ This month we are going after Google. My question is: “How will this change things?”
⚗️ There might be troubles brewing in crypto.
🔎 Your search history matters; it looks like more companies get on board the privacy train.
Enjoy,
Bogdan & Chris
📰 From the Newsroom
We get a closer look at Google Ads business 🦹♂️
The European Union launched an antitrust investigation into Google's v̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶p̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶n̶e̶t̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ vast advertising business. The investigation will focus on a few areas of concern (just a few?), including the obligation to use its services to purchase or serve ads on Google or YouTube.
- Officials are worried that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack.
- The company generates about 80% of its revenue from advertising. Google's revenues in Europe, Middle East, and Africa totaled $17 billion for the past three months, making it the second most important region to the company after the Americas.
- According to Google, competition in online advertising has made ads more affordable, reduced ad tech fees, and created more options for publishers and advertisers.
Windows systems under threat.
While it might sound like something middle-aged consenting adults do for fun on Saturday nights, the new phenomenon known variously as DirtyMoe, PurpleFox, Perkiler, and NuggetPhantom, is actually this year's most productive malware.
Things radically changed towards the end of 2021 when the DirtyMoe gang pushed an update to its operation and added a worm module that could allow the malware to spread via the internet to other Windows systems.
- DirtyMoe abused browser vulnerabilities to install a rootkit component on unpatched Windows systems that granted full control over the infected host, which is then used for crypto-mining.
- According to numbers shared by Avast, the botnet usually averaged between a few hundred to a few thousand infected systems on a yearly basis for most of its life from 2017 to 2020. This exploded to 100,000 systems infected this year alone.
- The true size of the DirtyMoe botnet is believed to be much much higher.
Stack Overflow acquired for US$1.8 billion 🕸️
Prosus acquired the website with the highest copy-paste to text ratio in the galaxy for approximately US$1.8 billion. It sounds ridiculous to say it, but that seems like a reasonable price?
- More than 100 million people visit Stack Overflow every month, which places it squarely among the 50 most-visited websites in the world.
- Prosus is a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world. Operating and investing globally in markets with long-term growth potential, Prosus builds leading consumer internet companies that empower people and enrich communities. Plus, their creative copywriters are among the best.
- Prosus aims to help accelerate Stack Overflow’s growth ambitions, with a particular focus on reaching a wider international community while also further scaling the company’s teams product.
⛓️ Ten Must See Links of the Month
- ShlinkedIn is a satirical, functioning social media platform. Very entertaining.
- Beautiful 100 3D renders from the internet's largest CG challenge
- Because I can't listen to Closer anymore, but I want something with the same level of whimsy. A playlist generator that finds songs similar to your favorites.
- Could your data center double as a greenhouse?.
- Everything that happened in WordPress last month.
- Do you think there's a trick to staying under budget? There is. There's more than one. Here are six of the best ways to keep projects on track and under budget.
- Something like 105% of typos get eliminated when using voice messaging over the antiquated practice of typing. Squad is an audio-based social app.
- If Van Gogh had a website builder, he would have been more famous faster. The best website builders for artists.
- Looking beyond Tether, a great investigation.
- So Brave, much wow!.
🎤 It’s How They Said It
🧮 The numbers game
- 65% - amount of hashrate provided by China to mine Bitcoin.
- 39 million - number of Nigerians unable to access Twitter.
- 33.87 - frequency of the first-gen PlayStation processor.
Outro
That's it for the week. If you have links to share, then my emails are always open. Simply reply to this email to land in my inbox.
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Have a great month,
Chris & Bogdan.