BLACK FRIDAY & CYBER MONDAY

It's Black Friday! (And Cyber Monday is coming soon!)

Consumers have been waiting for today. For retailers, it is also a key moment of the year because part of their revenue for the year will depend on these days. For these reason, each year more and more companies decide to offer special discounts during these days. A trend that has been globally widespread, also in Europe or Asia.

Online shopping seems to be the preferred option to make the most of the discounts for these days. 

E-commerce shops expect to have a sales volume over €1,172 millions thanks to Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

I would like to point out some useful tips to buy online in a safer way because it's important to take some prevention measures in order not to be victim of fraud:

1- Use the personal computer when shopping online. Avoid entering your bank account information in other computers.

2- Use a safe connection. Do not use free Wi-Fi networks and public networks from libraries or other places.

3- Do not save details of your bank account. Use a specific and unique password for each site and after the purchase close your session and delete any personal information saved.

4- Verify the website. Is it a well-known website? Read feedback and reviews from other customers and evaluate the reputation of the website.

5- Don't trust the 'safe connection' stamps, it’s so easy to copy them. To be sure, go to the safe connection stamp’s website and verify that the online shop where you aim to do your purchases is included at the list.

6- Revise your bank account. You can use an alert from your bank which notifies you when a movement is done in your account. Otherwise, it is recommended to revise your accounts each two days.

Encryption and its "bad use" in today's world

It's time for a proper debate on the use of encryption.

Encryption has come under fire in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Paris. There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption.

Western intelligence agencies blamed the technology for enabling communications among the attackers, according to a New York Times report, and some officials renewed their calls for technology companies to give them decryption keys.

However, the terrorists may have communicated through private messages on the PlayStation 4, camouflaging relevant statements as routine gaming chatter.

ISIS use a variety of encryption technologies, which are difficult to decipher. Among them are free encryption apps such as Signal, Wickr and Telegram, for mobile messages.

In the event companies should accommodate government decryption requests.

Encryption "isn't a product where production is limited to specific companies. Weakening encryption could "result in a black market for strong encryption”, observed Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy at Tripwire. 

ISIS has threatened to attack the United States and continue its reign of terror elsewhere in the world, so an argument could be made that the high-tech industry would serve the greater good by agreeing to weaken encryption. However, the day when security companies give in to those demands is the day there's no privacy for everyone. Privacy campaigners and tech companies, in contrast, argue that the use of encryption is essential to protecting freedom of speech.

If we outlaw encryption in the U.S., they will simply make it elsewhere," according to Lieberman Software VP of Product Strategy Jonathan Sander.

SINGLES' DAY 2015

It was Singles' Day this Wednesday!

Singles' Day is an entertaining festival widespread among young Chinese people, to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single. The date, November 11th(11/11), is chosen because the number "1" looks like the bare stick, which is the phonogram for someone who is single in Chinese. This festival has gradually become one of the largest online shopping days in the world, with sales in Alibaba's sites Tmall and Taobao at US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, and over US$14.3 billion in 2015.

Singles Day is a creation of Chinese online retailer Alibaba, which six years ago took an obscure Valentine's Day-like holiday that began in the 1990s and turned it into an excuse to go shopping for oneself. In its English materials, the company brands the event as a Global Shopping Festival.

Alibaba did a record $14.3 billion in sales on Singles Day, breaking last year's record and blowing past its estimates of $11 billion in sales. It is the biggest online sales day in history. Mobile sales made up the bulk of orders — 69%.

Sales in China in this one 24-hour period are expected to be larger than the Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday combined.

Alibaba represents serious global competition for Amazon. “Jack Ma,  Amazon CEO has a mission in life, which is to become the first truly global e-commerce destination. The company is opening platforms in India and South America. In Russia, its AliExpress is the No. 1 e-commerce platform,” Zakkour said.

CLOUD COMPUTING

Today I will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing. 

First of all, what’s cloud computing? It is a kind of internet-based computing, where shared resources and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand. It is a model for enabling on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. It offers storage solutions and provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers.

                                                    Source: siliconweek

On the one hand, the main advantages are:

- Reducing costs: There’s no need to acquire hardware and software and this reduces costs of infrastructure, maintenance and energy. The cloud is cheaper than an installation and maintenance of an own server.

- Flexibility: The cloud computing is paid according to the demand. The more you need, the more you pay.

- Mobility: Employees can access to the information of their company in any place.

- Focus: Companies can focus on their core business, instead of making an investment on systems.

- Ecology: The information is saved in virtual storage, there’s no need to have physical components.

On the other hand, the disadvantages are:

- Security: Our data can be stolen by hackers or lost in the system. We must be aware of these risks.

- Privacy: Confidential data can be disclosed to other people if the necessary measures are not taken.

- Connectivity: Velocity of access to the information and availability of the applications depend on the internet connection. Without internet there’s no cloud computing.

Once we are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of Cloud Computing, we can take a decision. However, firstly it is recommended to analyze the market and companies which offer this service and evaluate their features and guarantees, to compare them and choose the one which offers more benefits and less risks.