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Brighten your spirit with a daily dose of goodness.

HOW SLACK IS KILLING YOUR COMPANY

This article discusses the "hyperactive hive mind workflow" problem in many modern workplaces where employees are in constant, often unnecessary communication that hinders their productivity. To address this issue, companies should optimize their employees' "attention capital" by implementing processes, protocols, and specialization to reduce context switching, inefficiency, and the negative effects of excessive meetings and asynchronous communication.

VERTICAL SOFTWARE IN 2024

Vertical SaaS markets, exemplified by companies like Procore and Toast, prove to be lucrative yet slow to mature, requiring patience and strategic multi-product expansion. By building for a singular ICP, they can tailor their offerings and enhance the value they bring to users. With low market penetration still common, these "compound companies" showcase the potential for growth through economies of scale and innovative expansion beyond traditional workflows into fintech and B2B marketplaces.

CAN SUBSCALE SOFTWARE COMPANIES GO PUBLIC?

The debate continues on whether software companies with less than $500 million in revenue can successfully go public, as private market valuations often significantly exceed public market multiples. Many companies that experienced hypergrowth at $100 million ARR have seen growth decelerate to under 20% by the time they reach $200-300 million, making it challenging for public market investors to justify premium valuations. The abundance of late-stage private capital and alternative liquidity options for employees has made it easier for companies to remain private longer.

THE GIFTS OF 40

Life's most important lessons are often learned through personal experience rather than being told by others.

LESSONS ON REFERRAL PROGRAMS IN SAAS

Partnerships can be a significant source of new bookings and revenue for companies, but they often take years to produce material results and require dedicated resources to manage effectively.

THE FOUR BARRIERS TO AI ADOPTION

Artificial intelligence adoption faces four main barriers: understanding the rapidly evolving technology, ensuring data security, navigating legal uncertainties, and addressing procurement challenges.

of mind.

DO A FIRMWARE UPDATE FOR YOUR AIRPODS – NOW

There is a vulnerability in Apple AirPods that allows anyone with the Bluetooth MAC address to connect and access the microphone or music. An update is available for affected AirPods models to fix the issue. Android users may face challenges updating the firmware as AirPods typically auto-update only with iOS or macOS devices.

SHOEZONE UK RETAIL CHAIN DISCLOSES CYBERATTACK, DATA COMPROMISED

Shoezone UK has reported a cyberattack that led to unauthorized access to its online systems and data. Despite the breach, the company's website is still functioning, and trade operations were not disrupted. Shoezone is taking steps to investigate the incident and protect customer data.

TEAMVIEWER'S CORPORATE NETWORK WAS BREACHED IN ALLEGED APT HACK

TeamViewer has notified customers that its corporate network was breached by APT29, also known as Cozy Bear and Midnight Blizzard. It assured customers that its corporate and customer networks are completely separate and no customer information was compromised. Health-ISAC informed providers that it has detected threat actors exploiting TeamViewer to attack networks. It is unclear if the two are related.

LEARN HOW UNSAFE DESERIALIZATION VULNERABILITIES WORK IN RUBY

An in-depth blog post from GitHub that explores how unsafe deserialization vulnerabilities manifest in Ruby and works through the process of creating a gadget chain to detect unsafe deserialization vulnerabilities in the Oj library. The post breaks down how the universal deserialization gadget for Marshal works and how it can be adapted to the Oj and other deserialization libraries. It then extends the gadget chain that they create to achieve RCE using the zip command and lists the vulnerable sinks that CodeQL uses to detect unsafe deserialization vulnerabilities.

PUBLICLY EXPOSED AWS SSM COMMAND DOCUMENTS

Rami McCarthy scraped AWS for publicly exposed SSM Command Documents that allow a configured IAM user to run a set of bundled commands against an instance. McCarthy detected exposed API keys and other secrets, S3 buckets, and other artifacts in the 2,472 exposed documents. AWS should make documents private by default and scan for exposed secrets automatically.

