Over on Twitter, Paul asks how to verify that a native application is using TLS. For a PC, it’s pretty simple, just run Fiddler and watch the traffic. If you see any HTTP requests (other than those labeled “Tunnel to”, indicating a HTTP tunnel used for HTTPS traffic) from the Process of interest, that trafficContinue reading “Testing HTTPS In Native APPs”
Author Archives: ericlaw
Photoshop and Save For Web
Adobe recently announced that “Save for Web” in Photoshop is a “legacy feature” which won’t be improved. I decided to have a look at Adobe Photoshop CC (2015.0.0 Release 20150529.r88 x64) to see the impact of its many different “save” commands on the resulting file size. First, I created a trivial 20×20 image and drewContinue reading “Photoshop and Save For Web”
Content Blocking: Unintended Consequences
Our company uses a web firewall device called IronPort to attempt to block unwanted network traffic; it blocks access to known phish and malware domains, and, more annoyingly, domains thought to be related to gaming or “questionable” topics (e.g. politics). Whatever. Today the IT department pushed a new rule set which blocks some requests to domains likeContinue reading “Content Blocking: Unintended Consequences”
On Chromebooks
I spent the summer of 1994 working minimum wage (a princely $4.25/hour), testing electronics, saving all of my pay to buy a beast of a computer. That September, I entered my sophomore year of high school and plunked down my saved ~$3000 to become the proud owner of my first Windows PC, a Comtrade PentiumContinue reading “On Chromebooks”
Stock Holdings, Mid-2015
Not very diversified, I’m afraid.
Anecdotal Ephemera
This post is a basically random list of things that have happened over the years; it will grow over time. My freshman year of college, we had three bins in the halls of our dorm—“Trash”, “Recycle” and “Styrofoam”. I diligently sorted everything for disposal and fumed that my dorm mates were constantly throwing out theirContinue reading “Anecdotal Ephemera”
The Edge Team
Microsoft publicly revealed the IE/Edge team’s size: ~300 people in an article with some fun profiles of a few of them: http://microsoftjobsblog.com/team-shapes-the-future-of-internet-browsing-with-microsoft-edge/. Of course, my favorite profile story remains Zeke’s.
Optimize PNGs using PngDistill
Unfortunately, many PNG image generators opt for minimum compression time, failing to achieve maximum compression. Even worse, the most popular PNG generation tools often include huge amounts of unnecessary metadata that can bloat images by thousands of percent! Fiddler now includes PngDistill, a simple tool that removes unnecessary metadata chunks and recompresses PNG image dataContinue reading “Optimize PNGs using PngDistill”
Meaningless Legalese
The folks @Wired would like to remind you that viewing their website in any browser violates of their terms-of-use. All web browsers cache content, by-design. And I’m pretty sure that “reading” is one just one of many ways that the material might be “otherwise used.” For an otherwise forward-looking publication, seeing this garbage on theContinue reading “Meaningless Legalese”
Reactions to Collateral Damage
Last night, I wrote up a quick post on the importance of iOS9’s introduction of a content-filtering API. Naturally, there have been a variety of reactions to this post, so I’d like to address some of those and provide some additional context. Background First, I’d like to point out that while there are many importantContinue reading “Reactions to Collateral Damage”
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