This Week I Learned - Week #20 2023

This Week I Learned - 

Azure service principals vs. managed identities - Service principals and Managed identities are forms of security identity in Azure. They provide an identity to applications that access Azure resources. Both service principles and managed identities enable fine-grained, programmatic access to Azure infrastructure without having to put passwords into scripts. The key difference between Azure service principals and managed identities is that, with Managed identities, admins do not have to manage credentials, including passwords. Managed identities can be system-assigned or user-assigned. With system-assigned managed identities, admins create the identity as a part of a specific Azure resource, such as a VM. That identity shares a lifecycle with its associated resource. Meaning, when admins delete the resource, they also delete the identity. User-assigned identities, on the other hand, are not tied to a specific resource. They have their own lifecycle and can be shared across resources. - TechTarget

* The open-source database MariaDB is a fork of MySQL.

* SQLite is a C-language library that implements a small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine. The SQLite project was started in 2000. SQLite source code is in the public-domain and is free to everyone to use for any. SQLite database files are a recommended storage format by the US Library of Congress. SQLite understands most of the standard SQL language. But it does omit some features while at the same time adding a few features of its own purpose. Its maximum DB size is 281 terabytes. A database in SQLite is a single disk file. Furthermore, the file format is cross-platform.

* The open source object-relational database PostgreSQL runs on all major operating systems, has been ACID-compliant since 2001, and has powerful add-ons such as the popular PostGIS geospatial database extender.

* MySQL Server was originally designed to work with medium-sized databases (10-100 million rows, or about 100MB per table) on small computer systems. Today MySQL Server handles terabyte-sized databases.

* "You aren't gonna need it" or YAGNI is a principle which arose from extreme programming (XP) that states a programmer should not add functionality until deemed necessary. Ron Jeffries, a co-founder of XP, explained the philosophy: "Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you [will] need them." John Carmack wrote "It is hard for less experienced developers to appreciate how rarely architecting for future requirements / applications turns out net-positive." YAGNI is a principle behind the XP practice of "do the simplest thing that could possibly work". It is meant to be used in combination with several other practices, such as continuous refactoring, continuous automated unit testing, and continuous integration. Used without continuous refactoring, it could lead to disorganized code and massive rework, known as technical debt. - Wikipedia

* Container Registry is being discontinued starting May 15, 2024, and replaced by Artifact Registry to provide an enhancement on the capabilities and performance of the platform. Services that depend on Container Registry include:

  • appengine.googleapis.com (App Engine)
  • appengineflex.googleapis.com (App Engine Flex)
  • config.googleapis.com (Cloud Config Manager)
  • cloudbuild.googleapis.com (Cloud Build)
  • container.googleapis.com (GKE)
  • visualinspection.googleapis.com (Visual Inspection AI)
  • run.googleapis.com/runapps.googleapis.com (Cloud Run)
  • containerscanning.googleapis.com and ondemandscanning.googleapis.com (Container Analysis)
  • cloudfunctions.googleapis.com (Cloud Functions)
* When we code, we pronounce or mumble code within ourselves, and occasionally aloud with a colleague. Although coding has a strong vocal component, there is no defined standard for code pronunciation. The free (work in progress) ebook Learn Python with Jupyter [PDF] teaches coding in Python through examples in Jupyter Notebook with code pronunciation for them.

Hacking the cloud is an encyclopedia of the attacks/tactics/techniques that offensive security professionals can use on their next cloud exploitation adventure. The goal is to share this knowledge with the security community to better defend cloud native technologies.

* Introduction to Offensive Operations in AWS - PrimeHarbor Technologies, April 2023 [PDF

* Community Notes aims to create a better-informed world, by empowering people on Twitter to collaboratively add helpful notes to Tweets that might be misleading.

Omdia: Three economics metrics that make OCI a standout cloud [PDF]:

1: Price/performance and efficiency 

OCI compute based on AMD EPYC can deliver >336 Gbps for high throughput workloads, including simulations and gaming.

Only OCI offers flexible instances for AMD, Intel, and Ampere’s A1 Arm processors that can have odd core counts and nonstandard memory, ex. 3 cores and 15GB RAM.

Preemptible and burstable compute instances improve economics even further for cloud deployments that include batch jobs, interruptible workloads, microservices  and dev-test environments.

2: Egress charges for data

Data egress is a major point of difference between cloud providers and OCI can provide superior economics if organizations have a large amount of outbound network activity.

3: Consistent global pricing

Simple and consistent cloud pricing eliminates billing surprises for workloads that run in different geographic locations.

Bayesian statistics is a particular approach to applying probability to statistical problems. 

American and British TV shows are censored in China. Any scenes that show disrespect toward China or the country’s allies are cut. This includes scenes with dialogues that could potentially defame Chinese culture, China’s society, Chinese people, or even Chinese restaurants in the U.S. which don't align with China’s “main melody”. “Main melody” is an informal name for productions that fit into patriotic or pro-Communist Party themes. 

* The discovery of 5.9 million tons of Lithium puts India on the map as having the fifth-largest reservoir of this precious metal. The soft, white metal is a vital component in the batteries used to power electric vehicles (EVs), mobile phones, and computers and has become a highly sought-after element in the global race towards decarbonization.

5ATM water resistance for a smartwatch means it is designed to keep the watch safe under 50 meters of water for 30 minutes.

* Sadfishing is the act of posting sad, sensitive or emotional things on social media in order to fish for sympathy and get attention.

* LGBTQIA2S+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and two-spirit individuals. 

* The Big Five personality traits is a suggested taxonomy, or grouping, for personality traits. The trait theory identified five factors by labels, for the US English population, typically referred to as:

  • openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
  • conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)
  • extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
  • agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. critical/rational)
  • neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)

These labels may be remembered using the acronyms "OCEAN".

* Machiavellianism is a personality trait that denotes cunningness, the ability to be manipulative, and a drive to use whatever means necessary to gain power. Machiavellianism is one of the traits that forms the Dark Triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy.

* Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. 

* Extraversion describes active people who are sociable, talkative, and assertive. 

* Individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. The responses can include maladaptive behaviors, such as dissociation, procrastination, substance use, etc., which aids in relieving the negative emotions and generating positive ones.

* Former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has pleaded guilty to fraud charges relating to the "dieselgate" scandal at parent company Volkswagen in 2015. Stadler admitted that vehicles equipped with emissions cheating software remained on sale despite his awareness of the scam. 

* The world's population by latitude and longitude -

Source: radicalcartography.net

"Java is to JavaScript what car is to Carpet" - Christian Heilmann

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