USING MACHINE LEARNING TO DETECT BOT ATTACKS THAT LEVERAGE RESIDENTIAL PROXIES

This blog post from CloudFlare outlines the ML algorithm used to identify and block residential proxy abuse. This model helps protect against distributed attacks while minimizing false positives for legitimate users. CloudFlare users can enable MLv8 to take advantage of this feature.

WEB CHECK

Web Check is an all-in-one OSINT tool for analyzing websites. This repository includes information for deploying the tool on Netlify, Vercel, Docker, or building from source. A live demo is also included.

DOMAIN PROTECT GCP

Domain Protect GCP is a project that scans Google DNS across a GCP organization for domain records vulnerable to takeover. Alerts can be sent to Slack or email.

ELFIE SCANNER

ELFie Scanner is a C++ POC for advanced process memory scanning that attempts to detect a number of malicious techniques used by threat actors and those that have been incorporated into open-source user-mode rootkits. It inspects every running process (both x86/x64) and its corresponding loaded libraries to look for evil. It then outputs the resultant telemetry into a NDJSON file.

GOOGLE TO BLOCK ENTRUST CERTIFICATES IN CHROME STARTING NOVEMBER 2024

Google will block websites using Entrust certificates in Chrome starting November 2024 due to compliance failures and security issues. This decision aims to ensure secure connections between browsers and websites, with users being warned of insecure connections from Entrust-issued certificates. Website operators are advised to switch to other trusted certificate authorities to avoid disruptions by October 31.

CISA: MOST CRITICAL OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS NOT USING MEMORY SAFE CODE

A report from CISA examined 172 broadly deployed open source projects. Some key findings include that 52% of the analyzed projects contain code written in memory unsafe languages, 55% of the total lines of code across all projects were written in memory unsafe languages, and that the median proportion of lines of code written in memory unsafe languages across the ten largest projects was 62.5% with four projects exceeding 94%. CISA notes that some of these projects are designed with critical performance and resource constraints where memory unsafe languages will likely remain prevalent.

A NOVEL DOS VULNERABILITY AFFECTING WEBRTC MEDIA SERVERS

This article discusses a critical DoS vulnerability that was found in WebRTC media servers that affected real-time communication availability. The vulnerability stems from a race condition between ICE and DTLS traffic, allowing attackers to disrupt media sessions. Exploiting this vulnerability involves sending a DTLS ClientHello message with a null cipher suite to targeted UDP ports on the media server.

17 VULNERABILITIES IN SHARP MULTI-FUNCTION PRINTERS

308 different models of Sharp Multi-Function Printers (MFP) are vulnerable to 17 attacks outlined in this blog post.

GOOGLE CHROME TO LET ISOLATED WEB APP ACCESS SENSITIVE USB DEVICES

Google Chrome is introducing an "Unrestricted WebUSB" feature for isolated web apps to access sensitive USB devices.

MIRAI-LIKE BOTNET TARGETS ZYXEL NAS DEVICES IN EUROPE FOR DDOS ATTACKS

Zyxel NAS devices in Europe are facing a Mirai-like botnet attack due to critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-29973).

TIKTOK TAKES ON AMAZON: "DEALS FOR YOU DAYS" TO LAUNCH ONE WEEK BEFORE PRIME DAY

TikTok has announced Deals For You Days in the U.S. — a large sale offering discounts across thousands of trending products, beginning July 9. The company announced the sale immediately after Amazon revealed the date of its next Prime Day sales, which begin on July 16. Merchants and creators on TikTok will be able to participate in content challenges for short video and live shopping events during the sale event.

RETAIL MEDIA IS SEEING A SURGE THIS YEAR

The surge in retail media has positioned Amazon to earn more from ads than Coca-Cola's entire global revenue, showcasing the sector's explosive growth. In 2024, retail media is projected to account for over 20% of digital ad spending, highlighting its increasing importance. This trend was a focal point at Cannes Lions, reflecting its critical role in modern marketing strategies.

YOUTUBE CULTURE & TRENDS REPORT: FANDOM

This 10-page report shares the rising value of fandom and the community ties that are formed around niche trends. It provides insight into why fandoms are valuable and how users derive benefits from being part of topic-related groups. 80% of fans (14-44 year olds) use YouTube to consume content about the person or things they're a fan of at least weekly. 74% of Gen Z fans (14-24 year olds) agree they like seeing brands engage with things they're a fan of.

HOW MID-FUNNEL CONTENT CAN BE YOUR SECRET SEO WEAPON

Recent changes to Google's user interface have affected the volume and quality of organic website traffic, particularly for top- and bottom-of-funnel keywords. Mid-funnel content can help transition searchers from being problem-aware to solution-aware and improve brand awareness. Examples of mid-funnel content include feature round-ups, solution hijacking, quizzes, niche calculators, scorecards, and alternative assets.

HOW WE TURNED 1,200 EMPLOYEES INTO A BUZZ-GENERATION MACHINE

By implementing an employee advocacy strategy, Wiz empowered its 1.2K employees to generate buzz, reaching millions on LinkedIn. Key tactics include providing ready-to-share content, personalized graphics, and running contests to encourage participation. This approach resulted in increased brand exposure, employee engagement, and a consistent social media presence.

REFERRAL-AI

Referral-AI leverages relationship intelligence to help teams close more deals. It identifies and utilizes the strongest relationships within your team's networks, allowing you to establish credibility and expedite engagement with target companies. It also offers automated, personalized outreach that's tailored to the identified relationships.

HOW TO DO SERP ANALYSIS: GOING BEYOND THE BASICS

SERP analysis refers to analyzing the top results on Google for a given search query to figure out what it'll take to rank for that keyword. It determines the intent behind the search, but most SEOs don't go deep enough. This article provides a deep dive into the 5 steps for conducting a SERP analysis: reading the titles of the top results, taking notes on page contents, looking for other Google SERP features, taking note of other types of media that show up, and looking at the backlink profile and domain rating of the top results.

EARNING CUSTOMER TRUST: THE KEY TO LONG-TERM REVENUE AND LOYALTY

Earning customer trust through consistent interactions requires clear communication, responsible conflict handling, and respect for customer privacy. Building trust involves re-engaging past customers with personalized messages, recalling positive experiences, and providing exclusive rewards or early access to products.

WE'RE SENDING WAY TOO MANY EMAILS — AND IT'S HURTING THE PLANET

This piece highlights the environmental impact of excessive email usage, using the author's personal experience of reaching Google storage limits due to a massive influx of emails. Large attachments and poorly targeted PR emails exacerbate this issue, contributing to digital waste. The disconnect from the physical costs of digital storage leads to environmental neglect. Despite the relatively small carbon footprint of email storage, its cumulative impact is significant.

7 LINKEDIN FORMATTING SECRETS

Nail your LinkedIn posts by chunking your text, using simple words and short sentences, and embracing the space bar.

FUJIFILM ONCE STRUGGLED TO SELL CAMERAS. NOW, IT CAN'T KEEP UP WITH DEMAND

The viral success of Fujifilm's X100 cameras on TikTok has made them a must-have item, demonstrating the power of social media.

UNDERSTANDING REACT COMPILER

React Compiler optimizes React components by automatically adding memoization to improve performance, reducing the need for manual optimization by developers. It transforms code into a more efficient version that caches values and memoizes results. However, this optimization comes at the cost of increased memory usage, which can be a problem when dealing with large amounts of data.

NOTES ON IMPLEMENTING DARK MODE

This blog post discusses implementing a tri-state dark mode feature for websites. To avoid theme flicker on load, developers should use inline JavaScript and respond to OS-level theme changes with the matchMedia() API. Local storage should be used to synchronize theme changes across tabs.

THE SUPER EFFECTIVENESS OF POKÉMON EMBEDDINGS USING ONLY RAW JSON AND IMAGES

Embeddings are numerical representations of objects often used in text analysis and search applications. LLMs like BERT and newer models with larger context windows can generate embeddings for text data, taking into account word position and punctuation for better contextual understanding. These embeddings can be used to identify similar items. This author explores embeddings by encoding Pokemon data, including both text and image data, into embeddings and analyzing their similarities. By combining text and image embeddings and using dimensionality reduction techniques like UMAP, the author was able to visualize and analyze relationships between Pokemon.

ASK HN: WHAT IS THE BEST CODE BASE YOU EVER WORKED ON? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Some of the best code bases developers have worked at Google, AOL, NetBSD, and other companies. These code bases all had great developer tooling, detailed code reviews, standardized style practices, and good test coverage.

A BUNCH OF PROGRAMMING ADVICE I'D GIVE TO MYSELF 15 YEARS AGO

To be a more efficient programmer, focus on improving the tools and processes you use. It's best to prioritize shipping speed over perfect code, as bad code can provide valuable feedback that can lead to improvements. Developers should also ask for help judiciously from teammates.

HTMX SUCKS

The team behind htmx published an essay about htmx's shortcomings, such as its lack of TypeScript support and the absence of a formal build process. However, these don't stand in the way of htmx's main goal, which is its simplicity and direct use of HTML to create interactive web applications without the overhead of frameworks.

CHROME IS ADDING `WINDOW.AI`

Chrome is adding `window.ai`, providing access to a Gemini Nano AI model right inside your browser. window.ai has a wide range of use cases like smart auto-completion, error correction and validation, natural language filtering, auto-filling forms, UI suggestions, first-pass summarization, and search.

SMOOTHMQ

SmoothMQ is a drop-in replacement for Amazon SQS (message queueing) with a smooth developer experience. It has a functional UI, observability, tracing, message scheduling, and rate-limiting. SmoothMQ lets you run a private SQS instance on any cloud.

THE FUTURE OF CACHING WITH NEXT.JS

Next.js v15 will introduce big updates to caching behavior, moving away from default caching for `fetch` requests and route handlers. It changes up partial prerendering, allowing developers to choose between static and dynamic rendering based on their application's needs.

THE ECONOMICS OF WRITING TECHNICAL BOOKS

Technical authors can make a decent income from their books, but they should not write them solely for monetary reasons. The amount of money earned varies depending on the distribution channel, with self-publishing platforms like Gumroad and Leanpub offering higher royalties than traditional publishers. Technical books can generate passive income over a long period, with some titles remaining relevant for decades. However, most technical books sell less than 5,000 copies per year.

BYTECODE BREAKDOWN: UNRAVELING FACTORIO'S LUA SECURITY FLAWS

Factorio, a popular game, uses Lua for game logic and modding, allowing Lua code execution on the client-side for multiplayer synchronization. However, the Lua implementation in Factorio is vulnerable to exploitation through malicious custom maps that bypass the bytecode verifier, allowing arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability, which enables attackers to create malicious bytecode and execute it on the client, is caused by the absence of an official bytecode verifier in Lua 5.2.1 and the presence of off-by-one issues in Factorio's custom implementation.

5 LESSONS FROM HELPING 9 STARTUPS MOVE TO OUTCOME-DRIVEN WORK

In their journey as a solopreneur guiding startups, this author learned to focus on a niche market and iterate on ideal customer profiles. Startups should also have a balanced approach to experimentation to have both sustainable growth and new innovations.

HOW VERCEL WORKS 🔍 — WITH MALTE UBL (60 MINUTE VIDEO)

Malte Ubl, the CTO of Vercel, talks about how Vercel works as a team and the future of AI-enabled applications.

CODE GALAXIES

An interactive visualization of language packages, like NPM and PyPI, as explorable galaxies.